Reverend Gary Davis, also Blind Gary Davis (born Gary D. Davis, April 30, 1896 – May 5, 1972), was a

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

and gospel singer who was also proficient on the

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

, guitar and

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica inclu ...

. Born in Laurens, South Carolina and blind since infancy, Davis first performed professionally in the

Piedmont blues Piedmont blues (also known as East Coast, or Southeastern blues) refers primarily to a guitar style, which is characterized by a fingerpicking approach in which a regular, alternating thumb bass string rhythmic pattern supports a syncopated melo ...

scene of

Durham, North Carolina Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County, North Carolina, Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County, North Carolina, Orange County and Wake County, North Carol ...

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 The American folk music revival began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Big Bill Broonzy, Billie Holiday, Richard Dyer-Benn ...

that peaked during the 1960s. Davis' most notable recordings include " Samson and Delilah" and "

Death Don't Have No Mercy "Death Don't Have No Mercy" is a song by the American gospel blues singer-guitarist Blind Gary Davis. It was first recorded on August 24, 1960, for the album ''Harlem Street Singer'' (1960), released by Prestige Records' Bluesville label durin ...

". Davis' fingerpicking guitar style influenced many other artists. His students included

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. ...

, David Bromberg, Steve Katz,

Roy Book Binder Roy Book Binder (born October 5, 1943 as Paul Roy Bookbinder) is an American blues guitarist, singer-songwriter and storyteller. A student and friend of the Rev. Gary Davis, he is equally at home with blues and ragtime. He is known to shift fr ...

, Larry Johnson,

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 ...

, Dave Van Ronk, Rory Block,

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 Bookbinde ...

, Larry Campbell,

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 ...

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 pri ...

, and

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 Ame ...

. He also influenced Bob Dylan, the

Grateful Dead The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, Folk music, folk, country music, country, jazz, bluegrass music, bluegrass, ...

, Wizz Jones, Jorma Kaukonen, Keb' Mo',

Ollabelle Ollabelle is a New York-based folk music group named after the influential Appalachian songwriter Ola Belle Reed. The group is composed of five singing multi-instrumentalists hailing from disparate parts of the United States, Canada and Austral ...

, Resurrection Band, and John Sebastian (of the

Lovin' Spoonful Loving may refer to: * Love, a range of human emotions * Loving (surname) * ''Loving v. Virginia'', a 1967 landmark United States Supreme Court civil rights case Film and television * ''Loving'' (1970 film), an American film * ''Loving'' (1 ...

Biography

Davis was born in Laurens, South Carolina, in the Piedmont region. Of the eight children his mother bore, he was one of two who survived to adulthood. He became blind as an infant. He recalled being poorly treated by his mother and that his father placed him in the care of his paternal grandmother. Davis reported that when he was 10 years old, his father was killed in Birmingham, Alabama. He later said he had been told that his father was shot by the Birmingham sheriff. He sang for the first time at Gray Court's Baptist church in South Carolina.W. K. McNeil, ''Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music'', Routledge, USA, 2013, p. 97 He took to the guitar and assumed a unique multivoice style produced solely with his thumb and index finger, playing gospel, ragtime, and blues tunes along with traditional and original tunes in four-part harmony. Bullcityblues

In the mid-1920s, Davis migrated to

, a major center of

black culture Black culture refers to: * Culture of Africa * African-American culture * The culture of black communities in other parts of the world, see Black people See also * Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture The Schomburg Center for Resear ...

at the time. There he taught Blind Boy Fuller and collaborated with a number of other artists in the

scene, including Bull City Red. In 1935,

J. B. Long James Baxter Long Sr. (December 25, 1903 – February 25, 1975) was an American store manager, owner, and record company talent scout, responsible in the 1930s for discovering Fulton Allen ("Blind Boy Fuller") and Gary Davis, among other not ...

, a store manager with a reputation for supporting local artists, introduced Davis, Fuller, and Red to the American Record Company. The subsequent recording sessions (available on his ''Complete Early Recordings'') marked the real beginning of Davis's career. He became a Christian and ordained as a Baptist

minister Minister may refer to: * Minister (Christianity), a Christian cleric ** Minister (Catholic Church) * Minister (government), a member of government who heads a ministry (government department) ** Minister without portfolio, a member of government w ...

in Washington, North Carolina in 1933. Following his conversion and especially after his ordination, Davis began to prefer inspirational gospel music. In the 1940s, the blues scene in Durham began to decline, and Davis moved to New York. In 1951, he recorded an oral history for the folklorist Elizabeth Lyttleton Harold (the wife of

Alan Lomax Alan Lomax (; January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music of the 20th century. He was also a musician himself, as well as a folklorist, archivist, writer, sch ...

