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Rev. Gary Davis
Reverend Gary Davis, also Blind Gary Davis (born Gary D. Davis, April 30, 1896 – May 5, 1972), was a blues and gospel singer who was also proficient on the banjo, guitar and harmonica. Born in Laurens, South Carolina and blind since infancy, Davis first performed professionally in the Piedmont blues scene of Durham, North Carolina in the 1930s, before converting to Christianity and becoming a minister. After relocating to New York in the 1940s, Davis experienced a career rebirth as part of the American folk music revival that peaked during the 1960s. Davis' most notable recordings include "Samson and Delilah" and "Death Don't Have No Mercy". Davis' fingerpicking guitar style influenced many other artists. His students included Stefan Grossman, David Bromberg, Steve Katz, Roy Book Binder, Larry Johnson, Nick Katzman, Dave Van Ronk, Rory Block, Ernie Hawkins, Larry Campbell, Bob Weir, Woody Mann, and Tom Winslow. He also influenced Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, Wizz Jones, Jo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laurens, South Carolina
Laurens is a city in Laurens County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 9,139 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Laurens County. History Located in upstate South Carolina, the city of Laurens is named after Henry Laurens, a South Carolina merchant and rice planter who was one of America's wealthiest slave traders. He was a delegate to and second president of the Continental Congress and served as a diplomat. It is part of the Greenville– Mauldin– Easley Metropolitan Statistical Area. Laurens was established by an act of the General Assembly on March 15, 1785, as a location for commercial activities. It was one of the six counties created from the Old Ninety-Six District of South Carolina. Laurens was originally named Laurensville. On December 15, 1845, a charter was issued with the name of Laurensville. The first appearance of the town named Laurens was in an 1873 charter. The town of Laurens was chartered in 1900 and in 1916. It was named ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stefan Grossman
Stefan Grossman (born April 16, 1945) is an American acoustic fingerstyle guitarist and singer, music producer and educator, and co-founder of Kicking Mule records. He is known for his instructional videos and Vestapol line of videos and DVDs. Early life and influences Born in Brooklyn, United States, Grossman described his upbringing in Queens, New York, as "lower middle-class", and his parents as "very leftist", valuing education and the arts. He began playing acoustic guitar at the age of nine, when his father bought him an archtop-style (f-hole) acoustic guitar made by Harmony. Later he moved on to a Gibson archtop guitar which he played between the ages of nine and eleven, taking lessons and learning to read music. For a few years, he gave up playing but resumed again at the age of 15. Grossman's interest in the folk revival was sparked by attending the Washington Square Park "Hoots". He took guitar lessons for several years from Rev. Gary Davis, whom he later describe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career spanning more than 60 years. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" (1963) and " The Times They Are a-Changin' (1964) became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements. His lyrics during this period incorporated a range of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences, defying pop music conventions and appealing to the burgeoning counterculture. Following his self-titled debut album in 1962, which comprised mainly traditional folk songs, Dylan made his breakthrough as a songwriter with the release of ''The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan'' the following year. The album features "Blowin' in the Wind" and the thematically complex " A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall". Many of his s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom Winslow
Thomas Griffin Winslow (November 13, 1940 – October 23, 2010)Tom Keyser, "Tom Winslow, folk and country-blues musician, dies at 69", ''Albany Times Union'', November 13, 2010. Found aTimes Union website Accessed November 16, 2010. was an American folk singer and writer known as a "disciple" of Reverend Gary Davis and a former member of Pete Seeger's band. He performed with his family as The Winslows and recorded with Al Polito. His career as a performing artist lasted over forty years. He was most notable as the composer of "Hey Looka Yonder (It's The Clear Water)", a folk song that has been the anthem of the ''Sloop Clearwater''. While he toured throughout the United States, he continued to perform in Upstate New York until shortly before his death at the age of 69. His children are the performing artists Thomasina Winslow and Gary T Winslow. Early career As a teenager, Winslow learned to play guitar from his grandfather, Thomas Winslow. He was a band member of the Revere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Woody Mann
Haywood Lee Mann (December 30, 1952 – January 27, 2022) was an American guitarist. Biography He was born in New York, where he studied acoustic guitar with blues guitarist Reverend Gary Davis from 1968–72. From 1973–78, he continued private lessons, focusing on improvisation with jazz pianist Lennie Tristano. He received formal instruction at the Juilliard School's pre-college program, earned a degree at Empire State College in 1974, and returned to Juilliard to pursue post-baccalaureate studies in music performance and composition from 1975–76. During these years he played with guitarists John Fahey, Bukka White, Son House, and Jo Ann Kelly. Mann toured Japan, Brazil, and Europe. He performed fifteen times at the Great Britain International Guitar Festival where he was the U.S. Ambassador to the festival. He performed at the World's Fair Expo in Lisbon, Portugal and the Tbilisi International Guitar Festival. He hosted and co-produced the On Patriots' Stage concert s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bob Weir
Robert Hall Weir ( ; né Parber, born October 16, 1947) is an American musician and songwriter best known as a founding member of the Grateful Dead. After the group disbanded in 1995, Weir performed with The Other Ones, later known as The Dead, together with other former members of the Grateful Dead. Weir also founded and played in several other bands during and after his career with the Grateful Dead, including Kingfish, the Bob Weir Band, Bobby and the Midnites, Scaring the Children, RatDog, and Furthur, which he co-led with former Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh. In 2015, Weir, along with former Grateful Dead members Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, joined with Grammy-winning singer/guitarist John Mayer, bassist Oteil Burbridge, and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti to form the band Dead & Company. The band remains active. During his career with the Grateful Dead, Weir played mostly rhythm guitar and sang many of the band's rock & roll and country & western songs. In 1994, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Larry Campbell (musician)
