One name that is spoken in reverent, almost hushed tones is that of Reverend Gary Davis. A Piedmont blues guitarist originally hailing from South Carolina, Davis is often overlooked in the aforementioned discussions, but his influence is widespread and mighty powerful. His songs have been recorded by folkies like Dave Van Ronk, blues artists like Taj Mahal, and even rockers like the Grateful Dead, while his groundbreaking six-string style would inform that of such accomplished pickers as Ry Cooder, John Fahey, and even Davy Graham across the pond in England.
Reverend Gary Davis
A self-taught guitarist, while Davis himself was influenced by bluesmen like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Willie Johnson, he is also said to have had a major impact on the playing style of Blind Boy Fuller. Like many of his Piedmont contemporaries during the 1920s, Davis’s original sound was a lively mix of blues, ragtime, hokum, gospel, and even jazz styles, but after turning to the ministry in the late ‘30s, Davis leaned more towards spiritual and gospel material, often infusing the sacred with the profane influence of the blues, whether he meant to or not.
Davis first recorded in the 1930s but, dissatisfied with the money paid him, wouldn’t venture back into the studio for nearly 20 years. He moved to New York City in the 1940s, where he would undertake a street corner ministry, preaching and performing for passersby in Harlem. Davis would be “rediscovered” during the folk-blues boom of the late 1950s and ‘60s, and he performed and recorded regularly until his death in 1972, releasing material on a number of folk, blues, and jazz record labels like Prestige, Bluesville, Biograph, and Vanguard. For a man of the cloth, Davis could be awfully cagey, and in interviews he often contradicted himself or left questions about his past unanswered.
New Blues and Gospel
Much like Davis’s lengthy career, the story behind the guitarist’s New Blues and Gospel LP is somewhat shrouded in mystery. Originally recorded for Arnold Caplin’s Biograph Records label, varying references claim that the album was released in 1968…or maybe 1971, which makes more sense when considering that blues historian Stephen Calt’s liner notes refer to Davis as 75 years old (he was said to have been born in 1896; you do the math). Regardless, this true-blue Sutro Park reissue slaps Davis’s timeless songs onto a thick slab of pristine 180-gram vinyl packaged in a sturdy cardboard sleeve with the album’s uber-cool original cover art on the front and Calt’s rambling notes, along with the album’s track list, on the rear.
New Blues and Gospel lives up to its advertising, the album’s ten songs displaying some of the gospel bluesman’s most accessible performances. Even at 75, Davis could swing his 12-string guitar like nobody else, out-picking pretenders like Jimmy Page with a deft, fluid hand while laying down some of the fieriest, sermon-on-the-mount vocals that you’ve ever heard. The LP leads off with the upbeat, distinctively Piedmont blues-styled “How Happy I Am,” a wonderful showcase for Davis’s spry finger-picked guitar style and soaring vocal style. With “I Heard the Angels Singing,” Davis veers more towards the spiritual side of his catalog, his somber vocal performance tempered by a darker, more intricate guitar line that is stunning and effective.
Davis’s “Samson and Delilah” is, perhaps, the best-known tune in his songbook, recorded by the folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary in 1962 for their chart-topping debut album. The Rev. Davis’s version remains without peer, however, and his performance of the time-tested song on New Blues and Gospel is joyous, transcendent, and mesmerizing, his voice leading the listener in one direction while his complex, busy guitar line embroiders the song with a zeal that veers in an entirely different direction. Another well-known chestnut in Davis’s repertoire is “Children of Zion,” on which the singer delivers a haunting vocal performance that is made all the more powerful by his carefully-crafted, dark-hued six-string soundtrack.
Whistling Blues
Side two of New Blues and Gospel follows much the same well-traveled path as the first five songs, perhaps one of the best-known tunes here being “Sally, Where’d You Get Your Whiskey?” A rollicking Piedmont-styled blues story-song with a recurring riff (not dissimilar in nature to what Fred McDowell was creating Hill Country blues with in Mississippi at the time); Davis lays his gymnastic vocals atop the lively guitar licks. The traditional “Hesitation Blues,” popularized by W.C. Handy in 1915, may have originally been a spiritual number, and it has frequently been recorded in different versions by artists as diverse as Louis Armstrong, Jerry Garcia, Doc Watson, and the Holy Modal Rounders, among many others.
Davis’s take on the song displays a soft ragtime influence with its talking blues construct, the guitarist speaking rather than singing the seemingly stream-of-consciousness vocals while his busy fingers pick out an energetic melody. “Whistling Blues” is a similar talking blues tune, even more so, really, Davis delivering the song’s rambling story with vocals accompanied by both laid-back guitar passages and the odd squeals and screams of string-bending notes. The album closes out with “Lost John,” a traditional folk song that features Davis on harmonica rather than guitar, the mostly instrumental performance reminding of 1940s-era harpslingers like DeFord Bailey, Davis’s freight train chromatics punctuated by random hollers and whoops.
“The Legendary” Reverend Gary Davis, as he’s billed on the cover of New Blues and Gospel, is a joyful and charismatic performer, a gospel-blues artist whose closest peer would probably be the great Blind Willie Johnson. Unlike Johnson, who certainly influenced Davis’s music, Davis himself would influence a generation of young white blues enthusiasts who would subsequently carry his music and message well into the future.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
New Blues and Gospel, for those who haven’t heard it, is an unexpected treasure, a fine introduction to the skills and charms of the good Reverend, and a bona fide classic of the gospel-blues genre. Even at 75 years old, Davis could still swing that hammer like nobody else, and contemporary guitarists could certainly learn something about melody, song construction, timing, and technique from this legendary, albeit frequently overlooked blues-cum-gospel performer. (Sutro Park Records, released July 16th, 2011)
Review originally published by Blurt magazine
Buy the vinyl from Amazon: Reverend Gary Davis’s New Blues and Gospel
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