). who transcribed their conversations in a typescript more than 300 pages long. The folk revival of the 1960s invigorated Davis's career, and he performed at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. Eleven songs from those performances were released on the 1967 album ''At Newport''. In March 1969, Davis' former student and driver, John Townley, who had since established Apostolic Recording Studio, persuaded Davis to his first recording studio session in five years. The resulting album, ''O, Glory – The Apostolic Studio Sessions'' would be Davis' final studio album, released posthumously in 1973. Peter, Paul and Mary recorded Davis' version of " Samson and Delilah", also known as "If I Had My Way", a song by

Blind Willie Johnson Blind Willie Johnson (January 25, 1897 – September 18, 1945) was an American gospel blues singer, guitarist and evangelist. His landmark recordings completed between 1927 and 1930—thirty songs in total—display a combination of powerful "ch ...

, which Davis had popularized. Although the song was in the public domain, it was copyrighted as having been written by Gary Davis at the time of the recording by Peter, Paul and Mary. The resulting royalties allowed Davis to buy a house and live comfortably for the rest of his life, with Davis referring to the house as "the house that Peter, Paul and Mary built." The Grateful Dead covered "Samson and Delilah" on their album '' Terrapin Station'' and credited it to Davis. They also covered Davis' song "

". Eric Von Schmidt credited Davis with three-quarters of Schmidt's "

Baby, Let Me Follow You Down "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down" is a traditional folk song popularised in the late 1950s by blues guitarist Eric Von Schmidt. The song is best known from its appearance on Bob Dylan's debut album ''Bob Dylan''. Early years of the song The song was ...

", which Bob Dylan covered on his debut album for

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

. The Blues Hall of Fame singer and harmonica player Darrell Mansfield has recorded several of Davis's songs. The Rolling Stones credited Davis and

Mississippi Fred McDowell Fred McDowell (January 12, 1904 – July 3, 1972), known by his stage name Mississippi Fred McDowell, was an American hill country blues singer and guitar player. Career McDowell was born in Rossville, Tennessee, United States. His parents were f ...

for " You Gotta Move" on their 1971 album '' Sticky Fingers''. Davis died of a heart attack in May 1972, in Hammonton, New Jersey. He is buried in plot 68 of

Rockville Cemetery Rockville Cemetery and Bristol and Mexico Monument is a historic cemetery located at Lynbrook in Nassau County, New York. The cemetery started as a small local burial ground in 1799. It subsequently came to be the final resting place of many ea ...

, in Lynbrook,

Long Island, New York Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18th ...

Discography

Many of Davis' recordings were published posthumously.

Posthumous recognition

Reverend Gary Davis was recognized alongside Blind Boy Fuller as Main Honorees by the Sesquicentennial Honors Commission at the Durham 150 Closing Ceremony in Durham, North Carolina on November 2, 2019. The posthumous recognition was bestowed upon them for their contributions to the

Piedmont Blues Piedmont blues (also known as East Coast, or Southeastern blues) refers primarily to a guitar style, which is characterized by a fingerpicking approach in which a regular, alternating thumb bass string rhythmic pattern supports a syncopated melo ...

References

External links

RevGaryDavis.com
a site devoted to Gary Davis.
''Harlem Street Singer'', 2013 documentary film on the life and music of Reverend Gary Davis

www.folkways.si.edu
Smithsonian Folkways recordings information. * *

Davis biography on AllMusic.com Davis may refer to: Places Antarctica * Mount Davis (Antarctica) * Davis Island (Palmer Archipelago) * Davis Valley, Queen Elizabeth Land Canada * Davis, Saskatchewan, an unincorporated community * Davis Strait, between Nunavut and Greenl ...

Biography of the Reverend Gary Davis from the Association of Cultural Equity

The guitar students of Rev. Gary Davis
with links to performances
The Rev. Gary Davis performing on WNYC Radio, February 10, 1966.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, Reverend Gary 1896 births 1972 deaths 20th-century American composers African-American guitarists American blues guitarists American male guitarists American blues singers American street performers American gospel singers American harmonica players Blind musicians Country blues musicians East Coast blues musicians Fingerstyle guitarists Gospel blues musicians Guitarists from South Carolina Piedmont blues musicians People from Laurens, South Carolina Ragtime composers 20th-century American guitarists 20th-century African-American male singers 20th-century Baptist ministers from the United States

Biography

Discography

Posthumous recognition

See also

References

Further reading

External links