Reverend Gary Davis - 'Demons & Angels'

Gary Davis was born on April 30, 1896, to John and Evelina Davis in Laurens County, South Carolina. He was raised on a farm in the Piedmont section of upstate South Carolina.


In the mid 1920s he married and traveled around South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennesse, playing in the streets and teaching guitar to make a living.  He settled in Durham, North Carolina around 1927 and became an ordained minister of the Free Baptist Connection Church in Washington, North Carolina in 1933.


In 1935, Reverend Gary Davis was discovered by J. B. Long, a North Carolina storekeeper, and made his first trip to New York City to record for the American Recording Company.  He recorded 15 sides for ARC between July 23 and July 26, 1935.


Reverend Gary Davis began recording again in 1945 and continued to record and perform for the rest of his life.  He also continued to teach guitar.  By this time he had stopped playing the blues, focusing instead on gospel and old time songs.  The only exceptions were "gospel blues" such as "Death Don't Have No Mercy".

When folk revivalists in the 1950s and early became fascinated with country-blues performers of the early 20th century, they didn’t have to go into “the sticks” to find Reverend Gary Davis.  Though he'd stopped recording, Reverend Gary Davis was an active street singer and preacher in the Harlem section of Manhattan since the 1940s.  Among folk revival guitar players of the time, Reverend Gary Davis, who was one of the innovators of the "Piedmont" style of finger-picking blues, was legendary.  One of the first to adopt it was Ramblin' Jack Elliott, whose cover of "Candyman" was a staple of his repertoire.  Dave Van Ronk studied with Davis and also covered many of his songs. Other aspiring folk guitarists and blues players swarmed to take lessons from him.  Bob Dylan, who covered "Candyman" and several others, met Reverend Gary Davis at the Indian Neck Folk Festival on May 6, 1961, and told Robert Shelton and Suze Rotolo that he wanted the Reverend Davis to officiate his and Suze's wedding.

The Reverend Gary Davis influenced Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, Wizz Jones, Jorma Kaukonen, Keb’ Mo’, Ollabelle, Resurrection Band, Stefan Grossman, Taj Mahal, Dave Bromberg, Ry Cooder, and Jorma Kaukonen, to name but a few.

 Todays freeload, 'Demons & Angels’ is a 3CD set, complied by Reverend Gary Davis’ student and respected guitarist in his own right, Stefan Grossman. 


CD1 - "Slippin' 'Til My Gal Comes In Partner: Columbia University, 1958-1959" features rare recordings made by Columbia University student John Gibbons in 1958 and 1959.







CD2 - "I Am The True Vine: At Home, 1964-1966" includes home recordings from the mid-1960s



CD3 "Twelve Gates To The City: In Concert, 1962-1966" shows off his stage charisma and command






This set also has a 36-page book (included in the freeload), with detailed transcriptions of Davis' lyrics, information concerning keys and his playing technique. It also has some pretty cool photographs.

In a recent post our friend, "D in California" recounted a story about losing his mp3 player, and finding it while cleaning his room.  So for the freeload, tell us about something you thought you had lost for good, but subsequently found.