Little Sammy Davis
Little Sammy Davis
Little Sammy Davis (November 28, 1928 - February 16, 2018) was an American blues musician based in New York's Hudson Valley. Although his musical career began in the 1940s, he was not widely known until the mid-1990s when he began working in radio, singing, playing live on tour, and recording studio albums.
Born in Winona, Mississippi, and raised in a one-room shack, Davis learned to play the harmonica at the age of eight. He eventually left home and settled in Florida, where he continued to play the blues in the Miami area while working in orange groves and sawmills to make ends meet.
Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Davis traveled with medicine shows and played with blues musicians like Pine Top Perkins, and Ike Turner. He spent a total of nine years on the road with Earl Hooker, including with the short-lived band of Hooker, Ike Turner, Pine Top Perkins, and Albert King, ending when the two titans of Blues Guitar came to blows, thus breaking up the band. Sammy and Earl recorded four sides for Rockin' Records in 1952 and 1953 (as Little Sam Davis).
In the late 1950s, Davis lived in Chicago, Illinois, performing with Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, and occasionally fronting Little Walter's Band, The Aces when Walter did not show. At some point, word had let out that "some guy looks and plays" just like Walter, and people THINK he IS Little Walter". One night as Sammy performed on stage, Sammy spotted a Policeman at the back of the club, accompanied by Hooker. Walter and the officer waited for Sammy to get through with his set and when Sammy got off of the stage, he was arrested on the spot. To quote Sammy:" Walter was a good guy and told me that yes, you do indeed sound just like me but you can't be going around letting people think you ARE me". Sammy was locked up, and spent a night in jail before Walter dropped the charges, leaving Davis and Walter friends for the rest of Walter's all-too-short and tragic life. He later married and settled in Poughkeepsie, New York, during which time he recorded a session for Trix Records that resulted in one "45" single. After the sudden death of his wife in 1970, Davis stopped playing and dropped out of the music scene for the next two decades. No one knew if Sammy was alive or even dead.
In 1990, local DJ Doug Price was getting a haircut at a barber shop in Poughkeepsie, NY when he heard rumors that Davis was sitting in at a Blues Jam at the " Side Tracked Inn". Price made mention of Davis's story and played some of his old recordings on WVKR. Then One night, Brad Scribner was hired to play drums at the Jam when Sammy got up to play and was amazed at what he saw and heard. Brad immediately came home to tell his brother Fred who had been supplying Blues Instrumentals for the Legendary Radio Shock Jock Don Imus and had been actively looking for a Singer to progress from background instrumentals to being a Featured Guest on Imus' Show. Fred Scribner arranged to bring Little Sammy Davis and Midnight Slim into Tom Veneble's Recording Studio in Walden, NY to record a fresh batch of material including the Classic Howlin' Wolf song, "Sitting On Top Of The World". Imus interviewed Sammy and Fred via telephone, and they were an instant hit and subsequently invited Davis and Scribner to perform on his show, "Live in the Studio" at WFAN Radio, NY. The New York Daily News proclaimed the very next day:" Little Sammy Davis and Fred Scribner score on the Imus Show". Sammy and Fred started to appear regularly, soon earning the title of " House Band" for the Imus in the Morning Show for years to come. Imus, in his trademark style, later quipped that Davis had "more harmonicas than teeth" and that Fred looked like a manager of an Ace Hardware Store.
Capitalizing on this Imus fame, Little Sammy Davis and Midnight Slim toured, playing the Best Blues Clubs, Colleges, and Blues Festivals on the East Coast and venturing out to the West Coast on occasion as radio and television stations( MSNBC ) around the United States joined on. In 1996 Davis released his first full-length album, "I Ain't Lyin for Delmark Records. The record was nominated for a W. C. Handy Award and earned Davis a "Comeback Artist of the Year award" from Living Blues magazine. Davis and Scribner released a second album, "Ten Years and Forty Days" on their own Label, Fat Fritz Records. As "House Band " for the Imus Show, they were called in each fall for an annual Radio/Telethon for the "Tomorrows Children's Fund", benefiting children stricken with cancer. As the years went by, other charitable organizations came on board such as the S.I.D.S Foundation and finally, the Imus Ranch for children with terminal illnesses, ending their run when the World Trade Center was destroyed on 9/11, which shadowed over the "Winter Atrium" in the World Financial Center where these Radio/Telethons were held sharing the infamous "garage" where the deadly bomb exploded, allowing the band to escape the scene with only minutes to spare.
Around this time, a former Guitar Student of Scribner's, John Rocklin, brought Sammy up to see Legendary Drummer/Vocalist: Levon Helm. Levon seemed to fall in love with Sammy immediately. Davis began Performing with Levon Helm for performances at Helm's home in Woodstock and on tour with Levon Helm and the Barn Burners. In 2006 Sammy convinced Levon that his Guitarist, Fred Scribner would be the right choice for Guitar. Fred joined and the name of the band became the Levon Helm Band. Levon started having concerts at his home in Woodstock, NY leading to the release of "Midnight Ramble Volume 1".
In 2002 Arlen Tarlofsky produced and directed a documentary entitled, "Little Sammy Davis". The movie is a musical documentary that looks into the life and music of Sammy Davis. The documentary was the Jury Selection at the London Film Festival and the Woodstock International Film Festival, and it won the Audience Recognition Award at The AFI/SILVERDOCS Discovery Channel Documentary Film Festival.
In October 2008, after recording his third album, "Travelin' Man" with Scribner, Davis suffered a stroke. He recovered and was able to resume performing the following Spring. Since Sammy was no longer permitted to travel on the road, Levon offered Sammy and Fred the Opening Act slot every Saturday at the " Midnight Ramble " but Sammy suffered a second stroke within a year and was left partially paralyzed.
Davis resided in a nursing home rehab unit in Middletown, New York. He died in Middletown on February 16, 2018, at the age of 89.
(Little Sammy Davis at 5th Annual Poconos Blues Festival 1996)