Biography

For more information email info@basinstreetrecords.com or visit Basin Street Records AirplayDirect homepage.

Davell Crawford is a passionate keyboardist, vocalist, composer and arranger. He can always be relied on for bringing deeply felt emotion and energy to every endeavor. That spirit prevails on My Gift To You, an ambitious, dramatically arranged and meticulously produced album born out of love. The wonderful quandary that runs through Crawford’s original works and the covers that he carefully selected to include is that it’s never absolutely clear whether his longing is for a place, a lover or perhaps both. He expresses the ache quietly on his beautiful ballad, “Until I See You in A While,” initially accompanied only by his piano. “It won’t be long until I get home, until we laugh and sing and play a brand new song,” he promises.

Home, be it New Orleans, where Crawford grew up, Louisiana, where he was born or the dear friends who beckon, pulls at his heart just as it has done for all of those who endured the separateness forced on them by Hurricane Katrina’s devastating aftermath. “I’ve made the quietness my new home,” he offers on his brilliant, self-penned, highly orchestrated “Stranger in My Own Home.” Crawford introduces himself and the album in an epic manner on his celebratory “Creole Man.” Lyrically and instrumentally, it speaks of Louisiana’s mix of heritages that contribute and continue to influence local music. “I come from foreign lands to spread the news,” Crawford exultantly sings on this elaborately arranged song that incorporates Native American and African drumbeats. Crawford’s abilities as a lyricist and storyteller shine on this masterpiece as he makes reference to Louisiana’s French ancestry, Congo Square, where on Sundays slaves were allowed to maintain their African drumming culture, and second line parades that continue the heritage. It fittingly concludes with Crawford returning to his hometown of New Orleans by laying down some essential piano trills. They stand as a signature of the city and its legendary pianists – Tuts Washington, Fats Domino, James Booker, Professor Longhair, Dr. John, Huey Smith – who helped create and keep that sound alive. Crawford is definitely in that number. “I am the Creole man, I come to you today with words of love. I am the Creole man, I give to you my gifts, I give my hands...”

Crawford, the grandson of the great James “Sugar Boy” Crawford of “Jock-A-Mo” fame, made his first public appearance at the early age of seven playing favorite tunes from the likes of Ray Charles on a piano that belonged to the telescope guy outside of New Orleans’ famous Cafe du Monde where he’d go each Monday with his grandmother. While still a youngster, he made an impression on this city’s gospel community when, at just 10 years old, he became the accompanist to the St. Peter Claver Catholic Church choir. By the time he was 11, his talents were utilized by the St. Joseph Baptist Church where he became the choir director over the youth and young adult choruses. While renowned as a jazz, R&B, blues and funk musician, he continues performing in gospel, and those roots emerge in most endeavors. It’s heard in his effective use of call and response with his back-up vocalists including the members of his longtime handpicked collaborators The Davell Crawford Singers. At all times Crawford hears his vision just as anyone standing in front of a vocal ensemble must do. In the recording studio he would stop and say, “somebody get Wolfman {guitarist Walter “Wolfman” Washington}. I need him right here,” just for the perfect sound. “I can’t run away from Christian, spiritual or gospel music,” Crawford concedes. “In fact, you could look at this as a gospel album. Gospel is the truth. The whole album is the truth; every word on it is the truth. This is an album about Louisiana; this is an album about New Orleans, and this is an album about the people, my people, and their feelings and experiences. It is the gospel of my life, my friends and family - your friends and family. This is transparent as to what we’ve gone through.” Considering those who surrounded Crawford in the making of My Gift to You, it could also be deemed a family album. The core of the band features Crawford’s cousin, the exceptional, up-and-coming drummer Joe Dyson. Crawford considers brothers bassist Mark Brooks, who he met decades ago through their mutual activity in gospel, and guitarist Detroit Brooks like his uncles or sometimes even his own brothers. He says that percussionist Bill Summers of the Headhunters’ fame simply “adopted” him at their very first meeting. “He just loved Davell Crawford,” he adds with a laugh. “Primarily, when you talk about family it is, of course, your bloodline. But for us in New Orleans, we’re all one big happy family.”

The branches of the family tree extend beyond the rhythm section to include a bevy of guest artists who appear on the disc. They include fellow keyboardist/vocalist Mac Rebennack a.k.a. Dr. John, who was among many who kept an eye on Crawford during his budding career and is heard on two cuts. “Going Back to Louisiana,” which is a nod to Dr. John’s own swayin’ “Goin’ Back to New Orleans,” teams Crawford’s spectacular, trill-filled acoustic piano with the good doctor’s gritty vocals. New Orleans’ style of rhythm and blues remains alive and soulful in Crawford on this cut and in this city that never gave up on its good times feel. Crawford perpetuates the sound and essence of the Big Easy writing verses such as, “Life we live by the moonlit skies, the life we live for fun.” Dr. John is back to add a bit more swamp to “River,” a song by the iconic, Roberta Flack, Crawford’s godmother. This “River,” which when it comes to New Orleans means the mighty Mississippi, meanders through some unusual territory traveling a modern jazz route with saxophonists Donald Harrison and Clarence Johnson and ending with a hip detour into bounce with phenom Big Freedia the ‘Queen Diva.’

