Rev. Gary Davis - Let Us Get Together Extended Liner Notes

Whether you classify him as sacred or secular, gospel or blues, Rev. Gary Davis was without question a true guitar virtuoso, one of the primary pioneers of the Piedmont school whose dazzling dexterity blew most of his peers right out of the water. 

The sightless musical evangelist became a familiar sight on the streets of New York City during the 1950s, expertly picking his guitar and unfurling his soul-steeped pipes as he fervently disseminated the heavenly word. As the early ‘60s folk-blues movement rapidly picked up at steam, the good reverend greatly expanded his profile, touring the nation’s folk venues with regularity and making the rounds of the leading festivals. 

He also taught guitar from his cozy home, his pupils and followers including John Cohen, Roy Book Binder, Stefan Grossman, Fred Gerlach, Steve Katz, Woody Mann, Dion DiMucci, and David Bromberg. Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk, and Jorma Kaukonen have cited him as an influence or recorded his songs. Peter, Paul & Mary cut his arrangement of Blind Willie Johnson’s “Samson & Delilah” as “If I Had My Way,” introducing the theme to a greatly expanded demographic and reportedly making Davis enough in royalties to purchase a house. 

Born April 30, 1896 in Laurens County, South Carolina, Davis was mostly reared by his paternal grandmother (he would make homemade guitars from her pie pans, earning himself a whipping every time). Davis lost nearly all of his sight as a youth (he claimed it was due to some mysterious drops that a doctor placed in his eyes). That didn’t stop the lad from taking to stringed instruments like a duck to water. 

Davis moved to Greenville, S.C. as a teenager and was already facile on guitar by 1911, joining a string band that also included fret wizard Willie Walker, one of his primary influences. Walker was considered Greenville’s top guitarist and proved a perfect role model; Gary learned several of his pieces (two versions of Willie’s “Cincinnati Flow Rag” as interpreted by Davis grace this collection). Using his thumb and index finger to pick the strings with amazing facility, Davis developed a style that was all his own,

Asheville, North Carolina was Gary’s next stop of note during the early ‘20s. There he played on street corners and at the city square for spare change. By 1926, Davis had moved on to Durham, N.C., where he lived with his mother. Tobacco was king in Durham; Davis planted himself wherever there was plenty of foot traffic as he played for tips from passersby on their way to and from the tobacco warehouses dominating the local landscape. Blues represented a sizable portion of Davis’ repertoire when he hit Durham, but as the years progressed he got more and more into performing spirituals instead, aggressively spreading the good word everywhere he could.  

Despite his prodigious chops on guitar, Davis had to wait until July of 1935 to find his way onto shellac. J.B. Long, the manager of a Dollar General store in Durham and an amateur talent scout on the side, escorted Blind Gary (as he was then billed), fellow blues guitarist Blind Boy Fuller (for a time a Davis guitar pupil), and George “Bull City Red” Washington (he doubled on guitar and washboard) to New York to record for ARC, the material they cut appearing on the dime store labels Conqueror, Melotone, Romeo, and Perfect. 

Davis recorded only two blues pieces for A&R man Art Satherley (“I’m Throwing Up My Hand” and “Cross And Evil Woman Blues”) before turning his attention to 13 gospel selections (one title remained unissued). He also accompanied Fuller and Red on a number of additional blues themes. A miffed Davis later claimed he’d been paid a mere pittance for the session and wouldn’t release another record for nearly a decade-and-a-half.

Davis took his religious activities a step further in 1937 by being officially ordained as a minister. The blues and ragtime themes he’d previously specialized in were placed on the back burner until his rediscovery as the master guitarist focused strictly on spirituals. He moved to Raleigh, N.C. in 1943, but Davis wouldn’t remain there for long, relocating permanently to New York City in early ‘44. A tight folk and blues music community was coalescing there around fellow transplanted Piedmont bluesmen Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry as well as Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie. Davis made a memorable appearance at the Lead Belly memorial concert at Town Hall in the spring of 1950, performing “You Got To Move” and an instrumental. Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Alan Lomax, Oscar Brand, and Brownie and Sonny also graced the bill.

Davis fearlessly navigated the busy streets of Harlem and other New York boroughs, his guitar (drolly christened “Miss Gibson”) slung over his back so he could set up and busk whenever the mood struck and the passersby happened to be generous (unfortunately, more than once he was relieved of his axe by muggers). Davis cut a couple of sides for Moses Asch’s self-named imprint in 1945, but Moe didn’t get around to issuing them on vinyl for more than two decades. 

Reportedly through the efforts of his faithful friend McGhee, Davis finally cut a solitary solo 78 in 1949 for Harry Lim’s Lenox label coupling “I Can’t Bear My Burden By Myself” and “Meet Me At The Station,” the platter still using his pre-war billing of Blind Gary. He would be in no great hurry to repeat the studio experience this time around either. Tony Schwartz captured an untitled piece by Rev. Davis during the early ‘50s for the fascinating two-LP Folkways collection Music in the Streets on location at the bustling Manhattan intersection of Sixth Avenue and 46th Street!

Shortly before exiting the Carolinas, Rev. Davis had married Annie Belle (his first wife had left him close to two decades earlier). She took loving care of him and maintained a cozy home in the Bronx for her spouse, though she would leave the room anytime her hubby would engage in non-religious fare for the young visitors that began popping up on his doorstep during the ‘50s. 

John Cohen may have been the first to make the pilgrimage. He fortuitously hauled his bulky reel-to-reel tape recorder onto the subway one December day in 1953 to capture 16 stirring sanctified performances by Davis. Annie Mae joined in vocally on a couple, and the reverend’s friend and occasional busking partner Kinny Peebles sang background on four more as well as picking up a guitar and laying down a tune of his own. A half century later, the mesmerizing results came out on a Smithsonian Folkways CD. 

