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

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

singer who was also proficient on the banjo,

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

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 Samson and Delilah are Biblical figures. Samson and Delilah may also refer to: In music * ''Samson and Delilah'' (opera), an opera by Camille Saint-Saëns * ''Samson & Delilah'' (album), released in 2013 by V V Brown * "Samson and Delilah" (t ...

" and " Death Don't Have No Mercy". Davis'

fingerpicking Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking (plucking individual notes with a single plectr ...

guitar style influenced many other artists. His students included Stefan Grossman,

David Bromberg David Bromberg (born September 19, 1945) is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. David Bromberg biographyat Billboard.com An eclectic artist, Bromberg plays bluegrass, blues, folk, jazz, country and western, and rock a ...

, Steve Katz, Roy Book Binder, Larry Johnson, Nick Katzman, Dave Van Ronk,

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 ...

, Ernie Hawkins,

Larry Campbell Larry W. Campbell (born 28 February 1948) is a Canadian politician that served as the 37th mayor of Vancouver, Canada from 2002 until 2005 and since 2005 has been a member of the Senate of Canada. Before he was mayor, Campbell worked for th ...

, Bob Weir, Woody Mann, and Tom Winslow. He also influenced

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 sp ...

, the Grateful Dead, Wizz Jones,

Jorma Kaukonen Jorma Ludwik Kaukonen, Jr. (; ; born December 23, 1940) is an American blues, folk, and rock guitarist. Kaukonen performed with Jefferson Airplane and still performs regularly on tour with Hot Tuna, which started as a side project with bass ...

, Keb' Mo', Ollabelle,

Resurrection Band Resurrection Band, also known as Rez Band or REZ, was a Christian rock band formed in 1972. They were part of the Jesus People USA Christian community in Chicago and most of its members have continued in that community to this day. Known for ...

, and

John Sebastian John Benson Sebastian (born March 17, 1944) is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and harmonicist who founded the rock band The Lovin' Spoonful. He made an impromptu appearance at the Woodstock festival in 1969Lovin' Spoonful).

Biography

Davis was born in Laurens, South Carolina, in the

Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

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 Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

. 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 Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compe ...

church in

South Carolina )'' Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

.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 Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott J ...

, and blues tunes along with traditional and original tunes in four-part harmony. Bullcityblues

In the mid-1920s, Davis migrated to Durham, North Carolina, a major center of black culture at the time. There he taught

Blind Boy Fuller Blind Boy Fuller (born Fulton Allen, July 10, 1904February 13, 1941) was an American blues guitarist and singer. Fuller was one of the most popular of the recorded Piedmont blues artists, rural African Americans, along with Blind Blake, Josh Whi ...

and collaborated with a number of other artists in the Piedmont blues scene, including

Bull City Red Bull City Red (born George Washington, February 19, 1917 – October 1958) was an American Piedmont blues guitarist, singer, and predominantly washboard player, most closely associated with Blind Boy Fuller and the Reverend Gary Davis. Lit ...

. In 1935, J. B. Long, a store manager with a reputation for supporting local artists, introduced Davis, Fuller, and Red to the

American Record Company The American Record Company was an American record label that was in business from 1904 to 1906. History The American Record Company (commonly abbreviated as "ARCo") was founded by Ellsworth A. Hawthorne and Horace Sheble, formerly designers of ...

. The subsequent

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, r ...

sessions (available on his ''Complete Early Recordings'') marked the real beginning of Davis's career. He became a Christian and

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform ...

as a

minister in

Washington, North Carolina Washington is a city in Beaufort County, North Carolina, United States, located on the northern bank of the Pamlico River. The population was 9,744 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Beaufort County. It is commonly known as "Original W ...

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). who transcribed their conversations in a typescript more than 300 pages long. The

folk 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 ...

of the 1960s invigorated Davis's career, and he performed at the

Newport Folk Festival Newport Folk Festival is an annual American folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the Newport Jazz Festival. It was one of the first modern music festivals in America, and remains a foca ...

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 John Townley (born 1945) is a musician, astrologer, and naval historian who was a member of the folk-rock group The Magicians and founder of New York City's Apostolic Recording Studio. Townley performs and releases maritime music, and is a prof ...

, who had since established

Apostolic Recording Studio Apostolic Studios was an American independent recording studio located at 53 East 10th Street in New York City's Greenwich Village. Established in 1967 by John Townley, Apostolic was the first 12-track studio in New York. Artists recording at the ...

, 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 Peter, Paul and Mary was an American folk group formed in New York City in 1961 during the American folk music revival phenomenon. The trio consisted of tenor Peter Yarrow, baritone Paul Stookey, and contralto Mary Travers. The group's reper ...

recorded Davis' version of "

", also known as "If I Had My Way", a song by Blind Willie Johnson, 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 ''Terrapin Station'' is the ninth studio album by the Grateful Dead, released July 27, 1977. It was the first Grateful Dead album on Arista Records and the first studio album after the band returned to live touring, following a nearly two-year ...

'' and credited it to Davis. They also covered Davis' song " Death Don't Have No Mercy". Eric Von Schmidt credited Davis with three-quarters of Schmidt's " Baby, Let Me Follow You Down", which Bob Dylan covered on his debut album for Columbia Records. The

Blues Hall of Fame The Blues Hall of Fame is a music museum located at 421 S. Main Street in Memphis, Tennessee. Initially, the "Blues Hall of Fame" was not a physical building, but a listing of people who have significantly contributed to blues music. Started in 1 ...

singer and harmonica player

Darrell Mansfield Darrell Mansfield is an American vocalist, harmonica player, songwriter, recording artist, and performer of various genres including gospel, contemporary Christian music, blues, blues rock, rock, country rock, and soul/R&B. He is considered a p ...

has recorded several of Davis's songs.

The Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the g ...

credited Davis and Mississippi Fred McDowell for " You Gotta Move" on their 1971 album ''

Sticky Fingers ''Sticky Fingers'' is the 9th British and 11th American studio album by the English rock band the Rolling Stones. The Stones released it on 23 April 1971 on their new, and own label Rolling Stones Records. They had been contracted by Decc ...

''. Davis died of a heart attack in May 1972, in Hammonton, New Jersey. He is buried in plot 68 of Rockville Cemetery, in Lynbrook, Long Island, New York.

Discography

Many of Davis' recordings were published posthumously.

Posthumous recognition

Reverend Gary Davis was recognized alongside

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.

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
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