Sampson & Delilah II

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:

Mitch Greenhill - acoustic guitar and lead vocals
Mayne Smith - acoustic guitar and backing vocals

Mitch, Manny’s son, now runs Folklore Productions and its associated publishing operations, but he has been active both behind the scenes and in front of the curtain for as long as I can remember. I met him in 1963, and he was good then. Managed by Mitch’s dad, Davis was resident in his house off and on for years, and Mitch took full advantage. Mayne Smith, who plays Dobro here, and Mitch have been playing together for God knows how long as “Frontier”. This version of Samson is a bit different from Peter Paul & Mary’s, but both are based on Davis’s. Where P P & M’s version has a freedom song quality to it (think of the times) Mitch’s final verse, which Davis often left out, completes the biblical Samson story: he tears the building down after having been blinded and imprisoned. Mitch told me that he and Mayne do it this way, like the Staple Singers do, but adds that Gary used to sing the last verse as well sometimes. Pop Staples and Rev. Davis were good friends, and admirers of one another. For what it’s worth, the folklorist John Work collected fifty versions of this song around 1940, all now stored under the auspices of the American Folklife Center.