Sampson & Delilah I

Contact info:
Andy Cohen
twangoleum@outlook.com
901.232.6694

Songwriter: Gary Davis
Publisher & PRO: Downtown Music Services o/b/o Chandos Music Co and Budde Music Inc (ASCAP)

Release Date: March 15, 2024

Musicians:
Peter, Paul and Mary

Peter Yarrow - tenor vocals and acoustic guitar
Paul Stookey - baritone vocal and acoustic guitar
Mary Travers - contralto vocals

Manny Greenhill began managing Rev. Davis in 1957 and also handled the careers of many other people, including Joan Baez and Jesse “Lone Cat” Fuller. When Peter, Paul and Mary decided to put this signature tune of Rev. Davis’s on their first album, the royalty check was a great boon to him. At that time he and his wife, Sister Annie, were living in a shack between two tenements in a burnt-out section of Brooklyn. According to Peter, the Warner Brothers lawyers asked Davis “when he wrote this piece.” Davis replied that he didn’t write it (large collective gasp); rather, “it came to him as a manifestation of the Holy Spirit” (large collective sigh of relief). Warner Brothers gave him the royalty advance, and he bought a house with it in a nice section of Queens. Thank you, P, P & M, both for that, and for letting us use your version of the song for this CD, honoring one of the great masters. And thank you, Warner Brothers.