Guy Davis
Guy Davis
Guy Davis (born May 12, 1952) is an American blues guitarist and banjo player, actor, and musician. He is the son of actors Ruby Dee and the late Ossie Davis.
Davis says his blues music is inspired by the southern speech of his grandmother. Though raised in the New York City area, he grew up hearing accounts of life in the rural south from his parents and especially his grandparents, and they made their way into his own stories and songs. Davis taught himself the guitar (never having the patience to take formal lessons) and learned by listening to and watching other musicians. One night on a train from Boston to New York he picked up finger picking from a nine-fingered guitar player. His first exposure to the blues was at a summer camp in Vermont run by Pete Seeger's brother John Seeger, where he learned how to play the 5-string banjo.
Throughout his life, Davis has had overlapping interests in music and acting. Early acting roles included a lead role in the 1984 film "Beat Street" opposite Rae Dawn Chong and on television as Dr. Josh Hall on "One Life to Live" from 1985 to 1986. Eventually, Davis had the opportunity to combine music and acting on the stage. He made his Broadway musical debut in 1991 in the Zora Neale Hurston/Langston Hughes collaboration "Mulebone", which featured the music of Taj Mahal.
In 1993, he performed Off-Broadway as legendary blues player Robert Johnson in "Robert Johnson: Trick the Devil". He received rave reviews and became the 1993 winner of the Blues Foundation's "Keeping the Blues Alive Award” presented to him by Robert Cray at the W.C. Handy Awards ceremony.
Davis creates his work looking for more ways to combine his love of blues, music, and acting, He wrote "In Bed with the Blues: The Adventures of Fishy Waters" -- an engaging and moving one-man show. The Off-Broadway debut in 1994 received critical praise from The New York Times and the Village Voice.
Davis' writing projects have also included a variety of theatre pieces and plays. "Mudsurfing", a collection of three short stories, received the 1991 Brio Award from the Bronx Council of the Arts. "The Trial", (later renamed, "The Trial: Judgment of the People"), an anti-drug abuse, one-act play that toured throughout the New York City shelter system, was produced Off-Broadway in 1990, at the McGinn Cazale Theater. Davis also arranged, performed, and co-wrote the music for an Emmy award-winning film, To Be a Man. In the fall of 1995, his music was used in the national PBS series, "The American Promise".
For the past two decades, Davis has concentrated much of his efforts on writing, recording, and performing music. In the fall of 1995, he released his Red House Records debut "Stomp Down Rider", an album that captured Davis in a stunning live performance.
Davis' next album, "Call Down the Thunder", paid tribute to the blues masters, but leaned more heavily towards his powerful originals. It too was named a top ten album of the year in the Boston Globe and Pulse, and Acoustic Guitar called it one of the “thirty essential CDs from a new generation of performers”.
Davis' third Red House disc, "You Don't Know My Mind", which includes backing vocals by Olu Dara, explodes with passion and rhythm, and displays Davis' breadth as a composer and powerhouse performer. It was chosen as ‘Blues Album of the Year’ by the Association For Independent Music (formerly NAIRD).
Of the fifth album, "Give In Kind", music critic Dave Marsh wrote, “Davis never loses sight of the blues as good time music, the original forum for dancing on top of one's sorrows. Joy made more exquisite, of course, by the sorrow from which it springs.”
"Chocolate to the Bone", Davis’ sixth album, followed, with more accolades and acclaim including a W.C. Handy award nomination for “Best Acoustic Blues Album”. Davis has been nominated for nine ‘Handy Awards’ over the years including for “Best Traditional Blues Album”, “Best Blues Song” (“Waiting On the Cards to Fall”), and as “Best Acoustic Blues Artist” two times. His latest album, Legacy, was picked as one of the Best CDs of the Year by National Public Radio (NPR), and the lead track on it, “Uncle Tom’s Dead” was chosen as one of the Best Songs of the Year.
Davis wrote a couple of songs and recorded with Dr. John for Whoopi Goldberg’s "Littleburg" series, and appeared and sang in "Jack's Big Music Show", both for the Nickelodeon network, Nick Jr.
More recently, Davis appeared in the PBS special on the late jazz and blues artist Howard Armstrong. He was an honored guest at the Kennedy Center Awards, at which they received their medals, alongside other recipients such as Warren Beatty, Elton John, and composer John Williams from the President of the United States.
In 2012 Davis released an audio play called "The Adventures of Fishey Waters: In Bed with the Blues". It is a compilation of "historical" tales in the form of a play accompanied by Davis in song.
- Davis has received three Blues Award nominations as well as the Foundation's "Keeping The Blues Alive" award in 1993 including:
- “Best Acoustic Album of the Year”
- “Best Acoustic Artist of the Year”
- “Best Instrumentalist”
- 1991 BRIO award
- 1993 AUDELCO Award for Best Actor
(Guy Davis at 16th annual Poconos Blues Festival 2007)