Reverend Gary Davis was one of the greatest guitarists the blues has ever known.
His driving, intricate fingerpicking; gruff, powerful voice; and repertoire consisting
largely of spirituals resulted in some of the most powerful, moving music in the blues.
He was born in 1896 in Laurens, South Carolina, (five years before Pink Anderson)
where he was raised by his grandmother. Davis said that he became blind when a doctor
put drops in his eyes, though he had also claimed to be blind at birth in some
interviews. Regardless, he was faced with the usual prospects for a blind person
in the south at that time: music, begging, or learning some simple skill like broom
making. By his early teens, Davis was playing harmonica, banjo, and guitar in a
string band that performed at house parties and picnics in and around Laurens.
He soon moved on to Greenville, playing in similar settings with a new band.
This one included Will Bond (whom Davis called ``a master guitar player'')
and Willie Walker. About the time he moved, he first heard the blues being played
by ``a fellow coming down the road picking a guitar''. In 1914, he applied for a
place at the school for the deaf and blind in Spartanburg and moved to that city.
There he learned Braille and taught music in the school, though he couldn't read music.
Here Davis met (and presumably played with) Simmie Dooley, who imparted some of his
knowledge to the young Davis.
Davis left the school after six months (he didn't like the food), returning
to Greenville. Here he married an older woman who left him five years later.
Davis then hit the road, travelling all over the Carolinas. He spent some time
in Asheville, NC, with Aaron Washington and wound up in Durham by 1926.
He impressed many local guitarists with his fast finger-picking he learned from
his South Carolina mentors. Willie Trice called Gary Davis ``the playingest man'',
and he must have been an impressive musician on the streets near Durham's downtown
and tobacco warehouses. It was there that he met and taught a younger guitarist
named Fulton Allen, who would later make a name for himself as Blind Boy Fuller.
Davis taught Fuller much that Fuller knew, but Davis didn't teach him everything
that Davis knew. The two musicans were drawn to Durham to play on the streets near
the tobacco warehouses (whose business was little affected by the Depression) and
probably to be eligible for assistance to the blind. In the early thirties, Davis
converted to Christianity, eventually becoming ordained as a Baptist minister.
He would mix blues and gospel, playing at revivals and at lumber camps.
The vocals on his blues numbers sounded straight out of church, while his
fingerpicking gave his spirituals a bluesy feel.
In 1935, Davis went with Fuller and washboard player Bull City Red
(George Washington) to New York to record for the American Record Company.
Though Fuller went on to great fame, becoming one of the most recorded bluesmen
during the Depression, Davis did not record again until after the War.
Davis claimed that J.B. Long, who had arranged the session and who became
Fuller's manager, had cheated him out of money and wouldn't record him again
since Davis was onto him. Long, for his part, claimed that recording Davis was a pain:
he wouldn't calm down, insisted on singing only spirituals, and his records didn't
have much commercial potential anyway. (That Long cheated his artists is open to debate,
but he was probably one of the most honest of the business men in the recording business
at the time ... whatever that's worth.)
Davis eventually moved to New York City for the opportunities it afforded.
With Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, he began recording for a number of folk labels
and became known as a blues-playing preacher who worked on the streets of Harlem.
By the end of the '50s, Davis was sufficiently well-known that he became a major
figure of the then-growing folk music revival. He played the major folk festivals
(including Newport), being one of the most in-demand bluesmen before the men from
Mississippi were rediscovered in the '60s. Artists like John Cephas and Dave Van Ronk
studied his fingerpicking and repertoire, both live and via his records on larger
labels (Vanguard, Folkways, Bluesville, etc). In 1964 he was the subject of a short
film (imaginatively title Blind Gary Davis, and no, I don't know where to get a copy)
and toured England for the first time. Davis continued to play until his death in 1972:
he suffered a fatal heart attack while on his way to a concert in New Jersey.
Gary Davis felt that he was constantly being cheated; understandable, given his
conditions, but even so, he wasn't the most reasonable man in the world. For one thing,
he thought that a blind man with a gun in the streets of Harlem didn't endanger others.
He once stopped in the middle of a folk concert performance and started preaching to the
crowd. He kept it up until he was taken from the stage. Gary Davis' personality may have
been grating, but his music was his charisma; his songs were very moving and forceful,
disproving the notion that Piedmont blues lacked emotional punch. At the same time,
his five-fingered picking was fast and clean, possibly helped by a left wrist that
was improperly set after it broke. It's little wonder that he was quick to brag
about his talents and sparing in his compliments of others' ability. Though not
one to hand out undo praise to others (especially those he knew in North Carolina),
Davis did acknowledge guitar mastery of Blind Blake and spoke in awed, hushed tones
about Willie Walker. However, Rev. Davis did not speak kindly of Fuller's talents.
This may have been because he knew Fuller long before he recorded, and others who
knew Fuller then did not speak kindly of his playing. However, Davis may also have
been jealous of his former pupil's commercial and financial success, especially in
light of his perceptions of his own talent.
"Cincinnati Flow Rag"
