Hot Wax: Blind Gary Davis's Harlem Street Singer (1960/2024)

Blind Gary Davis, perhaps better-known as Reverend Gary Davis (the name most of his recordings were issued under) was a talented musician with a unique instrumental flair. Born in South Carolina in 1896, Davis had been blind since he was an infant, sang in the church, and taught himself guitar, performing blues, gospel, ragtime, and traditional songs with a unique finger-picked style and distinctive vocal harmonies. Moving to Durham, North Carolina in his late 20s, Davis befriended and taught Blind Boy Fuller to play guitar, the two artists becoming leading figures in the often-overlooked Piedmont blues style of the 1920s and ‘30s. Davis became an ordained Baptist minister in his 30s, thereafter preferring to perform gospel music and releasing a number of singles for the American Record Corporation’s Perfect Records label, which also included artists like Cab Calloway, Gene Autry, and Cliff “Ukelele Ike” Edwards.

When his prospects dried up in North Carolina, Davis moved to New York City sometime in the late ‘40s, where he performed for years on the streets of Harlem before his early ‘60s “rediscovery” as a folk-blues artist. Davis only recorded a handful of albums for labels like Bluesville Records, Prestige Folklore, and Vanguard Records, and much of his work has been released posthumously since his death in 1972. Davis may be best remembered as a teacher, however, his guitar students including well-respected artists like David Bromberg, Steve Katz (The Blues Project), Dave Van Ronk, Rory Block, Bob Weir (The Grateful Dead), and Stefan Grossman. Reaching beyond his meager recorded output, Davis influenced artists like Bob Dylan, Jorma Kaukonen (Jefferson Airplane/Hot Tuna), John Sebastian (The Lovin’ Spoonful), and Keb’ Mo’, among many others.  

Blind Gary Davis’s Harlem Street Singer

Davis’s Harlem Street Singer, originally released in 1960 by Bluesville Records’ Prestige imprint and recently-reissued on vinyl as part of the new Bluesville’s ‘Acoustic Sounds’ series, features just the artist, his voice, and his impressive guitarplay. Davis performs his trademark blend of country blues and gospel, the album kicking off with the traditional “Samson and Delilah,” one of the guitarist’s signature songs, and one that has since been covered by artists like Bob Dylan, the Staple Singers, the Blasters, and Bruce Springsteen, among others. With a strong, clear voice and a lively strummed soundtrack, Davis knocks out the Biblical tale of betrayal with a religious fervor. The jubilant original “I Belong To the Band” is provided an even more forceful and fluid vocal performance fitting its nature. Davis’s “Death Don’t Have No Mercy” is a tour de force, his intricate fretwork underlining deeply emotional and personal lyrics delivered in a somber voice to great effect.     

The traditional gospel song “Twelve Gates To the City” offers a powerful and moving Davis vocal performance, his voice rising and falling with each verse, cascading guitar notes providing an elegant but solidly-constructed soundtrack. The slightly more up-tempo “Goin’ To Sit Down On the Banks of the River” is downright jaunty by comparison, Davis making a joyful noise in support of his faith. With vocals straining to meet the singer’s religious fervor, “Tryin’ To Get Home” is less a spiritual than a gospel hurricane, Davis’s almost shouted vox accompanied by complex guitar patterns. The lively and inspired guitar lines with which Davis imbues “Lo, I Be With You Always” have since been copped by dozens of later bluesmen for their songs, while the upbeat “Lord, I Feel Just Like Goin’ On” is anchored by more a more traditional country blues guitar structure, but with more than a few fanciful six-string flourishes dancing beneath Davis’s exuberant vocals.    

Harlem Street Singer lists folklorist Kenneth Goldstein as the album’s producer, and he indeed had an invaluable role working as the folk music director for labels like Folkways and Riverside Records. During the 1950s and ‘60s, Goldstein produced albums by country blues legends like Rev. Davis, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Leadbelly, and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee that helped define blues music and early rock ‘n’ roll. But a word must be said on behalf of engineer Rudolph Van Gelder, who did an exemplary job in not just perfectly documenting Davis’s performance on tape, but in capturing its creative essence as well. A well-respected jazz engineer, Van Gelder recorded nearly every record released by Blue Note Records for over a decade, working with legends like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Joe Henderson, and Wayne Shorter, among many others. It was Van Gelder’s original vision and experience that allows the album’s modern remastering to sound as great as it does.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Davis’s imaginative fretwork can be found weaving intricate patterns and textures beneath every performance on Harlem Street Singer; it’s easy to miss, considering the strength and commitment of his vocals, but if you listen closely to the instrumentation, you’ll hear why the guitarist is held in such high esteem. Creatively blending the earthy Piedmont blues of his youth with the hymns that he heard in the church, Davis helped create what has since become reverently known as “holy blues” music. Davis’s style is antiquated even by tradition-bound blues music standards, but Harlem Street Singer successfully melded the sacred with the profane and, in doing so, influenced a generation of artists to follow.

Reverend Davis deserves a space in any blues fan’s collection, and Harlem Street Singer would be my first recommendation, followed by Davis’s long out-of-print New Blues and Gospel album. Like other Bluesville reissues of classic albums, Harlem Street Singer has been remastered from the original master tapes and pressed on thick, shiny 180-gram black vinyl and packaged in a hefty cardboard sleeve with glossy cover art and a protective cushioned inner sleeve. The album includes the original 1960 back cover liner notes and an obi strip with new notes by Bluesville’s Scott Billingham. It’s a wonderful package, and a solid introduction to the unparalleled six-string skills of Rev. Gary Davis. (Bluesville Records, released September 25th, 2024)

Buy the vinyl from Amazon: Blind Gary Reed’s Harlem Street Singer