“I am the Light of the World” The Legacy of Reverend Gary Davis’s Musical Language

A Master’s Thesis

Presented to

The Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Brandeis University

Graduate Program in Musicology

Paula Musegades, Advisor

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Fine Arts

by

Drew Daniels-Rosenberg

May 2021

Copyright by Drew Daniels-Rosenberg 2021

ABSTRACT

“I am the Light of the World” The Legacy of Reverend Gary Davis’s Musical Language

A thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Brandeis University Waltham, Massachusetts

By Drew Daniels-Rosenberg

Musician, teacher, and preacher, Reverend Gary Davis was a critical figure of the

American Folk Music Revival. Due to the commercial success of many of his students as well as a large body of recorded music both sacred and secular, Davis’s repertoire, virtuosity, and influence can still be heard today. His musical range encompassed a swathe of popular, traditional, blues, and gospel tunes among other styles including Civil

War marches, spirituals, and original compositions. Recently, music scholars and historians have begun to study Davis’s music, life, and legacy as a masterful musician, gifted musical educator, and torchbearer of a disappearing generation of southern folk artists and performers. Viewed as a central, but often-neglected figure of the time, these studies largely aim to place Davis’s legacy in its proper place among the American musical canon. Using these extensive studies on Davis’s legacy, this paper will analyze

Davis’s use of sound and music as a central tool for his survival, focusing particularly on the ways in which he used music to foster a strong sense of identity and belonging.

From his roots as a street musician in the Jim Crow south, through his time as an ordained minister and guitar teacher in New York City, Davis relied on the sonic world as a tool for dealing with his blindness. A life fraught with extreme circumstances, Davis

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constructed a fiercely independent identity that often blended between his life as a devout preacher and as a street singer and performer. Davis relied on music throughout his life to support himself financially, to provide himself comfort in frequent times of loneliness, and in order to foster a meaningful –largely musical -community of those who cared for him.

Studying Davis through the theory of complex embodiment and the framework of

Blacksound, this paper will contribute to the growing scholarship honoring Davis’s unique and impactful legacy as well as provide a case study in the significance of Black and blind musicians and street performers on popular music in the twentieth and twenty- first century. Finally, this study will challenge hegemonic theories of the development of popular music in the United States. By studying Davis’s story, his music can shine a light on issues of equity and radical inclusion, lifting up the stories of those historically unheard.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..……1

Theoretical Frameworks: Complex Embodiment and Blacksound……………………….4

Gary Davis’s Sonic World………………………………………………….……………16

Gary Davis’s Musical Language…………………………………………………...…….31

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….46

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………..49

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“This ain’t no hotel, y’understand, this is my house I got from pickin’ that old guitar.” – Gary Davis1

Sitting is his newly purchased home in Jamaica, Queens in the 1960s, preacher

and guitarist Reverend Gary Davis imbued a deep sense of pride and accomplishment at

how far music had brought him in life. The son of South Carolinian sharecroppers, Davis,

who’s life had been fraught with extreme circumstances at every turn, at long last became

a homeowner, imparting his success to his musical abilities and guitar, aptly named

“Miss Gibson.”2

Davis’s commercial success came late in life. Although he never achieved the

level of sustained popularity or recognition of some of his peers, (eg. Robert Johnson,

Son House, Willie McTell) or students (eg. Blind Boy Fuller, Dave Von Ronk, Bob

Weir), he nonetheless left behind a legacy of powerful music that continues to permeate

through American popular music today.3 An in-demand recording artist, touring musician both in America and Europe, and guitar teacher, Gary Davis is marked as one of the most virtuosic, unique performers of the Antebellum South and the Folk Music Revival.

Though Davis was popular and highly regarded near the end of his life, he has fallen into relative obscurity in the decades after his death, and until recently, has been largely forgotten outside of the boundaries of the vibrant musical community he left

behind. His students, including finger-style guitarist Stefan Grossman, have continued to

1 William Lee Ellis, I Belong to the Band: The Music of Reverend Gary Davis (Memphis, TX: University of Memphis, 2010) 74. 2 Ellis, I Belong to the Band: The Music of Reverend Gary Davis, 108. 3 “The Students of Rev. Gary Davis and Other Performers He Influenced,” University of Chicago Press (University of Chicago), https://press.uchicago.edu/sites/zack/index.html.

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honor Davis through performances and publications of his music. Popular musical icons

such as Bob Dylan continually view him in the highest regard.4

Academic and historical attention in Davis remains limited but growing. Where

Davis had traditionally been reduced to footnotes within discussions of his

contemporaries, the past decade has seen resurgence in Davis’s work and life including

biographical, cultural, and historical studies. Musicological considerations of Davis and

his music remain among the slimmest of all. William Lee Ellis’s 2010 dissertation, I

Belong to The Band: The Music of Reverend Gary Davis, which he calls “the first

extensive analytical examination of the music of guitarist/singer Reverend Gary Davis,”

provides an ideal groundwork for further detailed studies into the Reverend’s music and

life.5

Davis’s life is a tale of survival and retribution. Born nearly blind and quickly

losing what little vision he had in the following weeks, he also lived most of his life in poverty, making his living playing music on various street corners and private gatherings, and preaching in local storefront churches.6 From his roots as a street musician in the Jim

Crow south, through his time as an ordained minister and guitar teacher in New York

City, Davis relied on the sonic world as a tool for dealing with his life conditions. Davis constructed a fiercely independent identity that often alternated between his life as a devout preacher and as a street singer and performer. He relied on music to support himself financially, to provide himself comfort in frequent times of loneliness, and in order to foster a meaningful - largely musical - community of those who cared for him.

4 Ian Zack, Say No to the Devil: the Life and Musical Genius of Rev. Gary Davis (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2016), Introduction, Kindle. 5 Ellis, iv. 6 Interview with Glenn Hinson, Harlem Street Singer, 00:22:17.

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Additionally, Davis’s musical vocabulary was born out of traditional and popular styles

of the time, and he incorporated many elements of his material conditions into his

musical language. This thesis seeks to understand Davis’s relationship to sound as a

means of navigating his life and interacting with the world, which, in turn, had a

profound impact on the music he created, leaving a lasting legacy behind.

Gary Davis’s musical and personal identities are simultaneously linked to Tobin

Siebers’s theory of complex embodiment - both in relationship to Davis blindness and

race - and to the larger development of popular music in the United States. Using

Matthew Morrison’s theoretical framework of Blacksound enforces Davis’s position

within the wider landscape of American popular music as it relates to conditions of race,

genre, equity, identity, community, and embodiment. Studying Davis through this lens

contributes to the growing scholarship honoring his unique and impactful legacy, and

shines a light on the significance of Black and blind musicians and street performers on

popular music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and the issues of equity and inclusion they faced.

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Theoretical Frameworks: Complex Embodiment and Blacksound

Davis’s musical styling crossed between gospel, blues, spirituals, popular tunes, military marches, original compositions, and more, stretching across the soundscapes of

American rural south and northern urban cities. Davis’s music lived between these genre descriptions. He was simultaneously a reverend filled with conviction, while also a street singer who made the majority of his living adapting his performances around his audience. Folklore and Anthropology professor Glenn Hinson explains, “Blind Gary was really coming from this songster tradition from the late 1800s…whatever you asked him to play, he could.”7 Davis developed his repertoire around the music he was exposed to growing up in Laurens, South Carolina. Ian Zack, author of the Davis biography, Say No to the Devil: The Life and Times of Reverend Gary Davis, writes, “For a budding guitarist in Laurens County, music could be soaked up everywhere: out in the fields in the form of work songs; at informal porch gatherings, barn raisings, or daylong country picnic; from traveling tent shows and of course at church.”8 It was not until Davis’s religious awakening, following the death of his mother, that he formally renounced the blues, becoming ordained in Washington, North Carolina in 1937, trading the messaging of his music into one of salvation.9 From that point on, Davis would shift his perspective from playing music to entertain, to playing music in order to save souls.10

7 Interview with Glenn Hinson, Harlem Street Singer, directed by Simeon Hunter and Trevor Laurence, (USA: Acoustic Traditions Films, 2014), Film, 00:22:00. 8 Zack, Say No to the Devil: the Life and Musical Genius of Rev. Gary Davis, Chapter 1. 9 Zack, Chapter 3. 10 Zack, Introduction.

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As the Reverend’s religiosity grew, he further defied the narrow definition of a blues performer. In his dissertation, Ellis explains how traditional blues performers were often pigeonholed into their musical classifications, which did not accurately or honestly depict their varied repertoire. “A number of bluesmen... were reported having musical versatility far greater than their recordings and careers suggested. They were entertainers, after all, and would have played the hits of the day along with tunes of regional appeal.”11

Ellis goes on to explain how even renowned blues artists like Robert Johnson and Blind

Lemon Jefferson had massive catalogues of music they could pull from.12 The practical realities of surviving off one’s music forced performers to call upon all styles, even if they had personal reservations. Blind Lemon Jefferson’s would refuse to play the blues on Sunday, for example.13

The blues label that typically followed these performers was largely perpetuated by the recording industry, seeking to capitalize on the growing commercial interest of the style. In turn, this label permeated into the national consciousness and had profound effects on the way we still interpret and view figures like Davis and their music. “It was basically the guys who did the recordings that’d only want to hear blues from these guys.

