Biography

RADIO PROMOTION By Art Menius Radio
art@artmenius.com https://artmeniusradio.com

This compilation, set up in AirPlay Direct as set 1 and set 2, is a sort of Festschrift, a work done in honor of a master. The master is Rev. Gary Davis (1896-1972). A school of music unto himself, he achieved a breakthrough in the early 1960s when Peter Paul and Mary ascribed their version of IF I HAD MY WAY to him. Davis played piano rags and orchestral pieces on the guitar, shouted gospel numbers in the street for forty years, and taught more than a thousand people, one-on-one, over seventy years! Many of those he taught went on to professional careers in music; and most all of his students, grand-students and now great-grand-students, are teachers in his style as well. All of the performers on this CD either learned from him directly, or from someone who did.
Featured on this CD are some of the more notorious folkies who helped us liberate the Sixties. Dave van Ronk, Maria Muldaur and of course, Peter Paul and Mary. Underneath all those notorious folkies are soldiers of the Folk Song Revival, who play this stuff because it tickles them to do so, and they do it strongly. Rolly Brown does a masterful job on South Carolina Rag, a piece Willie Walker taught Davis around 1904. And between the two of them, Ari Eisinger and Jack Dialesandro reconstruct the only Blues 78 Rev. Davis cut, note for note. Davis's influence in Canada is represented here by Ken Whiteley and Penny Lang, while John Cephas and Phil Wiggins tear up Davis's version of Twelve Gates to the City. Other players- Ernie Hawkins, Rick Ruskin, Bill Ellis, Mitch Greenhill, Jerry Ricks, Ian Buchanin, Mary Flower and Perry Lederman all studied with Davis, while Ellen Britten and Eric Noden learned respectively from Benjy Aronoff, and from me.

This album, with the exception, due to licensing issues, of track 2 "South Carolina Rag" and track 3 "Rag, Mama Rag", was previously released in 2005 on the Memphis label Inside Sounds. Track 2 on this re-issue is Rolly Brown's cover version of the Willie Walker tune, and track 3 "Cross and Evil Woman Blues" done by Jack Dialesandro, is a substitution for Blind Boy Fuller's "Rag, Mama, Rag.

Gary Davis Style - Set2
https://airplaydirect.com/music/GaryDavisStyle-VariousArtists-set2/