Amidst the wealth of exceptional original material from Crawford’s pen live several well chosen covers. For the first time, he went to a tune that for years he avoided, James Booker’s classic “Junco Partner Cud’in Joe.” Until recent years and despite numerous requests, he even declined to play the song live because, he says, it spoke of drugs and their associated life style. “About three years ago, I said, ‘Let me dissect this song, take a closer look at it. Actually listen to the words and the story.’ And I did and I started doing it. I was 14 years old getting requests to do this song, so of course, throughout my transitional period I’ve had a lot of time to realize this song’s not talking about me at all. I’ve never had an issue with drugs of any kind - just never embraced that life, thank God. I just didn’t want that sort of stuff anywhere around me. The song is what it is – it’s a testimony, it’s a story. A story of someone’s life experience. And I’d like to think that I’m some sort of a storyteller.” Crawford instinctively reinvented “Junco Partner Cud’in Joe,” stripping and slowing it down and making it feel more youngish, urban contemporary but still even more regretful. As he strategically places down some heartfelt piano runs and moaning vocals, the guitar of the always-tasty Walter “Wolfman” Washington accentuates the emptiness. Crawford brilliantly transforms this exceptional material as few or anyone else could. It stands as an embodiment of Booker whose uniqueness, like Crawford’s, came from supreme talent and soul. While Crawford’s vocals express a certain sultriness on “Junco Partner Cud’in Joe,” the next cut, Billy Joel’s more modern “The River of Dreams,” finds him flying high in mood and vocally employing his upper register. The trickle down of the melody puts his great range on display. Crawford takes it out in his own style. The arrangements for the background vocalists stylistically give the tune an African tinge that is reminiscent of a group like Ladysmith Black Mambazo and suddenly the river becomes the Nile or the Gambia.

The album’s “special guests” list, which includes jazz trumpeters Nicholas Payton and Marlon Jordan and roots-oriented percussionist Geechie Johnson, shows how deep Crawford tapped into New Orleans’ bountiful musical network. Beyond the musicians, he also had longtime associate, engineer David Farrell behind the console. Observing their interaction and the resulting sound made it clear that he and Crawford shared a deep understanding.

The Basin Street Records label shouts New Orleans with its stable of local artists who have enjoyed the closeness and the kinship of the Crescent City music community. It’s a warm spot for Crawford. “We feel like we are family,” says Crawford who had artists like vocalists Lady B.J. Crosby and Charmaine Neville arriving at the studio with armloads of hot, homemade food. “We fuss, we fight, we care for each other, we cuss each other out, we praise each other and we think about each other,” Crawford explains. “That’s family. They respect the way that I function. They respect the way that I live and breathe, my remoteness, and privacy. They respect the process in which and how I create, the way that I talk or administrate or delegate. Having family and friends around me grants me as much freedom as I need or want in order to be myself.” Trumpeter Clyde Kerr Jr., an educator at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (NOCCA) when Crawford was a student, was quick to point out that the teachers at the noted school knew that the young pianist was a special student and needed a free rein. His talent and, yes, genius demanded that they give Crawford what he needed and stand back.

That philosophy has been carried out by all of those involved with My Gift To You, an album that moves with free will. Crawford admits that his detour into Southwest Louisiana on his original country tune, “Don’t Ever Be Blue” might surprise some. And few would associate Crawford with his featured guest here, Cajun fiddler/accordionist Steve Riley. It’s a beauty that could send Crawford down the trails that launched Aaron Neville on the country and western roads with “Grand Tour” or the great R&B artist Johnny Adams’ crossing over into the genre with “Release Me.” “I’m just revealing some things that have been a part of my musical world since I was a child,” he explains, mentioning some of his longtime country and bluegrass favorites like Hazel Dickens, Dolly Parton and Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, and Kenny Rodgers. “I grew up listening to tons of country and I’ve always loved it. I still do very much. Writing ‘Don’t Ever Be Blue’, was very easy for me - very natural.” With his immense talent and experience in any number of genres, Crawford could have released a jazz album, a rhythm and blues album, a gospel album, a funk album or a blues album. And next time he just might. For this project, he decided to combine all of those styles in offering a very personal expression of Louisiana music as a tribute to its richness and its residents. “I figured I’d dedicate this album to New Orleans and to Louisiana so that the people, my people, can continue to heal and reminisce in a good way,” Crawford explains, referring particularly to the trauma experienced by so many following Hurricane Katrina. “In various ways people need to be reminded of some things that weren’t so good for them prior to August 29, 2005, that they can currently live with the fact that through it all they are still blessed – that things are getting better, that things have gotten better and that better things will continue to sprout and blossom for the better. My music, but mainly this album, is whatever it is for whoever needs it.” The lyric “I can’t find my way home” is a sentiment so familiar, so crucial to those who were and have been thrust from familiar realms to those unknown. The sadness that Crawford brings to the song, “I Can’t Find My Way Home,” written and made famous by Steve Winwood and Blind Faith, is crushing. There is a time to cry just as there is time to celebrate as Crawford pays a funkified tribute to a New Orleans favorite Frankie Beverly by including his and Maze’s hit, “Southern Girl.”