They’d say, ‘Play me all your blues songs.’”14 Davis faced limitations that the bluesman label forced onto him countless times in the studio and elsewhere. Zack discusses that students, fans, and music producers would typically request Davis to perform his blues songs, much to his and his wife Annie’s chagrin.15 Davis would often comply, but this

11 Ellis, 163. 12 Ellis, 164. 13 Ellis, 391. 14 Ellis, 164-5. 15 Zack, Introduction.

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image of him and of many of his musical contemporaries, misses critical elements of his

identity. An ordained and committed reverend, this assigned bluesman persona

contradicted Davis’s self-image, as blues was often viewed as the antithesis of gospel.

“No harm in playing music, but it’s what you play,”16 Davis once said regarding his

views on religion and his music. This is not to say that Davis never enjoyed playing

music outside of his gospel and religious music. Davis would often curtail his

performances to whoever happened to be listening, but the strength of his religious

convictions often came into conflict with his perceived public image. This had

consequences on his popularity, especially in regard to his record sales. As Zack writes,

“While [saving souls] no doubt gave his life meaning and purpose, from an economic

standpoint it couldn’t have come at a worse time.”17 Davis’s early records never sold

particularly well. He often butted heads with producers in the studio; the sacred repertoire

he was keen to perform was at odds with the industry’s interest in capitalizing on the

popularity of blues and traditional “race” records at the time.18

As a result, Davis lived most of his life in extreme poverty. Even at the height of

his popularity, Davis never received his fair share, almost always being underpaid for his

recordings and concert appearances.19 His position in life was the result of the intersectionality between his race and his blindness. Tobin Siebers’s groundbreaking work, Disability and the Theory of Complex Embodiment, illuminates how Davis’s socioeconomic position, material conditions, race, and disability influenced the

16 Zack, Chapter 1. 17 Zack, Chapter 3. 18 Zack, Chapter 2. 19 Zack, Chapter 4.

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construction of his multifaceted identity, and how these traits came to be embodied through his music.

Siebers writes, “…complex embodiment makes a contribution to influential arguments about intersectionality—the idea that analyses of social oppression take account of overlapping identities based on race, gender, sexuality, class, and disability.”20

Siebers presents disability as a “social location” and argues for the viewpoint of identity itself as a social construction, “which means that identities contain complex theories about social reality.”21 Davis’s identity was a complex network of intersecting conditions. A product of his environment, Gary Davis’s relationship with the world around him influenced the construction of his intricate identity. This relationship was monumental to the Reverend’s musical development and voice. Ellis writes, “…music was at once a vocation and a healing agency [for Davis], not to mention one of the very few forums that invited self-reflection and commentary.”22 Davis’s music developed out of his life experiences while simultaneously providing a vehicle for profound self- expression and socioeconomic upheaval, which in turn affected the conditions of his life.

Davis held a complex relationship with both his race and blindness, and he typically offered commentary on the matter through his music. Complex embodiment enlightens Davis’s relationship to his own identity through, as Ellis puts it, “multiple layers of ‘belonging.’”23 Siebers explains, “…coming to an understanding of intersecting

20 Tobin Siebers, “Disability and the Theory of Complex Embodiment - For Identity Politics in a New Register,” Essay, In The Disability Studies Reader by Lennard J Davis (London:Routledge, 2013), 291. 21 Siebers, “Disability and the Theory of Complex Embodiment - For Identity Politics in a New Register,” 295. 22 Ellis, 554. 23 Ellis, v.

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minority identities demands that one imagine social location not only as perspective but

also as complex embodiment, and complex embodiment combines social and corporeal

factors.”24 Davis’s primary method of self-understanding and belonging became embodied through his musical expression by combining the lived experiences of both of his interwoven identities. Josh Lukin’s article “Disability and Blackness” challenges us to

“…consider distinctively black experiences when tracing the history of disability and its

artistic representation.”25 Davis’s perspective, then, offers an imperative and critically underrepresented viewpoint on the conditions and history of race, disability, and other forms of marginalization in the United States.

Davis was expressive about his lived experience as a Black man. “Largely taciturn about many things in his life, Davis nonetheless found (mostly musical) ways to comment on aspects of who he was, what he had experienced, and the times he lived in.”26 When Davis would talk about race in plain terms, he would always express a keen

awareness of racial divides and how they affected him, remarking, “Is a colored person

got a country?...They ain’t got no country,”27 and “If the whole world was blind there

wouldn’t be [problems].28 The sentiment of these remarks was also communicated

through his music.

During Civil Rights and Vietnam War protests in New York City, Davis would

conjure his gospel tunes. In this space, the performances of songs such as “Let Us Get

24 Siebers, “Disability and the Theory of Complex Embodiment - For Identity Politics in a New Register,” 292. 25 Josh Lukin, “Disability and Blackness,” Essay, In The Disability Studies Reader by Lennard J Davis (London:Routledge, 2013), 314. 26 Ellis, 569. 27 Ellis, 571. 28 Ellis, 570.

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Together” and “There is Destruction in This Land,” evoked a visceral and immediate

meaning.29 Davis proved to be a powerful and intentional communicator, expressing both

his own experiences and the plights of his community through his music. Zack remarks,

“He may not have been an overtly political performer like Pete Seeger or Len Chandler,

but he was willing to put himself on the line for a cause he believed in.”30 Reverend

Davis stood up for himself in terms of his blindness as well.

Davis would defend himself vehemently if he felt that he was being ripped off or

shortchanged. One of the more noteworthy encounters resulted in a violent confrontation

at the Golden Vanity in Boston, Massachusetts. The owner of the club, Carl Bowers, had

underpaid Davis, paying him in one-dollar bills rather than twenties. Davis, who could

tell the difference between the bills, angrily returned with his pistol and was paid

properly.31 32 In a similar instance, as a response to an inflammatory and racist column

written about his music, Davis took the stage in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, pronouncing,

“I have my gun and I’m gonna sing my songs.” And he did.33

Davis would rarely discuss his sightlessness in plain terms, but would often sing about condition in indirect ways. “Given the many blind players in prewar blues and gospel, very little commentary on blindness can be found in the way of song … among the majority of Southern traditional musicians who suffered blindness, very little direct reference to or reflection on the condition exists in their songs.”34 Luigi Monge’s study,

Blindness Blues: Visual References in the Lyrics of Blind Pre-War Blues and Gospel

29 Interview with John Cohen, Harlem Street Singer, 00:32:00. 30 Zack, Chapter 15. 31 Ellis, 515. 32 Zack, Chapter 11. 33 Zack, Chapter 9. 34 Ellis, 535.

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Musicians, speaks to highlight Davis’s relationship with his condition. Monge examines the context of Davis’s references to sight and identifies how Davis typically avoided talking about his blindness in plain terms, often referencing it as a metaphor for redemption in his music, “developing a very personalized dialogue with God on the subject.”35 Monge focuses on Davis’s rendition of “Lord I Wish I Could See,” and notes

Davis’s tendency to discuss his sightlessness in metaphorical, indirect, and largely spiritual terms, a trait Monge attributes to other blind sacred performers such as Blind

Roger Hays.36 Instead of talking about his blindness, Davis embodied his lived experiences through song.

Although Monge understands the interwoven layers between gospel and the blues, he primarily concerns himself with the different ways that blind musicians of gospel and blues traditions approached their music differently as it related to their sightlessness.37

Ellis, however, helps to describe the formal and aesthetic similarities between the sacred and secular in African American musical idioms, including everyday vocabulary, personalized material, use of improvisation for emotional impact, and the use of call and response, among many others.38 Ellis writes, “Davis encompassed a singular role, approaching style in a way that was at once largely of his own making and largely a negotiation of the musical divide/mirror that was Piedmont blues and guitar evangelism, a shared cultural terrain, as it were, of itinerant musicians and missionaries operating on

35 Luigi Monge, “Visual References in the Lyrics of Blind Pre-War Blues and Gospel Musicians,” in The Lyrics in African American Popular Music, ed. Robert Springer (Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2001), 112. 36 Monge, “Visual References in the Lyrics of Blind Pre-War Blues and Gospel Musicians,” 112. 37 Monge, 111. 38 Ellis, 117.

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the fringes of mainstream society.”39 This view attempts to reconcile the often-artificial separation between the two traditions. Ellis challenges this dichotomy in order to argue against the perception that Davis cast off the blues, and argues that he retained a largely secular repertoire, especially later in his life. “If we consider song as a form of oral history, where identity and meaning emerge through the act of performance, it may go some way in explaining the resilient hold secular music had on Davis, especially post- conversion.”40 Davis simply became more particular about the conditions of his secular performances, leaving the blues largely for private gatherings and music lessons.