Folklorist Kenneth S. Goldstein corralled the guitarist in April of 1954 to record the 10-inch LP Blind Gary Davis—The Singing Reverend for the Stinson logo with Terry’s whooping harmonica added on “Motherless Children.” Davis cut eight songs for Goldstein in 1956 that lingered on the shelf until they constituted half of the ‘61 Riverside album American Street Songs, split right down the middle with guitarist Pink Anderson (his seven sides were even older, dating from 1950).

 Davis continued to spend the majority of his quality time playing on the mean streets of New York, though there were notable exceptions. He belted “If I Had My Way” at a Carnegie Hall Hootenanny on February 22, 1958 that was a mighty long way from anonymously busking on Durham street corners. With prestigious bookings like those in his back pocket, Rev. Davis got in on the ground floor of the folk-blues revival that was quickly taking hold of the country’s collegiate music aficionados. 

By 1960, Goldstein was a honcho at Prestige’s Bluesville subsidiary, and Davis signed with the fledgling concern. He cut the entirety of his first album for the label, Harlem Street Singer, on August 24, 1960, and returned the following August 10 to lay down his encore set, A Little More Faith, in similar marathon fashion. Bluesville even pressed up a single from the latter album coupling “You Got To Move” and “I’m Glad I’m In That Number,” perhaps hoping to entice gospel deejays to give him a few spins. 

Before the year was through, the reverend was back in the studio to wax another LP for Bluesville, Say No to the Devil. Meanwhile, 77 Records over in Great Britain snagged an album’s worth of masters that Rev. Gary had done back in 1957 for producer Doug Dobell in New York. The imprint released the set in 1962 as Pure Religion and Bad Company (Davis indulged in some bluesier material on this solo collection).

All this recording activity heightened Rev. Davis’ profile dramatically. His considerably busier touring itinerary included a slot at the inaugural Newport Folk Festival in 1959, a trip to Chicago to headline at Mother Blues (one of the Windy City’s top folk emporiums) in ‘61, a co-starring role at the 1962 Philadelphia Folk Festival with Seeger and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, and a 1963 return to Newport, where he dazzled the throng with spirited reprises of “Samson & Delilah” and “You Got To Move” while sharing an all-star card with John Lee Hooker, Mississippi John Hurt, and the omnipresent Brownie and Sonny. Davis found his way to far-off engagements in Toronto, Montreal, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles, as well as touring Great Britain in 1964 and ‘65, not allowing his sightlessness to deter him from touring for an instant.

There were more albums to be made. Sam Charters produced his ’64 Prestige Folklore set The Guitar & Banjo of Reverend Gary Davis, an all-instrumental outing where he reached back to his early years for “Candy Man,” “Maple Leaf Rag,” and “The Coon Hunt,” whipping out a harmonica on the last title to simulate a rousing hunting foray. 

Touring kept Rev. Davis away from home quite a bit throughout the ‘60s. Two of his many engagements provide the contents of this collection. On October 9, 1969 at Reed College Commons in Portland, Oregon, a fired-up Davis treated his assembled fans to two of his best-known themes right off the bat: the bone-chilling “Death Don’t Have No Mercy” and an epic rendition of Blind Willie Johnson’s “Samson & Delilah.” 

The harmonica came out for a mournful “I Feel Like My Time Ain’t Long” and a rousing “The Hunting Dog” before Davis returned to his guitar for a decidedly non-religious “She’s Funny That Way” and Willie Walker’s complex instrumental “Cincinnati Flow Rag.” “Candy Man” led into “Molly,” where Davis really did make his guitar talk, and a last mesmerizing instrumental capped off his well-received set.

Disc two derives from Rev. Davis’ July 7, 1967 concert at Friends Center in Seattle. He urged his flock to join him in singing “Old Time Religion,” and the happy singalong vibe continued on “Let Us Get Together” before the reverend dug a little deeper vocally on “I’m Gonna Sit Down On The Banks Of The River.” 

Then it was over to his harmonica for a harrowing “Feel Like My Time Ain’t Long” before Rev. Davis took the time to teach his adoring crowd the lyrics to the charming and decidedly secular ditty “Come Down To See Me Sometime.” “She’s Funny That Way” and “Cincinnati Flow Rag” were featured once more in all their glory, and some mighty impressive picking distinguished “Make Believe Stunt” (another of Walker’s signature themes that Gary picked up during his time in Greenville). The resolutely minor-key “I Heard The Angels Singing” and another riveting rendition of “Samson & Delilah” climaxed the reverend’s set in eloquent style.

A heart attack ended Rev. Davis’ life on May 5, 1972 at age 76 in Hammonton, New Jersey. He was en route to a performance, a true road warrior to the end. His like will never come this way again.

--Bill Dahl

SOURCES

Blues & Gospel Records 1902-1943, by Robert M.W. Dixon and John Godrich (Essex, England: Storyville Publications and Co., Ltd., 1982)

Blues Records 1943 to 1970, A Selective Discography, Volume One A to K, by Mike Leadbitter and Neil Slaven (London, England: Record Information Services, 1987

Blues Who’s Who, by Sheldon Harris (New York: Da Capo Press, 1991)

The Document Records Store website: “‘You Got To Move’ A Reflection Upon Rev. Gary Davis,” by Jonathan Oldstyle: https://thedocumentrecordsstore.com/rev-gary-davis-you-got-to-move/

Red River Blues: The Blues Tradition in the Southeast, by Bruce Bastin (Urbana, IL & Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995)

Say No to the Devil: The Life and Musical Genius of Rev. Gary Davis, by Ian Zack (Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 2015)

Wikipedia website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverend_Gary_Davis

Wirz’ American Music website: https://www.wirz.de/music/davisgar.htm