Many have referred to Davell Crawford as the Piano Prince of New Orleans, a title he shunned for many years because of its association with James Booker. Another master of the piano, the late great Eddie Bo of “Check Mr. Popeye” fame once told him, “You are the Piano Prince too.” Bo rightfully introduced Crawford with the regal title each time he introduced him. Others encouraged Crawford by reminding him that, unlike a king, there is more than one prince. “At this point it is there,” accepts Crawford of the title. Davell Crawford is indeed our Piano Prince of New Orleans. As heard on My Gift To You, he powerfully reigns with sophisticated style, spirituality, soulfulness, sincerity and the blessing of genius with which he is endowed.

On My Gift to You, Davell Crawford, who boasts one foot in the past and one foot squarely in the here-and-now, generously shares his huge musical talent, inspiration, compassion and love of the place where his soul was born and of those who nurtured it. For this musical milestone, the one-of-a-kind vocalist and keyboardist gathered together those people who’ve touched his life to join him on this multi-faceted journey. The self-penned masterpiece “Ode To Louisiana” is an emotional, musical voyage that, as he hauntingly sings accompanied by a 19-piece orchestra at the album’s finale, will one day find him back home. “Louisiana, I love you for keeping me so long. I promise never to forget you… and I promise to someday come home.”

- Geraldine Wyckoff, Music Journalist


TRACK LISTING
1. Creole Man (5:39)
2. River / White Socks and Drawers (feat. Donald Harrison, Jr., Dr. John & Big Freedia The Queen Diva)(5:41)
3. Junco Partner Cud'in Joe (6:10)
4. The River of Dreams (feat. Donald Harrison, Jr.) (4:06)
5. Fire and Rain (feat. Nicholas Payton) (5:42)
6. Southern Nights / Many Rivers to Cross (5:02)
7. Don't Ever Be Blue (feat. Steve Riley) (4:37)
8. Louisiana Sunday Afternoon (feat. Bobbi Humphrey) (5:06)
9. Southern Girl (4:32)
10. Southern Woman (Ain't Nothin' Like A) (4:12)
11. Stranger In My Own Home (feat. Nicholas Payton) (5:40)
12. Until I See You In A While (4:17)
13. Going Back to Louisiana (feat. Dr. John & The Davell Crawford Singers) (5:09)
14. Can't Find My Way Home (4:51)
15. Ode to Louisiana (3:17)

PERSONNEL
Davell Crawford - Vocals and Piano
Mark Brooks - Bass
Joseph Dyson, Jr. - Drums

FEATURING
Big Freedia, Donald Harrison, Jr., Bobbi Humphrey, Dr. John, Nicholas Payton, Steve Riley, Walter "Wolfman" Washington, and the Davell Crawford Singers

ALSO FEATURING
Detroit Brooks, Bernard Grobman, Clarence Johnson III, Norwood 'Geechie' Johnson, Marlon Jordan, Bill Summers, Derwin 'Big D' Perkins, June Yamagishi and many others.

CREDITS
Conceptualized, Written, Arranged, Produced and Purr-formed by: Davell Crawford for Soulspel Music

Executive Producer: Mark Samuels

Recorded October 2011 - August 4, 2012 at The Music Shed, New Orleans, LA, Fitchfield Studios, New Orleans, LA and Dockside Studio, Maurice, LA

Engineered By: David Farrell
Mastering: Vlado Meller

Dedicated to the memory of Minister David Cole, lll

MANAGEMENT:
Roberta Flack and Suzanne M. Koga manager@davellcrawford.com

BOOKING:
Wenig Lamonica and Associates, Paul Lamonica
914-631-6500 paul@wlatalent.com

EUROPEAN BOOKING:
LMI Productions, Xavier Baron
+33622023781 xpbaron@gmail.com

Graphic design and manufacturing: Diana Thornton, www.crescentmusic.com

Tour Dates

Davell Crawford Bio
The genius of Davell Crawford arises from his ability to play and sing the music of his passion—the music of his life. The New Orleans keyboardist, vocalist, composer and arranger soaked up the surrounding rhythms and harmonies that were his deep musical roots and nurtured his natural talent.