Ellis also notes how prescriptive identifiers of Davis and his contemporaries as either a gospel or blues performer largely bore out of commercialization and popularization of the American Folk Music Revival. The economic landscape of the booming record and live music industry clarifies Davis’s continued public performances of secular tunes despite his religiosity. During a show in Montreal in 1967, Davis, in his bitingly direct way of talking, once said to the crowd, “I’m trying to give you all what you want because I want your money.”41 Davis’s connection to secular music was more complicated than a means of money, as Ellis suggests that Davis might have held on to these songs because he “wanted to hear them, too, and share them.”42 In order to better understand this apparent contradiction within Davis’s own life, historian Jonathan Lower calls upon complex embodiment to explain Davis’s identity, blindness, faith, and race as it relates to his music. Lower points out Davis’s use of imitation as a prime example of how the Reverend’s experiences and conditions manifested themselves within his music,

39 Ellis, 217. 40 Ellis, 438. 41 Zack, Chapter 17. 42 Ellis, 576.

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and thus back onto his life in a feedback loop.43 As Ellis states, Davis’s music “was his story.”44

Davis’ life captures both the profundity of music as well as the importance of religion. He merged them both together and disregarded the fame of a musician in favor of a life of God…Davis imitated everything he heard…it was simply how he interpreted the world around him... Blindness was at once a disadvantage and an advantage. Complex embodiment is just that, a complex network of many embodiments “each crucial to the understanding of humanity and its variations.”

Understanding Davis’s complex embodiment of his socioeconomic conditions and

intersectional identity through his music serves to bring this discussion into the larger

conversation of the development of popular American music. Building upon complex

embodiment, Morrison’s concept of Blacksound provides a foundation for understanding

how the “sonic and material histories of race” contributed to the development and

commercialization of American popular music.45 From this framework, we can more

fully consider how Davis’s material, geographic, economic, and social conditions

contributed to developments of his talents, sonic pallet, and identity, and how his body of

work contributed directly to the development and commercialization of American

popular music.

Morrison’s theory studies the development of American popular music by trading

the traditional model of appropriation - which requires a monolithic perception of

authenticity – for a viewpoint “of how racial identity, especially whiteness, is

43 Jonathan S Lower, “The Blindness Blues: Race and Disability in the American Country Blues” (PhD diss., University of New York at Buffalo, 2020). 44 Ellis, 21. 45 Matthew D. Morrison, “The Sound(s) of Subjection: Constructing American Popular Music and Racial Identity through Blacksound,” Women & Performance: a Journal of Feminist Theory 27, no. 1 (February 15, 2017), 22.

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imagined/constructed through the subjection of blackness and black people.”46 From this,

Morrison argues that contemporary popular musical idioms and culture are grounded

“within a racially audible past,” in which “sounds of black people, blackness, and the

(commodified) embodiment of the two within popular entertainment are key to how

identities are constructed and how these formations continue to shape our society.”47 So, while Davis’s many musical and personal identities at first may appear contradictory and incongruous, they actually fit together in a fluid patchwork of individuality and identity borne out from the history and development of popular sound in the United States.

Just as Davis’s music represented patchwork of styles and sonic elements, his personal identity was capable of embodying all of these fluidly. Monge writes, “…most blues lyrics were conceived by putting together various pieces as in a mosaic.”48 Davis

incorporated improvisation both within and outside the realm of his music, proving more

than capable of expressing himself in the moment. Ellis writes “…the overall approach to

life lived in many ways as an improvisatory act, a necessary survival strategy of street

smarts and higher calling that ensured Davis would be heard by his God, and his God by

Davis’s fans.”49 Blacksound opens a critical avenue for understanding figures like Davis, and the development of American music both before and beyond his life. Morrison’s theory enlightens “…how individual and collective identities are improvised through the production of popular sound within the possibilities and limitations of societal

46 Morrison, “The Sound(s) of Subjection: Constructing American Popular Music and Racial Identity through Blacksound,” 22. 47 Morrison, “The Sound(s) of Subjection: Constructing American Popular Music and Racial Identity through Blacksound,” 15. 48 Monge, 112. 49 Ellis, 10.

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structures.”50 The music and sound that Davis was exposed to, expected to perform, and carried through his life, contributed directly to the development of his identity both actual and perceived. Davis’s identity was thus a synthesis of his material conditions, socioeconomic position, informed by his life as a street musician, preacher, teacher, popular performer, and recording artist.

Morrison traces the developmental history of popular music in the United States to minstrel shows and blackface performance in the 19th century. These performances

“…laid the foundation for the birth of American popular music, the foundation of the music industry and copyright law, and the various entertainment economies that subsequently developed in the U.S.”51 Some of Gary Davis’s first exposure to popular music came from hearing carnival and minstrel shows with performers in blackface, leaving a lasting influence on his repertoire. These performances also directly relate to the development “... of how race and other forms of identity are imagined, constructed, and negotiated through the embodiment and performance of popular music in and beyond the United States.”52 Davis’s career, identity, artistry, and popular perception can be viewed as a direct consequence of this musical and industrial development. Ellis writes,

“It could be argued that the soundtrack of the 1960s and 1970s folk and rock scenes would have been decidedly different were it not for the lessons many of its participants took from the Harlem minister [Davis] who befriended each and every one.”53 Ellis’s

50 Morrison, “The Sound(s) of Subjection: Constructing American Popular Music and Racial Identity through Blacksound,” 23. 51 Morrison, “The Sound(s) of Subjection: Constructing American Popular Music and Racial Identity through Blacksound,” 14. 52 Morrison, “The Sound(s) of Subjection: Constructing American Popular Music and Racial Identity through Blacksound,” 22. 53 Ellis, 8.

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claim speaks to the enduring quality of Davis’s influence, but also remarks on how his music is consistent with Morrison’s conclusion: that popular music in the United States developed out of performances of African American traditional music. The discussion to follow seeks to understand Davis’s personalized and influential musical language through his complex embodiment, and to place his music within the framework of Blacksound, demonstrating how performances of African American traditional music have been central to the development of popular music in the United States and beyond, and continually contributes to our perception of race.

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Gary Davis’s Sonic World

Born in 1896, Davis was one of only two of eight siblings to survive childhood, and the only one to live past their twenties.54 In childhood, Davis never had a stable home life; the conditions of the sharecropping industry required the Davis family to constantly move to different farms in search of work, living in at least twelve different locations in the first years of Davis’s life.55 To make matters worse, Davis’s father was killed in

Birmingham, Alabama by a sheriff in 1906. On top of his father’s early death, Davis’s relationship to his mother was marred with feelings of neglect and mistreatment. “I felt like I was throwed away,” Davis once said in an interview about his relationship to his mother.56 Davis would carry these feelings of abandonment for the rest of his life. The elements of the Reverend’s staunch independent attitudes were in part a result of the trauma from these experiences.

If the derelict economic conditions for African Americans in the post- reconstruction era weren’t enough, Jim Crow laws enacted in the years surrounding

Davis’s birth made the struggle for survival more visceral, and economic conditions even worse. Jim Crow laws made it near impossible for Black people to own land. The sharecropping industry forced them to work on a landowner’s property, effectively minimizing any chance of financial independence.57

The lack of economic opportunity and dearth of geographic and social mobility led many southern Blacks to turn to music and religion for a sense of economic security

54 Stefan Grossman, Rev. Gary Davis/Blues Guitar (Oak Publications, 1974), 3. 55 Ellis, 35. 56 Zack, Chapter 1. 57 Zack, Chapter 1

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and community; in the case of Davis, he did both. Lower writes, “For many disabled

African Americans, two or more jobs were needed to sustain livelihood and employment, as a musician or preacher were some of the few jobs open to them.”58 Steve Tracy also outlines how the particular material conditions of Black performers at this time contributed to the extreme difficulties of an already trying existence of being a traveling musician, in his article: ““Black Twice” Performance Conditions for Blues and Gospel

Artists.”

Black twice, meaning that to all of the conditions and pressures of being black in America are added the special difficulties faced by musicians working their way through a world sometimes hostile to the mobile and public creative artist in an undervalued idiom. The performance should be understood in the context of all of these experiences.59

A popular strategy for Black people to escape their “rural enslavement” in the

Antebellum South was to become a musician or preacher.60 For Davis, a life dedicated to music may have seemed like a palpable alternative. The hostilities and difficulties of everyday life could be mitigated by music itself. Zack mentions that the role of gospel and blues within Black communities could provide a sense of unity and catharsis. “At a time when blacks endured growing restrictions on their rights and freedoms, renewed assaults on their dignity and physical attacks intended to cow them into submission, the

58 Jonathan S Lower, “The Blindness Blues: Race and Disability in the American Country Blues”, 125. 59 Steve Tracy, “‘Black Twice’: Performance Conditions for Blues and Gospel Artists,” in The Cambridge Companion to Blues and Gospel Music, ed. Allan Moore (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 101. 60 Tracy, “‘Black Twice’: Performance Conditions for Blues and Gospel Artists,” 91.

