SOLD OUT…thank you…Friday, September 22, 7:30 Show (7 door): Guy Davis, American Roots Musician Tickets $23.50 Sold Out (drop by the store or call 541-345-8986 to reserve, or click on this link to order through our website: http://www.tsunamibooks.org/shop/davis-guy
About Guy Davis: http://guydavis.com/wp/
Guy Davis is a two-time, back-to-back Grammy nominee for Best Traditional Blues, a musician, Actor, Author, and Songwriter. Guy uses a blend of Roots, Blues, Folk, Rock, Rap, Spoken Word, and World Music to comment on, and address the frustrations of social injustice, touching on historical events, and common life struggles. His background in theater is pronounced through the lyrical storytelling of songs “God’s Gonna Make Things Over” about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, “Welcome to My World”, and “Got Your Letter In My Pocket”. His storytelling is sometimes painful, deep, and real, an earthy contrast to modern-day commercial music, meant to create thought, underlined by gentle tones from his guitar or banjo fingerpicking.
Guy sings, plays six and twelve string guitars, the five-string banjo, harmonica, and didgeridoo.
When asked about his experience as a performer, Guy has replied, “There is no tale so tall that I cannot tell it, nor song so sweet that I cannot sing it.”
His records, while terse and truthful, are softened by songs like “We All Need More Kindness In This World”, denoting lyrical inspiration from Pete Seeger’s “If I Had A Hammer”, then teased with lyrically strutting works nudged by Hip Hop and Honky Tonk, like “Kokomo Kidd”. The contrast between pieces provides a robust, balanced experience, while giving Guy and his audience a healthy outlet for frustration through song and dance.
Guy appeared with his parents, Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, in a show called “Two Hah-Hahs & A Homeboy”. Guy also starred in the Off-Broadway production of “Robert Johnson; Trick The Devil” at the New Federal Theater which earned him a “Keeping The Blues Alive” Award from The Blues Foundation. On Broadway, Guy was in the cast of the Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes play, “Mulebone”, which featured the music of Taj Mahal. And in 2009-2010, in a revival of “Finian’s Rainbow”, Guy undertook the role that was originated by one of his musical heroes, Sonny Terry, who created the role in the original 1947 production.
Guy has played alongside Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, Levon Helm, Dr. John, Kris Kristofferson, Buffy Saint-Marie, T-Bone Burnett, Taj Mahal, Keb Mo, John Hammond, John Sebastian, and John Denver. He has opened for, among others, Chuck Berry, Joan Armatrading, James Cotton, and B.B.King. He has performed in 48 of the 50 states, throughout most of Europe, Australia, Indonesia, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Canada, Greenland, The Shetland Islands, The Faroe Islands, and The UK. He’s been chased out of Red Square in Moscow for trying to sing, sung in Soviet Occupied East Berlin, and performed standing in front of an iceberg in Greenland.
His performances feature a mix of his original songs and cover songs by Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Mance Lipscombe, Blind Willie McTell, Leadbelly, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and many others. His admiration for antiquities parallels his love of music, “I like antiques and old things, old places, that still have the dust of those who’ve gone before us lying upon them.” Blowing that dust off just enough to see its beauty is something Guy has excelled at for over twenty-five years of songwriting and performing. like savoring the ghosts of old sounds while still enjoying modern music.
Guy is a songwriter greatly influenced by his love of theater and storytelling, who derives joy from touring and seeing people from all walks of life. His hope is to bring people together, with the commonality that we are all people regardless of class, race, or personal experience, a lesson he learned from his long time friendship with Pete Seeger. Guy feels that Pete’s greatest strength was his ability to bring total strangers together, and have them all singing harmony by the time they left at the end of the night.
ARTIST ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Nominations:
Grammys 60th & 64th (Best Traditional Blues Album / Sonny & Brownie’s Last Train and / Be Ready When I Call You, Best Traditional Blues Album)
Blues Foundation 2021 (Keeping The Blues Alive, Best Acoustic Album of the Year) Best Acoustic Artist of the Year, Best Instrumentalist)
Blues Award Nominations (About two dozen nominations) “Best Acoustic Blues Album”, “Best Traditional Blues Album”, “Best Blues Song” (“Waiting On the Cards to Fall”), “Best Acoustic Blues Artist
Discography *majority original songs*
1978: Dreams About Life (Folkways Records)
1993: Guy Davis – Live, 1993 (Self Released)
1995: Stomp Down Rider (Red House Records)
1996: Call Down the Thunder (Red House Records)
1998: You Don’t Know My Mind (Red House Records)
2000: Butt Naked Free (Red House Records)
2002: Give in Kind (Red House Records)
2003: Chocolate to the Bone (Red House Records)
2004: Legacy (Red House Records)
2006: Skunkmello (Red House Records)
2007: Guy Davis On Air (Tradition & Moderne)
2009: Sweetheart Like You (Red House Records)
2012: The Adventures of Fishy Waters (Smokeydoke Records)
2013: Juba Dance (Smokeydoke Records / DixieFrog Records)
2015: Kokomo Kidd (Smokeydoke Records / DixieFrog Records)
2017: Sonny & Brownie’s Last Train with Fabrizio Poggi (Smokeydoke Records)
2019: Gumbo, Grits & Gravy (Self Released)
2021: Be ready When I Call You (Smokeydoke Records)Guy has appeared on numerous compilation albums paying tribute to Bob Dylan, Nick Lowe, and Pete Seeger, and appeared on friends’ albums like Eric Bibb’s “Friends”, Otis Taylor’s “Recapturing the Banjo”, and Corey Harris’ “True Blues”. He appears on the soundtracks to “Beat Street” and “Finian’s Rainbow”.