Acclaimed as the “Piano Prince of New Orleans,” Crawford brings equal exuberance to both modern and classic jazz, rhythm and blues, funk, blues, gospel, soul, pop, American folk and touches of country-western. Growing up in New Orleans and presently residing there and in New York City plus spending many youthful days in Southwest Louisiana, Crawford's influences run the gamut from Fats Domino to Sarah Vaughan, to Patsy Cline and even Liberace. In the tradition of those from the Crescent City who came before him, Crawford also believes in the art of entertainment. He'll get up from the piano, move to the apron of a stage, prance, joke and make folks feel at home.

As a child, Crawford attended both Baptist and the Catholic churches. He watched the pipe organist so attentively that when he first sat in front of the impressive instrument he already knew the function of the stops and pedals. The organ at his church was the first he ever played and throughout his life he's continued to man the organ in both church and club settings. The prowess he developed is best exemplified on his 1998 Rounder Records release, the swinging, soulful and funky, The B-3 & Me. Tellingly, it includes two Ray Charles hits: “I Can't Stop Loving You” and “Hallelujah I Just Love Her So.” At age seven, Crawford, who has often been compared to the great Ray Charles, made his first public appearance playing his favorite tunes from the master on a piano outside of New Orleans' famous coffee stand, Café du Monde. Backed by quintets, big bands and on occasion orchestras, he's also paid tribute to Charles at several outstanding shows around the world. His 2005 tribute to Ray Charles when he assembled some of New Orleans’ finest players to form the Davell Crawford Orchestra, has been noted as "One of The Best Concerts Ever".

At just 10 years old, Crawford made an impression on the New Orleans gospel community by taking on the position of accompanist to the St. Peter Claver Catholic Church choir. By the time he was 11, his talents were utilized by the St. Joseph Baptist Church where he became the youth choir director, pianist and organist to the sanctuary and men’s choruses. Since then Davell has traveled the world conducting choral workshops and making appearances in gospel music. Throughout his career he's also lead a host of award winning gospel ensembles. He chose the 'creme de la cream' of New Orleans gospel vocalists to form The Davell Crawford Singers, whose members are spread from the East to West coasts, while the core members remain in New Orleans. They continue to reunite today and are heard on his latest, gripping CD, My Gift To You, his first on the Basin Street Records label.

Gospel is at the heart of everything that Crawford does. Davell is the godson of the iconic Roberta Flack and the grandson of the great vocalist/pianist/composer James “Sugar Boy” Crawford of “Jock-A-Mo” fame giving reason for the honesty, passion, and ample rhythm and blues that also fills his soul. Crawford can—and has—thrown down all night R&B concerts and parties jumpin' with tunes from the likes of pianists Fats Domino, Professor Longhair, James Booker and Huey “Piano” Smith. Crawford is definitely in that number as he carries the New Orleans piano legacy along with the complete American Roots legacy.

A softer, quieter side of Davell Crawford is revealed when, as heard on his 1999 release, Love Like Yours and Mine, he slips comfortably into his jazz mode on such classics as “Fly Me to the Moon.” His tenderness and informed jazz sensibilities shine with every note when Crawford approaches the standards. Often, he'll be in a trio or quartet setting behind the grand piano or standing at center stage with only the microphone and the trio backing him for an evening of classic or modern jazz.

Then again, he might don a silly wig and an eye patch in honor of the late great James Booker and take the house down by emanating his fellow pianist's eclectic, frequently elegant panache. Crawford is also fully versed in the traditional jazz songbook of New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz. A fact that will be confirmed if you are lucky enough to experience a performance by Davell Crawford and His Creole Jazz Men of New Orleans. He's also been known to make special rare appearances at the music's landmark, Preservation Hall.

With his immense talent and experience, the pianist and vocalist could have chosen his next release to be in any number of genres. On his latest, meticulously produced album, My Gift To You, Crawford remarkably embraces the full spectrum of his interests and influences as he reaches into his rich bag of resources and natural abilities. On the disc, just as he has throughout the world during his decades-long career, Crawford celebrates his musical roots and becomes their ambassador. As the Prince of New Orleans joyfully expresses on the opening track of My Gift To You: “I am the Creole man, I come from foreign lands to spread the news...” He also expresses, just as momentously, on the closing track, "Louisiana, I love you for all you've given to me, I promise never forget you as I travel o've the stormy sea."

Davell Crawford’s My Gift To You was released June 11, 2013 on Basin Street Records.