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church became, literally, a sanctuary,”61 Music was an essential element of the religious atmosphere within these sanctuaries.

Music was typically sung in the church a capella, and incorporated elements of call-and-response, along with intoning sermons that blended speech and song. Tracy writes that these musical features were a powerful tool for unity within the congregation.62 Given that Black people were the majority population in South Carolina

at this time, and almost all Blacks were members of a congregation, the church acted as

the center for community.63 64 This community was strengthened by the church's

messaging, offering promises of retribution and salvation from the suffering experienced

in life. Despite the inclusive message of the Christian church, most southern churches

were segregated. Tracy states that “…churches seem to be far less integrated than blues

clubs and festivals,” and this separation continued through Davis’s life in New York.65

He would sometimes bring in his white students to his congregation, and refer to them as

“My white son,” which Zack explains as Davis’s way of saying, “Don’t worry, this one’s

okay.”66 The lack of integration in Christian churches can be seen as a direct response to

Jim Crow era segregation policies, as Black communities needed to carve out a space of

their own.

The close-knit communities that developed out of Black churches likely

influenced Davis’s decision to join the church in order to provide himself a sense of

comfort following the death of his mother, developing a relationship with God at a time

61 Zack, Chapter 1. 62 Tracy, 98. 63 Ellis, 35. 64 Zack, Chapter 1. 65 Tracy, 101. 66 Zack, Chapter 10.

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when personal relationships were often shallow and fleeting. Music was also often

Davis’s only companion during this time, and by mixing God and music together, Davis created the ultimate companion, always with him during times of loneliness offering a vehicle for self-expression, catharsis, escapism, and religious comfort.

Davis expressed his hesitation toward trusting others, a feeling often shared by members of the blind community. “Davis revealed that his lack of trust and need for independence was tied up in the same issue: the motivations of sighted people, who were never what they seemed when interacting with the blind.”67 These feelings were certainly compounded by racism and the dangers he faced singing on street corners. If Davis had his reservations, however, about his personal relationships, it did not extend into his relationship with God. “For a blind man who had been shunned by his mother and had to worry about being accosted on the streets, trust-other than in Jesus- didn’t come easily.”68

Davis’s religious conversion altered the philosophy of his music. When he performed, he wanted his audiences to listen to his message and to have his music to resonate on a religious level. At the height of his popularity on the festival circuit, which included among others the legendary Newport Folk Festival, Davis still saw his audience as his congregation. Roy Book Binder described that the festivals “…were really religious happenings in his mind, that God gave him this huge congregation.”69 Reverend Davis's evolving relationship with God altered how Davis related to others, from feelings of mistrust to the mission of religious conversion.

67 Ellis, 525. 68 Zack Chapter 4. 69 Interview with Roy Book Binder, Harlem Street Singer, 01:05:15.

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Music’s potential to blend boundaries between preaching and singing is described

by Barb Jungr, “The narrative style of delivery through which preaching becomes

sermonizing becomes singing, moving into technically different deliveries, is present in

both blues and gospel.”70 Davis applied this technique in both his performances and

religious gatherings. As Grossman reflects, “Reverend Davis is preaching a sermon, and

then he’ll go into a song, and then he’ll go back to a sermon, and then into another song, so the music is really part of his message.”71 Davis’s music was his message, and through

his music and performances, he conveyed a deep sense of conviction through a constant

negotiation of his complex embodiment. “…I must play by the Spirit,” he declared once

during a festival performance, “But when people call for what they want to hear, I try and

do that. But when I do it, I like when people are just willed by the Spirit. Well, I’m gonna

sing a song to you that come to me by the Spirit.”72 No matter what the conditions of his

performances were, what song he was performing, or who was listening, Davis would

always find a way to deliver his message through his tunes.

Davis’s specific material conditions influenced not only the messaging or themes

of his lyrics, but also the sonic, aesthetic, and stylistic qualities of his music. Tracy

writes, “…for the blues performer this was a job, not necessarily a calling,” highlighting

the practical elements of survival elicited by performing blues and gospel.73 Though

Davis was seemingly always a dedicated and passionate musician, who certainly saw

70 Barb Jungr, “Vocal Expression in the Blues and Gospel,” In The Cambridge Companion to Blues and Gospel Music, ed. Allan Moore (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 111. 71 Interview with Stefan Grossman, Harlem Street Singer, 00:43:55. 72 Trevor Laurence, Harlem Street Singer, directed by Simeon Hunter and Trevor Laurence (USA: Acoustic Traditions Films, 2014), Film, 1:05:55. 73 Tracy, 98.

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music as paramount to his calling in life, his relationship to music and sound can still be

understood as a critical vehicle for his survival. Ellis spends the final chapter of his

dissertation on Davis dedicated to understanding the Reverend’s blindness, and the role

that his condition played on his music and life writing: “Perhaps it’s not surprising that a

significant number of blind black performers gravitated toward the blues, where its

characteristics – solo performance, itinerant lifestyle – more easily matched the survival

strategies of said persons.”74 This multidimensional relationship with music allowed

Davis to channel music for his material and emotional subsistence.

Davis’s sightlessness required him to engage with the world by relying on his

other senses, influencing his musical style and development. Davis has been quoted

saying, “You can hear things better than you can see ’em sometimes.”75 And in relation

to his faith, Davis states that, “Sometimes God has a way of fixin’ people so he can get a

hand on you. . . And sometimes you know when God takes a man’s sight He gives ’em

something greater.”76 Davis was not shy about his perceived musical abilities, noting his rather serious and disciplined manner in which he viewed playing music: “You ought to play something that’ll go somewhere, that’ll impress somebody. That’s what I studied to do. For somebody to remember.”77 Davis took his musicianship seriously, honing the

skills essential for his livelihood.

Davis used music not only as a means of livelihood; music was a means of

existence. Davis often navigated life sonically, evoking his musicality to make sense of

the world. For example, Ellis writes that Davis could “…tell how fast a car was going by

74 Ellis, 505. 75 Ellis 482. 76 Ellis 533. 77 Ellis, 93.

21

sticking his harmonica out the window of the moving vehicle to hear the pitch the wind

made in his instrument.”78 This strategy gains a greater musical significance when we take into account the harmonica’s musical role as a sonic imitator. “For the bluesman, both virtuosic and psychological elements added to the harp’s appeal. Through its ability to mimic sounds, the harmonica reinforced one of the more admired aesthetics in southern black folk tradition (itself carried over from African traditions), namely to make

one’s instrument ‘speak.’”79

The personification of instrumental sound into an imitative language had an

influence on Davis’s musical development as well as his entire approach to the guitar, as

he would often speak to his instrument, interjecting lines like “Talk to me now,” before

embarking on an improvised interlude peppered with interjections such as “Mhmm,” and

“That’s right,” as if he was in a compelling back and forth dialogue.80 In the case of one of Davis’s most enduring songs, “Samson and Delilah,” Davis employs imitation within his displays of call-and-response, exclaiming “Ow!” and “Good God!” before mimicking the same intonation on his guitar in reply.81 Later in the tune he interrupts his vocal

performance with his guitar, which then takes over the melody before Davis chimes back

in and completes the lyric. These elements can be traced throughout Davis’s body of

recorded music. Another example of Davis engaging in a back and forth dialogue with

78 Ellis, 515. 79 Ellis, 464 80 Performance of “Samson and Delilah,” Rev. Gary Davis, Harlem Street Singer, 00:56:26. 81 Performance of “Samson and Delilah,” Rev. Gary Davis, Harlem Street Singer, 00:56:26.

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his guitar comes from the song “You Got To Move,” where Davis sang the song’s titular

phrase before repeating the phrase with the exact same inflection on his guitar.82

Imitation was a monumental strategy for Davis, even going back to his earliest

days as a musician. Davis first picked up the harmonica at the age of five. As Zack

explains, “Davis learned to mimic the squeals of pigs, the squawks of chickens, the chug-

a-lug of a steam train, and the baying of hounds on a coon hunt.”83 This act of mimicry only grew more sophisticated when Davis was introduced to the guitar a few years later.

“The first time I ever heard a guitar played, I thought it was a brass band coming though,” said Davis.84 Zack explains that Davis’s notion of a guitar as a brass band,

“…would help fuel his revolutionary approach to the guitar, not as a mere vocal

accompaniment but as a band in a box with cornets, trombones, tubas, clarinets, and

drums all at his disposal.”85 Davis often even called his guitar, “the piano around my

neck.”86 His personalized musical vocabulary was engaged in a style of playing that

mimicked the sounds he heard throughout his life.

