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Davis'
creative roots run deep. Though raised in New York city, he grew
up hearing accounts of life in the rural south from his parents and
especially his grandparents, and they made their way into his own
stories and songs. Davis taught himself the guitar (never having
the patience to take formal lessons) and learned by listening to and
watching other musicians. One night on a train from Boston to New
York he picked up finger picking from a nine-fingered guitar player.
His
influences are wide and varied. Musically, he enjoyed such great
blues musicians as Blind Willie McTell (and his way of story telling),
Skip Jones, Manse Lipscomb, Mississippi John Hurt, Elizabeth Cotton, and
Buddy Guy, among others. It was through Taj Mahal that he found
his way to the old time blues. He also loved such divers musicians
as Fats Waller and Gustav Holst. His writing and storytelling have
been influenced by Zora Neale Hurston and Garrison Keillor.
Throughout his life, Davis has had overlapping interests in music and
acting. Early acting roles included a part in the film "Beat
Street" and on television on "One Life to Live."
Eventually, Davis had the opportunity to combine music and acting on the
stage. He made his broadway musical debut in 1991 in the Zora
Neale Hurston/Langston Hughes collaboration "Mulebone," which
featured the music of Taj Mahal. In 1993 he performed Off-Broadway
as legendary blues player Robert Johnson in "Robert Johnson: Trick
the Devil." He received rave reviews and became the 1993
winner of the Blues Foundation's W.C. Handy "Keeping the Blues
Alive Award."
Looking
for more ways to combine his love of blues, music, and acting, Davis
created material for himself. He wrote "In Bed with the
Blues: The Adventures of Fishy Waters" -- and engaging and moving
one man show. The Off-Broadway debut in 1994 received critical
praise from the "New York Times" and the "Village
Voice". Davis also performed in a theater piece with his
parents, actors/writers Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, entitled "Two Hah
Hahs and a Homeboy," staged at the Crossroads Theatre in New
Brunswick, NJ in the spring of 1995. The show combined material
written by Davis and his parents, with music, African American Folklore
and history, as well as performance pieces by Hurston and Hughes.
Of Davis' performance, one reviewer observed that his style and writing "sounds
so deeply drenched in lost black traditions that you feel that they must
predate him. But no, they don't. He created them."
Davis'
writing projects have also included a variety of theatre pieces and
plays. "Mudsurfing," a collection of three short
stories, received the 1991 Brio Award from the Bronx Council of the
Arts. "The Trial," an anti-drug abuse one-act play that
toured throughout the New York City shelter system, was produced
Off-Broadway in 1990, at the McGinn Cazale Theater. In 1992, Davis
lengthened the play, renamed it "The Trial: Judgement of the
People," and presented it at the same theater. Davis also
arranged, performed and co-wrote the music for an Emmy award winning
film, "To Be a Man." In the fall of 1995, his music was
used in the national PBS series, "The American Promise."
In the
past few years, Davis has concentrated much of his efforts on writing
and performing music. In the fall of 1995, he released his Red
House records debut "Stomp Down Rider," an album that captured
Davis in a stunning live performance. The album landed on top
lists all over the country, including in the "Boston Globe"
and "Pulse." Davis' next album, "Call Down the
Thunder," paid tribute to the blues masters, but leaned more
heavily towards his own powerful originals. The electrifying album
solidified Davis' position as one of the most important blues artists of
our time. It was named a top ten album of the year in the
"Boston Globe" and "Pulse." "Acoustic
Guitar" magazine called it one of the thirty essential CDs from a
new generation of performers.
Davis'
third Red House disc, "You Don't Know My Mind" explodes with
passion and rhythm, and displays Davis' breadth as a composer and
powerhouse performer. The "San Francisco Chronicle" gave
the CD four stars, adding, "Davis' tough, timeless vocals blow
through your brain like a MIssissippi dust devil."
Charles
M. Young summed up Davis' own take on the blues best when he wrote his
review in "Playboy", "Davis reminds you that the blues
started as dance music. This is blues made for humming along,
stomping your foot, feeling righteous in the face of oppression and
expressing gratitude to your baby for greasing your skillet."
Guy
Davis had his song, "You Don't Know My Mind" included on
the compilation release by Putomayo Records
called "From Mali to Memphis", which also included tracks by
West African artists like Habib Koite (Birata), Baba Djan (Sabari), Ali
Farka Toure (Gonmi), with Ry Cooder as well as legendary blues
performers like Muddy Waters, Mississippi John Hurt, and Jessie Mae
Hemphill, through today's artists like Taj Mahal, John Lee Hooker, and
Guy.
- http://www.fortissimo.org/
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