Word: davises
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Hearing the Reverend Gary Davis at Eliot House Tuesday night was a fascinating experience. One of the last of the street singers, Davis performs with an honesty that is becoming rare in folk singing. It was good to hear many of the old blues songs sung the way they were...
Davis, like any good "authentic" singer, picked up his style and his songs from the people he grew up with, and later from the people he worked with. A good guitarist while still in his teens, he has contributed much to his particular genre. Now, at 65 years of age...
His attraction, though, is not in beautiful singing. Davis sings with a rasping voice that sometimes hollers, sometimes just talks rhythmically. But somehow he manages to capture the feeling of the blues, and that makes him something special.
What is unique about Davis is that his songs are not the traditional "sinful" blues. He doesn't tell of the woman who did him wrong, or the man he killed. Rather, he sings religious blues, and talks of his sometimes joyful, but often melancholy relationship with God.
In a Davis performance, the voice does only half the job, and maybe less than that. His guitar becomes an animate creature, vital to the song. Unlike so many of the new style folk performers, Davis uses his guitar to provide more than a tonal background. Often the guitar will...