Davis imitated everything he heard both as a learning tool and as an expressive

musical element. Ellis describes, “Blind [blues] players could not learn the guitar via the

most common method, imitation of other players; subsequently they had to arrive at more

personalized solutions based on the sounds they wanted to achieve rather than the

common patterns and fretboard shapes available to sighted guitarists.”87 Like other self-

taught blind musicians at the time, Davis could not copy what he saw other musicians

82 Harlem Street Singer, 00:36:08. 83 Zack, Chapter 1. 84 Zack, Chapter 1. 85 Ibid. 86 Ibid. 87 Ellis, 519.

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playing, but had to learn guitar by imitating sounds instead of hand positioning or finger

patterns. Insofar as the complexity of Davis’s solutions, Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir

mentions, “He couldn’t see so he couldn’t tell his hands couldn’t do that sort of stuff.”88

This difference opened up alternative methods for Davis to develop his original sound.

Davis’s personal relationship with mimicry reflects the larger presence of imitation within the blues and gospel music. As oral musical traditions, songs were often shared, taught, and subsequently rearranged through acts of mimicry and interpretation.

Since his time singing gospel music in the church choir as a child, Davis would absorb and begin to incorporate the music that constantly lived around him.89 The catalogue of

tunes that he discovered as a budding musician endured, as Zack explains, “…throughout

his musical life, not only in the astonishing variety of tunes he could play but in how he

could take a single song and render it in myriad ways.”90 Davis’s musical development

was not just one of mimicry, but one of personal interpretation and expansion out of the

music that he was exposed to. The wide variety of musical exposure allowed Davis to

develop his own musical voice through the act of learning and borrowing from others.

Legendary jazz pianist Herbie Hancock attributes his musical development to this same concept, using musical mimicry as a learning tool. Hancock first studied the piano by playing along to the record player and copying what he heard. “I think it's a good idea to - during the process of learning how to do something you haven't done before - is just

to see how other people have done it, copy them… So I found different parts in a record

88 Interview with Bob Weir, Harlem Street Singer, 00:15:55. 89 Zack, Chapter 1. 90 Zack, Chapter 1.

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that I wanted to learn.”91 With this grounding, Davis, like Hancock, was free to further explore his own musical styles from learning and following what was around him.

By the time he was a teenager, Davis was performing in a string band with the likes of Blind Willie Walker. It was during this time that Davis likely developed his trademark alternative Piedmont picking style, which Walker also employed.92 Davis

learned from this traditional picking style, and turned it into an individualized method,

only picking the guitar - using fingerpicks - with his right thumb and pointer finger where

the thumb kept the pulse in the bass and his pointer supplied the melody.93 Ellis explains,

“This approach, far from limiting, creates a built-in syncopated attack on the strings that

activates the aesthetic language of ragtime on guitar,” lending further credence that

Davis’s approach to the guitar was inherently tied to that of the piano.94

The early period of Davis’s musical education exposed the young performer to a different side of the life of a traveling musician, the reoccurring issue of equity. Davis would typically have to split an already meager night’s earnings with five other band mates.95 Meager wages would follow Davis through his days working in the recording

studio and festival circuits. “They didn’t give me nothing of what I should have got.”

Davis once exclaimed in an interview with his student Stefan Grossman.96 Davis also

became increasingly unwilling to perform blues, compounding his financial woes.

Zack explains that, “Davis’s adherence to his spiritual beliefs – and refusal to sing

the blues – would keep him from enjoying the kind of success commensurate with his

91 Herbie Hancock, “Learning by Listening,” Master Class. 92 Zack, Chapter 1. 93 Ellis, 96. 94 Ellis, 99. 95 Zack, Chapter 1. 96 Stefan Grossman, Rev. Gary Davis/Blues Guitar, 9.

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talents.”97 The picture is even more complicated if we consider the growing folk music industry and commercial audience that sought to commodify Davis’s music. Peter

Yarrow of Peter Paul and Mary fame, remarks that their performances and recordings of

Davis’s music brought it to a wider audience and, “…bridged the gap between their [the audience] ears that could understand a certain kind of music, and ears that could not hear a Gary Davis.”98 This is precisely what Morrison seeks to bring to light through the theory of Blacksound. Where “…mostly white music industrialists capitalized upon the

(unrecognized) intellectual performance property of black Americans…”99 Predatory copyright laws prevented artists like Davis from receiving protection on their performances, recordings, and music; all the while the industry was profiting off these

Black performers.

Nevertheless, Davis was in a unique position to receive at least some of his due.

Davis was an avid teacher and developed close relationships to many of his students, many of whom became commercial successes. Grossman elaborates, “Eventually, some of his tunes became popularized by some of the groups that grew out of this folk revival…and these were people that would usually say, ‘I learned this tune from

Reverend Gary Davis.’”100 When it came time for Peter Paul and Mary to give Davis songwriting credit for their rendition of “Samson and Delilah”, Davis received the first of many royalty checks that would pull him out of his condemned apartment in Harlem to a

97 Zack, Chapter 11. 98 Interview with Peter Yarrow, Harlem Street Singer, 00:59:30. 99 Matthew D. Morrison, “Race, Blacksound, and the (Re)Making of Musicological Discourse,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 72, no. 3 (2019), 793. 100 Interview with Stefan Grossman, Harlem Street Singer, 00:54:15.

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house in Queens. This also gave Davis his first legal protection for his music.101 In the

early seventies, Stefan Grossman edited a book of sheet music and lyrics, giving Davis

protection for over eighty of his songs, just two years before the Reverend’s death.102

While the gesture extended to Davis by these artists is monumental, it does not begin to

recuperate the loss of equity across the entire economic landscape of African American

music making by the exploitative hands of the popular music industry. For Davis himself,

though, he saw his newfound income as nothing short of a miracle.103 Through teaching

and sharing his music, Ellis writes, “Davis also transcended the great divide of racial

struggle on his own terms.”104 By connecting with and influencing the next generations

of popular musicians, Gary Davis solidified his legacy within a system that would

typically cast him aside.

Davis’s musical performances had to accommodate his practical needs. Ellis

discusses, “The hardscrabble setting of the urban outdoors was merely one component in

that singing had to be heard over the many distractions and noises of the street.”105

Davis’s barking, gruff vocal style likely came about from necessity to be heard over the competition as much as it did from his musical influences, as garnering attention from passerby often was the difference between survival or going hungry. Davis famously wore his guitar around his neck rather than over his shoulder giving him more angular access to the fretboard, which provided him with greater reach and control with his left hand. Ellis remarks that this strategy allowed for the dexterous use of his thumb to cover

101 Zack, Chapter 12. 102 Zack, Chapter 17. 103 Interview with Roy Book Binder, Harlem Street Singer, 01:03:50. 104 Ellis, 7. 105 Ellis, 159.

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the low strings which Ellis claims helped to account for his “thick” harmonies and

“unorthodox” chord shapes that mirrored classical guitar.106 Ellis also mentions “Davis

let the [guitar] strap sit over his neck on both shoulders with the right arm coming over

the strap. This, of course, made it easy to cock the guitar into an angled position, but it

also solved another, much more practical problem for the street musician: it made it

harder for someone to steal his guitar out from under him while he was playing.”107

However the strap position came about, whether from practical reasons due to the

dangers of singing on the streets, or from a technical musical one, Davis’s guitar position

represents the ways his environment influenced his musicianship.

The harsh realities of life for street performers made safety and comfort hard to

come by. “For the blind bluesman and street evangelist alike, life was fraught with

potential danger and difficulty, with the performer never knowing whom he could trust

and constantly being robbed, harassed, or run off by the police.”108 In his own words,

Davis, infamous for his cat-naps said, “You don’t have to go to sleep, you just sit down,

and you’re outta somethin’.”109 Sometimes, Davis did not even have to sit down before

someone would try to take advantage of him. Once, Davis was arrested in Durham, North

Carolina - where he lived, performed, and taught for a number of years before meeting

Annie - for stabbing a man who had grabbed money right out of the Reverend’s hand.110

For Davis’s peers, especially other sightless musicians, danger as a street musician was commonplace. The tragic deaths of Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Blake speak

106 Ellis, 120. 107 Ellis, 120. 108 Ellis, 506. 109 Ellis, 66. 110 Zack, Chapter 3.

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volumes to the constant danger that street performers faced down to exposure to the

elements.111 112 The lonely life of a traveling musician and the lack of access to healthcare for many Black communities were just a few factors that contributed to the disabilities and early deaths of these musicians.

In New York, Davis was lucky enough to have people close to him who would

look out for him. Tiny Robinson, the niece of renowned guitarist, Lead Belly, was a

longtime friend to the Davises. Robinson mentioned that she and her husband would

often find Davis on the street in the bitter cold, and they would bring him inside when the

conditions got overwhelming.113 If it was not for Davis’s community of those who cared

for him, he very well may have met a similar fate to Jefferson and others.