Larry Campbell (born February 21, 1955) is an American multi-instrumentalist who plays many stringed instruments (including guitar, mandolin, pedal steel guitar, slide guitar, and violin) in genres including country, folk, blues, and rock. He is perhaps best known for his time as part of Bob Dylan's Never Ending Tour band from 1997 to 2004. Campbell also has extensive experience as a studio musician. Over the past years, he has recorded with such artists as Levon Helm, Judy Collins, Lucy Kaplansky, Richard Shindell, Linda Thompson, Sheryl Crow, Chris Castle, Paul Simon, B. B. King, Willie Nelson, Eric Andersen, Buddy and Julie Miller, Kinky Friedman, Little Feat, Hot Tuna, Cyndi Lauper, k.d. lang, Anastasia Barzee, Rosanne Cash and Ayọ, among others. Biography During the 1970s and 1980s, Campbell performed regularly on New York City's burgeoning country music scene, at well-known venues such as Greenwich Village's legendary Lone Star Cafe, City Limits, The Rodeo Bar, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernie Hawkins
Ernie Hawkins (born Ernest Leroy Hawkins, 1947, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American acoustic blues guitar player, singer, songwriter, recording artist, and educator. Hawkins, along with fellow bluesmen Stefan Grossman and Roy Bookbinder, studied with blues legend Reverend Gary Davis in New York City in 1965 and 1966. Over the years, he learned a variety of styles, including Piedmont blues, Delta blues, ragtime, and gospel. In 1969, Hawkins moved back to his hometown of Pittsburgh, and enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh, earning a degree in philosophy. In 1973, he moved to Dallas for graduate school and earned a PhD in phenomenological psychology at the University of Dallas, though he remained active in music, studying and performing with Mance Lipscomb, Robert Pete Williams, Fred McDowell, and Robert "Nyles" Jones. In 1978, Hawkins decided to put aside his psychology career and become a full-time musician. In the mid 1980s, He returned to Pittsburgh, and for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rory Block
Aurora "Rory" Block (born November 6, 1949, in Princeton, New Jersey) is an American blues guitarist and singer, a notable exponent of the country blues style. Career Aurora Block was born in Princeton and grew up in Manhattan. Her father, Allan Block, ran a sandal shop in Greenwich Village in the 1960s, and the Greenwich Village folk music scene, such as Peter Rowan, Maria Muldaur, and John Sebastian influenced Block to study classical guitar. At the age of 14, she met guitarist Stefan Grossman, who introduced her to the music of Mississippi Delta blues guitarists. Block began listening to old albums, transcribing them, and learning to play the songs. At age 15, she left home to seek out the remaining blues giants, such as Mississippi John Hurt, Reverend Gary Davis, and Son House, and hone her craft in the traditional manner of blues musicians; then she traveled to Berkeley, California, where she played in clubs and coffeehouses. After retiring temporarily to raise a family, Bl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dave Van Ronk
David Kenneth Ritz Van Ronk (June 30, 1936 – February 10, 2002) was an American folk singer. An important figure in the American folk music revival and New York City's Greenwich Village scene in the 1960s, he was nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street". Van Ronk's work ranged from old English ballads to blues, gospel, rock, New Orleans jazz, and swing. He was also known for performing instrumental ragtime guitar music, especially his transcription of "St. Louis Tickle" and Scott Joplin's " Maple Leaf Rag". Van Ronk was a widely admired avuncular figure in "the Village", presiding over the coffeehouse folk culture and acting as a friend to many up-and-coming artists by inspiring, assisting, and promoting them. Folk performers he befriended include Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, Patrick Sky, Phil Ochs, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and Joni Mitchell. Dylan recorded Van Ronk's arrangement of the traditional song "House of the Rising Sun" on his first album, which the Animals turned into a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nick Katzman
Nick Katzman (born 1951) is an American blues musician. Katzman was born in New York City, and lives in both Manhattan and Berlin, Germany. He plays in a variety of musical genres, including Chicago blues, Mississippi blues, Texas blues, and ragtime. Biography As a teenager in the 1960s, Katzman saw many of the surviving country blues guitarists who travelled north to play their music in clubs and at the folk festivals. He learned to lay both guitar and lute. He studied classical music and jazz at Antioch College in Ohio. His classical influences include Sylvius Leopold Weiss and Johann Sebastian Bach. His blues music was inspired by a number of musicians, including Charlie Patton, Kid Bailey, and Mississippi John Hurt. On his own website, Katzman also cites amongst his teachers the blues masters Mance Lipscomb, Reverend Gary Davis, Stefan Grossman and Rory Block. About 40 years ago, Katzman moved to Germany to live, tour and perform. His music Katzman discussed hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Larry Johnson (musician)
Larry Alonzo Johnson (May 15, 1938 – August 6, 2016) was an American blues singer and guitarist. Life and career Johnson was born in Wrightsville, Georgia. His father was a preacher who traveled extensively. This led to Johnson being exposed to blues records by Blind Boy Fuller, who inspired Johnson to learn the rudiments of guitar playing. He served in the Navy between 1955 and 1959, before relocating to New York City. After his befriending Brownie and Stick McGhee, Johnson found employment recording with Big Joe Williams, Harry Atkins, and Alec Seward. The latter gave Johnson an introduction to Reverend Gary Davis. Johnson's first single release was "Catfish Blues" / "So Sweet" (1962). He made numerous live appearances with Davis over that decade. In 1971, Johnson released ''Fast and Funky'', but his live playing gradually reduced. A couple of low key albums appeared in the 1980s, before Johnson received more regular live work in the 1990s, particularly in Europe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