Often on the move, Davis could independently navigate his way to gigs and

sermons. Davis was so independent he could even navigate the subway system by

counting the number of stops.114 Though he was capable of navigating himself, Davis

would often rely on a “lead boy,” especially later in life, where his closest students could

be trusted to lead him around.115 “Now it was me and other city kids who were really

interested in his music, they were the... lead boys taking him from place to place.”116 The

level of intimate care by Davis’s followers is evidence of the strength of the Reverend’s

musical community, yet another example of the power of music in Davis’s life. Ellis

highlights, “For Davis, music combined with faith and personal fortitude gave him a seat

111 Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Blind Lemon Jefferson," Encyclopedia Britannica, October 5, 2020. 112 Zack, Chapter 4. 113 Interview with Tiny Robinson, Harlem Street Singer, 00:40:00. 114 Zack, Chapter 6. 115 Zack, Chapter 2. 116 Interview with John Cohen, Harlem Street Singer, 00:39:22.

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at the table… a journey from the rural South that finally placed him in a supportive community where he could sing his history and seek the kind of kinship that healed all wounds.”117 Davis’s music allowed him to create a strong musical community, one that even helped carry on his music to the next generation.

117 Ellis, 583.

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Gary Davis’s Musical Language

In order to succeed as a musician, Davis invented a personalized approach to the guitar, one that often perplexed those around him. John Cohen reflected on the first time he saw Davis perform, “I said to myself, how’s he holding that guitar, where’s he putting his fingers, how does he get his way up and down the finger board…nobody plays the guitar like that.”118 The Reverend’s technique and virtuosity enthralled his students; they

wanted to soak up all the musical knowledge he offered. He would happily oblige,

charging only five dollars for a lesson that could last an entire afternoon. “He gave so

much that he would beat you to death in a lesson, that he would just overload all your

intake,” Chandler recalled in an interview.119 Davis was eager to share his skills that

resulted from his material world, and he impressed his students with his dynamic style.

The Reverend’s lessons left lifelong impressions on many of his students who

channeled the Reverend’s one of a kind approach to the guitar. Bob Weir credits Davis as

one of his biggest influences. “He just had various ways of inflecting that I took in, that

I’m sure come out every night, probably every song that I do.”120 Davis’s inventive,

inverted chord shapes, which utilize many different voicings and positions on the guitar

neck, are a staple of Weir’s harmonic pallet.

Davis’s intimate connection to his instrument is reflected across his music, often

incorporating percussive hits of his guitar, as well as unpicked hammer ons and pull offs,

all while snapping or hitting the body of his guitar with his right hand. Davis used his

118 Interview with John Cohen, Harlem Street Singer, 00:36:40. 119 Interview with Len Chandler, Harlem Street Singer, 00:09:37. 120 Interview with Bob Weir, Harlem Street Singer, 00:58:00.

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guitar as an extension of his body to create his music, and his guitar travelled with him

everywhere he went.

Davis didn’t play his guitar so much as inhabit the guitar, strumming, hitting, tapping, slapping and coaxing every possible sound from it, melodic and otherwise. He called his guitar “Miss Gibson,” and the anthropomorphic analogy was fitting – his guitar was witness and companion, ready to express not just beauty but the fullness of life through song.121

Ellis’s words express an understanding of Davis’s relationship to his instrument into one

of not just inhabiting but embodiment of his instrument. Davis’s students and followers

were aware of this relationship as well. Happy Traum describes, “Gary Davis just seemed

like a living embodiment of that [musical] tradition”122 Morrison’s epistemology of

Blacksound, “…conceptualizes and reimagines how sonic and corporeal ideas of race

were materially taken up into the body.”123 With Davis’s guitar acting an extension of his body, his techniques and performances became a manifestation of Davis’s lived experiences and traditions as they relate to the greater development of popular music in the United States with its origins in blackface minstrelsy.

Davis’s method of improvisation revolved around variation, viewing his breadth of material not so much as stable arrangements, but as individual moments constantly open to reinterpretation. Ellis explains, “…we might appreciate Davis less as a song collector than as constant creator, spinning variation upon variation of all he knew into a life story limned with musical notes.”124 His former students have noted Davis’s ability to

improvise at will, often changing his arrangements of his music in order to keep his

121 Ellis, 108. 122 Interview with Happy Traum, Harlem Street Singer, 00:39:19. 123 Morrison, “Race, Blacksound, and the (Re)Making of Musicological Discourse,” 794. 124 Ellis, 243.

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students and audiences on their toes, or simply to reflect his current mood. In an

interview about Davis, Len Chandler stated, “He knew the chords, he knew the changes,

and then he just decided he wants to blow it this way today.”125

Ellis showcases Davis’s improvisatory style with a statement Davis made when

he was unable to recall the name of a spiritual he was about to perform, “You can be on a

road, you know, and you may not know the name of the road, but you know where you

are.”126 For example, Davis’s arrangements of the song “Candy Man,” which Davis

learned as a child from a traveling carnival, could be played in any type of style, or

rhythmic variation.127128 Davis would often utilize his ability to improvise on variations

of a single song in order to fit the needs of his students and the desires of his audience.

Davis’s affinity toward improvisation can be exemplified through his teachings.

The music traditions that Davis extended to his students were passed down orally throughout generations.

When he taught me a song, he would teach it to me and I would learn it note by note and lick by lick. Then I go back to my lesson the next week, and he would completely change the song around. This would go on…until I realized, he was constantly improvising on a tune. And he would play a song like “Hesitation Blues” every time he played it, it would constantly be different.129

Folk singer and student of Davis, Roy Book Binder recalls his teacher’s extemporaneous

attitudes towards his sermons. “[Davis] said: You can’t write a sermon on Tuesday for

125 Interview with Len Chandler, Harlem Street Singer, 00:15:15. 126 Ellis, 243. 127 Zack 503 128 Ellis, 101. 129 Interview with Woody Mann, Harlem Street Singer, 00:10:01.

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next Sunday.”130 Book Binder continues to explain that whenever Davis was unable to deliver a sermon, his music would suffice. Davis saw music as a language to communicate and express himself in a world he could not see. Davis’s music was taught

orally, not through notation or rote memorization, and this meant that it was subject to

change. Davis could express his feelings and ideas in the moment simply by performing

his songs in different styles and contexts. Like his sermons, Davis’s music was not pre-

planned or rehearsed, leading to a musical language filled with honest conviction and the

fluid communication of feelings and ideas in the moment. The free expression that

Davis’s improvisatory approach created an avenue for Davis to reach others emotionally

through his own language and experiences.

Ellis analyzes Davis’s improvisational abilities through the conditions of his

blindness as well as his musical upbringing, writing, “Davis’s improvisational skills,

then, came at once from black vernacular musical tradition and the culture of blindness, a

merging of two worlds of “otherness” in his crafting of identity.”131 Through Davis’s

embodiment of these musical traditions as well as the complex embodiment between his

race, blindness, material and physical conditions, we can gain a better understanding of

Davis as an individual, and how his improvisatory and personalized playing style

reflected the conditions and experiences of his life.

A brief case study into the guitar technique of pioneering jazz guitarist Django

Reinhardt is an enlightening tool for understanding how some musicians with disabilities

often adapt their musical and technical approach around their condition in inventive and

expressive ways. Ellis and Lower have engaged in similar comparative analyses between

130 Interview with Roy Book Binder, Harlem Street Singer, 00:43:26. 131 Ellis, 486.

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Davis and other blind musicians both within America and throughout other historical

cultures, but expanding our perspective to include disability in music more generally

offers a wider consideration into one’s need and ability to adapt musically to their

conditions leading to newfound ways of expression and communication.132

Born in Belgium in 1910, Reinhardt took up music from a young age, becoming

an accomplished violist, banjo, and guitar player before the age of eighteen.133 However,

after suffering severe burns throughout his body, which left the back of his left hand

scarred and disfigured, Reinhardt was forced to relearn the guitar while navigating his

disability.134 Amazingly, Reinhardt was able to adapt his approach to the instrument coming to rely on his pointer finger, middle finger, and thumb. Though his ring finger and pinky were severely damaged, there is evidence that Reinhardt was still able to utilize these fingers on the higher strings when harmonically necessary.135 In order to

navigate the fretboard economically and effectively, Reinhardt developed a style of

playing that included single-note melodies, three-note inverted chord shapes, a horizontal

approach to arpeggios up and down the neck, and a dexterous use of his thumb which he

often used to cover the two lowest strings of the guitar, similar to Davis.136 137 Reinhardt

is often considered the first popular European jazz musician, influencing many later jazz,

blues, and rock musicians including Wes Montgomery, Chet Atkins, B.B. King, and even

132 Ellis, Chapter 8. 133 Benjamin Givan, “Django Reinhards’ Left Hand,” Chapter in Jazz Planet ed. E. Taylor Atkins (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2003), 20. 134 David J Williams and Tom S Potokar, “Django's Hand,” BMJ 339, no. b5348 (December 16, 2009), 1427. 135 Givan, “Django Reinhards’ Left Hand,” 25. 136 Williams and Potokar, “Django's Hand,” 1427. 137 Ellis, 110.

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Carlos Santana.138 Benjamin Givan writes in his article “Django Reinhardt’s Left Hand”, that Reinhardt’s “entirely new playing technique has been a source of awe and mystery ever since.”139

Of course, the nature of Davis’s and Reinhardt’s disabilities and the many particulars of their solutions differ, understanding how these musicians’ circumstances affected their musicianship better informs how we think about their music. To reiterate

Tracy’s point, the histories, experiences, and conditions of one’s life must be considered when attempting to understand their music.140 This point is echoed in the words of Jungr:

“…the singer operates stylistically through the form of gospel and blues, expressing recognizable individual manipulation of the musical forms, and also through the singer’s personal ‘sound’, which is intimately connected to their personal and communal experience.”141 For Davis, his sightlessness, economic situation, and geographic locations had a direct relationship to his music both in the context of his identity, messaging, and stylistic language through a network of his intersectional complex embodiment.

Adaptable in his environment, Davis was also forced to break out from what is conventional, learned, or expected, leading him to develop his iconic and highly original, personal style of musicianship. A cross-examination of Davis’s most popular songs further enlightens how Gary Davis wove the sonic elements of his life experience into his performances. Musical analysis of Davis is paramount to understanding the Reverend’s music as well as Gary Davis the individual. The musical and lyrical study to follow

138 Givan, 20. 139 Givan, 21. 140 Tracy, 101. 141 Jungr, “Vocal Expression in the Blues and Gospel,” 109.

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examines Davis’s complex expression of identity as it is reflected in his music and

performances.

Lower explores the contrasts between two of Davis’s original compositions,

“There Was a Time That I Was Blind” (Also known as “Lord, I Wish I Could See”) and

“Oh Glory, How Happy I Am.” Pitting these two songs against each other, Lower

investigates how Davis carved out a meaningful life for himself through the positive

embodiment of his blindness, interwoven with his identity.142 While the former represents the pain and loneliness Davis would feel, the latter celebrates how music and

God saved his life. “Davis took his blindness, cried over it, took control of it, marketed it, and then embodied it. These stages, no doubt, were made, rearranged, and changed throughout his life, but this is the nature of complex embodiment.”143 The plethora of

references to sight in these songs, mixed in with religious imagery, gave Davis the ability

to layer various levels of meaning in order to heighten the emotional impact of his

performances, and extract compassion from his audience that would hopefully resonate

on a spiritual level.

The lyrics of “There Was a Time That I Was Blind” speaks to Davis’s literal

experience as well as his religious awakening through the metaphor of blindness. Placing

the song in the past tense tells the story of Davis’s religious conversion as well as an

understanding that he has made peace with his sightlessness, turning it into a strength.144

It was a time when I went blind It was a time when I went blind Was the darkest day that I ever saw

142 Lower, 97. 143 Lower, 98. 144 Ellis 541.

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Was the time when I went blind

Lord, I cried the whole night long Lord I cried the whole night long Cryin' "Oh, Lord won't ya tell me how long Am I to be blind always?"

Lord I wished I could see again I wished I could see again If I could see how happy I would be I wished I could see again

Crying is an additional reference to Davis’s religious experience found throughout many of his performances, which also alludes to his hard and lonely times. In “There Was a

Time That I Was Blind” Davis sings, “Nobody cares for me,” and when he would perform the song titled, “Nobody Cares for Me,” Davis would feign weeping, fully embodying its personal and emotional resonance.145 Later in life, Davis would have many people who cared for him, presenting an image of both personal and religious retribution.

In a performance of “Twelve Gates to the City,” Davis exclaims, “What you cryin’ about?” before playing a melodic response of bent guitar strings giving the impression of crying.146 The immense vocal range displayed in this performance as well as his falsetto hollers, elicits a sermon-like quality and highlights the strength of Davis’s conviction, always viewing his performances as religious congregations.147

In the final verse of “Twelve Gates to the City”, Davis sings, “If you see my dear old mother / Won't you do this favor for me? / Won't you please tell my mother / To meet me in Galilee.” Within this personal allusion Davis recalls the death of his mother, expressing his emotions through religious imagery. Another reference to Davis’s mother

145 Ellis, 534-5. 146 Harlem Street Singer, 1:07:20. 147 Ellis, 160.

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can be heard in the tune, “Death Don’t Have No Mercy.” When Davis sings, “Death

never takes a vacation in this land / Well he'll come to your house and he won't stay long

/ You'll look in the bed and your mother will be gone…” he recalls both his mother’s

passing and his complex relationship with her.148 Finally, in “There Was a Time That I

Was Blind”, Davis sings, “Now they turned their back on me / They turned their back on

me / Since I lost my sight I lost my friends / Nobody’s a friend to me.” a lyric with

connections to the refrain of the song “Delia,” a popular traditional tune with many

renditions, which Davis also performed.149 The interconnected relationship between verses, songs, and performances speaks to the shared nature of the musical tradition as well as to the similar experiences and difficulties that members of Black communities face.150 If Davis was able to express his troubles through song, he felt equally free to sing

about his life and faith in joyous terms, too.

When I was in darkness I could not see Jesus came and He rescued me He cleans me and gives me the victory Glory hallelu

One day as Jesus was passing by He set my sinful soul on fire He made me laugh and He made me cry Glory hallelu151

In “Oh Glory, How Happy I Am,” Davis’s faith brought him, “out of the

darkness,” as if referencing his words in “There Was a Time That I Was Blind”, and into

148 Zack, Chapter 1. 149 Ellis, 424. 150 Monge, 103. 151 Ernie Hawkins, Gospel Guitar of Rev. Gary Davis, (Missouri: Mel Bay Publications Inc, 2014), 25.

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a life of happiness. That Jesus made him both laugh and a cry suggests that the experiences brought about by his faith allowed him to fully understand the purpose of his life. Again, Davis uses the lyric, “I had no one to be my friend,” signifying that music and his faith carried him through his darkest moments, and into a life of salvation. It has been noted, too, how Davis’s composition and performance contributes to the joyous nature of the tune. Ellis contends, “…he used open strings in cross relation against fretted strings… which allowed smooth shifting up and down the neck. The result was (and still is) joyous to hear, sing, and play.”152 Zack also mentions the exultant qualities of the song brought about by Davis’s dense chords and heavy bass notes, along with his wide ranging, booming voice, “...that seemed to make the guitar cry out with the ecstasy of a church chorus.”153 Through his compositions and musical language borne out of his life experiences, Gary Davis was able to manipulate his music to communicate emotional states charged with autobiographical, social, and religious contexts.

During performances of the standard, “Hesitation Blues,” Davis would manipulate his delivery, simulating hesitation and throwing off his listeners’ temporal expectations. Through rhythmic variation and call and response, Davis depicted the anxious dialogue between a person waiting for the response of an unrequited love.154

Perhaps, too, that Davis’ could perform such an earnest representation of lost love recalls the painful time of his life living alone in Durham, as the blues is wont to evoke.

Elements of Davis’s tangible world would often find its way into his blues performances.

While performing the song “Whistlin’ Blues,” Davis would use his pocket knife as a slide

152 Ellis, 271. 153 Zack, Chapter 12. 154 Lower, 105.

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in a style that Ellis claims is imitative of a “barrelhouse piano,” and the sound of whistling.155 Thus, tools such as a knife served Davis in both his musical performances and everyday existence.

Davis’s performances of “I am the Light of The World,” presents an opportunity to explore how Davis wove personal narrative and religious imagery together. These themes became intertwined in a performance full of constant variation that reflects on

Gary Davis’s musical language that developed from the experiences of his life. Far from an original tune, Davis’s arrangement of “I am the Light of the World” is perhaps the most enduring and well-known version. Stefan Grossman describes Davis’s approach to the song, “Every time he’s singing the verse or the chorus, he seems to change his vocal phrasing and that reflects on his guitar arrangement…His guitar is just literally following how he’s singing.”156 Davis’s ability to constantly vary his delivery and musical phrasing in the moment is what Grossman describes as Gary Davis’s virtuosic “trademark.”157

Davis would pass on these elements of virtuosity to his students.

Comparing the guitar transcriptions of Grossman and another former Davis student, Ernie Hawkins provides key examples of Davis’s musical language and use of variation on a musical idea.158 159 Their transcriptions, though similar, contain subtle variations of rhythm and chord voicing. Grossman urges his students to dig deeper into

155 Ellis, 138. 156 Stefan Grossman, Holy Blues of Rev. Gary Davis (Grossman’s Guitar Workshop, 2001), 3-14, Audio Lesson. 157 Grossman, Holy Blues of Rev. Gary Davis (Grossman’s Guitar Workshop, 2001), 1- 03, Audio Lesson. 158 Grossman, Holy Blues of Rev. Gary Davis (Grossman’s Guitar Workshop, 2001), 17- 20. 159 Hawkins, Gospel Guitar of Rev. Gary Davis, (Missouri: Mel Bay Publications Inc, 2014), 55-6.

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Davis’s playing using his transcriptions as a baseline.160 Hawkins writes that “I am the

Light of the World is “Another example of Rev. Davis’ creative and precise melodic playing in the key of C. He establishes the melody and then improvises freely on it.”161

The I-IV-V-I (C, F, G, C) progression was open to change, too, as Davis would freely add in alternative chord colors such as a G7 chord, or play a Bb note to suggest tonal ambiguity between G major and minor. This created a momentary mixolydian feel, ripe for improvisation. While the tune comes from the gospel tradition, Davis’s use of blue notes such as the tritone (F#) and the raised second (D#) in the melody places this song in the blues idiom. This displays the heavy crossover between the musical language of gospel and blues.162 Grossman presents Davis’s chord shapes as open with heavy use of parallel octaves, while Hawkins displays much denser chord voicings including a first inversion C Major chord with the dominant (G) doubled, giving weight to the song’s origin in gospel quartets.163 164 The variation between these transcriptions demonstrates how each artist who attempts to interpret Davis has their own personal relationship with his material and how to approach it.

As with nearly all of his performances, Davis used his signature two-finger

Piedmont picking style. In “I am the Light of the World,” his right thumb provided the rhythm, syncopation, and the harmonic backbone, while his index would provide the

160 Grossman, Holy Blues of Rev. Gary Davis (Grossman’s Guitar Workshop, 2001), 3- 23, Audio Lesson. 161 Hawkins, Gospel Guitar of Rev. Gary Davis, 57. 162 Monge, 103. 163 Grossman, Holy Blues of Rev. Gary Davis (Grossman’s Guitar Workshop, 2001), 17- 20. 164 Ellis, 253.

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melody that typically mimicked Davis’s vocal line.165 The bass typically played a quarter

note pulse while the melody used mainly eighth notes and dotted rhythms. Sometimes

Davis would leave out the bass note, giving the impression that the rhythm had been lost

before catching back up to the melody, a technique also found in his performances of

“Samson and Delilah.”166 This technique is also used in Davis’s vocal melody. Since his

guitar melody followed the melody of his voice, Davis would often stop singing the

refrain, allowing his guitar to interject and fill in the rest. In other tunes, he would use this

device along with percussive hits or snaps of his finger.167 During the instrumental break,

the guitar melody acted as a verse without lyrics, allowing Davis to string together even

more variations of the melody line. Before each verse Davis interjected with “Oh,” or

“Well.” His interjections of the word “Well,” during the instrumental break, then, further

emulated that of a verse.

Just as long as I’m in this world I am the light of this world

Oh, you don’t believe in Jesus And not a word is said When you come down to Lazarus’ grave And raise him from the dead

Well, I’ve got fiery fingers And I’ve got fiery hands And when I get up in heaven Going to join that fiery band

Well, prayer is the key of heaven And faith unlocked the door

165 Ellis, 96-7. 166 Andrew DuBrock, “Reverend Gary Davis: ‘Samson and Delilah,’” Acoustic Guitar, (June 2009). 167 Performance of “Twelve Gates to the City,” Rev. Gary Davis, Harlem Street Singer, 01:06:05.

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That’s why my God gave me the key And told me to carry it everywhere I go168

Ellis points out that the story of “I am the Light of the World” is lifted from the bible passage John 9:5, whose chapter tells the story of Jesus healing a blind beggar.169

Like the songs discussed prior, there exists a plethora of personal connections concealed within a religious context.170 Using Monge’s study, Ellis makes note of the strong visual references in the lyrics to “I am the Light of the World,” arguing that Davis’s visual references in his religious music serve to create multiple layers of meaning.171 With this in mind, the lyrics, “You don’t believe in Jesus / And not a word is said,” and “That’s why my God gave me the key / And told me to carry it everywhere I go,” can be read as both from the biblical perspective of Jesus, and from the biography of Davis’s life and musical mission. The verse, “Well, I’ve got fiery fingers / And I’ve got fiery hands,” can be read as congruous to the biblical chapter and Davis’s view on his own abilities. “And when I get up in heaven / Going to join that fiery band,” connects thematically to another traditional tune in Davis’s repertoire, “I Belong to the Band – Hallelujah!” The song’s hymnal roots dating back to the mid 19th century,172 and its celebratory message of inclusion and belonging speaks not just to Davis’s own life, but also to the collective struggles of Davis’s community. Finding salvation and hope through symbols of overcoming was also the case in his most popular song, “Samson and Delilah.”173 If

168 Gary Davis, “I am the Light of the World,” Recorded 1960, Track 11 on Harlem Street Singer, Bluesville. 169 Ellis, 550. 170 Lower, 106. 171 Ellis, 558. 172 Ellis, 253. 173 Ellis, 286.

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Davis saw the tale of “I am the Light of the World” as parallel to his own life, he may have felt the same with the narrative of “Samson and Delilah,” where a flawed hero was picked to become a servant of God.174 Through his “fiery fingers” and “fiery hands,”

Davis truly became a light to his followers.

174 Ellis, 581.

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Gary Davis’s powerful legacy can be best echoed through the Reverend’s most

well known quote: “I have no children, but I have many sons.”175 His music lives on in

the growling vocals of Dave Von Ronk, the repertoire of Bob Dylan and the Grateful

Dead, the chord voicing of Bob Weir, in the verses of Peter, Paul, and Mary and the

Staple Singers, and within the transcriptions and continued teachings of his closest

students.176 His popularity overseas even made him an influence on the sounds of the

British Invasion, and both Alan Lomax and Pete Seeger admired Davis greatly.177

Student of Davis, Barry Kornfeld noted, “He probably was heard more by the world at

large from his disciples than for himself alone.”178 Davis’s social and economic

conditions put him on the margins of society. The circumstances of the American

recording industry made Davis, along with his peers, objects of exploitation and novel

curiosity for the mass consumer, all while the industry simultaneously marketed the

aesthetics of Black music, sound, and identities through largely white artists who were

deemed to have a greater commercial appeal. Matthew Morrison’s “race-based

epistemology” of Blacksound challenges the prevalent historiography of the development

of popular music in the United States for one that places Black music, identity, and

performance at its center.179 This musicological perspective demands for a consideration of Davis that places his intersectional identity and material conditions at the center of analysis.

175 Interview with Davis Bromberg, Harlem Street Singer, 01:14:15. 176 “The Students of Rev. Gary Davis and Other Performers He Influenced,” University of Chicago Press (University of Chicago), https://press.uchicago.edu/sites/zack/index.html. 177 Zack, Introduction and Chapter 15. 178 Interview with Barry Kornfeld, Harlem Street Singer, 1:13:53 179 Morrison, “Race, Blacksound, and the (Re)Making of Musicological Discourse,” 790.

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Gary Davis’s complex embodiment of his many intersectional identities came to be reflected in his music. His personalized musical vocabulary evolved out of the traditions and sounds that he was exposed to throughout his life. Music became a guiding force for Davis as a means for navigating his life, expressing himself, and for his financial advancement. “I think the Reverend was a pretty complex guy,” former student

David Bromberg once said in an interview. “He was extremely devoted to his religion, but he had another side of him. And I think he would maybe sometimes put one side away and let the other side out, and sometimes reverse it.”180 Siebers’s theory of complex embodiment between one’s intersectional identities through the conditions of marginalization, informs how Davis wove his independent and complex identity into the kind of music fit for saving souls.

Remarkably, music uplifted Davis by guiding his purpose and allowing him to create a vibrant community of those who cared for him, influencing the generation of musicians who followed. This framework provides a critical perspective for future analyses of Davis’s music and legacy. Bromberg reflects, “There was a part of him that didn't want his music to die with him...He gave. And he was really pleased that some of us were able to take it.”181In many ways Davis was not so different from his musical peers, but for his dedicated students the Reverend’s unmatched virtuosity made him

“...the end of the line.”182 Likewise, the musical styles and stories he carried in his repertoire made him the last of a generation. Yet musician Bill Sims reflects that,

“Nothing died with him but his body. His legacy is there; all you have to do is listen to

180 Interview with David Bromberg, Harlem Street Singer, 00:45:45. 181 Interview with David Bromberg, Harlem Street Singer, 00:11:00. 182 Interview with Barry Kornfeld, Harlem Street Singer, 00:03:29.

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the music.”183 Blacksound allows us to still hear these traditions within the music of the past and today.

Musicological studies and analyses of Davis and other Black intersectional musicians allows scholars to engage in a more substantive and accurate history of music making in America that honors the significant contributions of Black and marginalized musicians. This understanding disrupts the common assumptions of music’s development in the United States in order to create a system that values equity and radical inclusion.

Davis’s music continues to cast a shining light on popular music today, and his story provides a musical voice to those whose stories have historically been silenced.

183 Interview with Bill Sims, Harlem Street Singer, 01:12:55.

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