Topic: Children of Zion

[Mr.OMuck]

I didn't want this day, Rev. Gary Davis' birthday,  to go unacknowledged by me so I did this quiet version of Rev.Davis' great song so's not to disturb the neighbors here in the End of Days Hotel.

[Johnm]

That's a really nice rendition, Phil.  I know that song has special meaning for you, and your memories of Rev. Davis must really come on strong at such times ( or perhaps all the time).
All best,
Johnm

[Mr.OMuck]

Thanks John, yes that was one of the two songs that Rev.Davis sang on Pete Seeger's Rainbow Quest UHF TV show back in '65. Although I had heard some of his recordings, that was the first time I actually saw him and it was life changing for me.


I'm reading a book about the 1504 showdown between Leonardo & Michelangelo in the civic palace in Florence and it talks a lot about the strong desire and commercial necessity of an apprentice, in this case Leonardo, to outdo his master, in his case Verrochio.  Leonardo painted an Angel in a baptism of Christ altarpiece, assigned to Verrochio so beautiful, that his master who was primarily a sculptor anyway, never painted anything afterwards.


Of course of his many followers in painting none came close to equaling Leonardo until a Venetian twenty five years his junior named Giorgione appeared. Michelangelo also Leonardo's junior by two decades, acknowledged no master, though historical accounts have him clearly placed as an apprentice to the painter Ghirlandaio. While Michelangelo had vast numbers of admirers and followers, not even the greatest of these Tintoretto & ElGreco geniuses in their own right, approached the breadth of his genius. No one ever has, five hundred years later.


In Music there is no second to Bach and none really to Mozart or Beethoven though the last two had myriad followers and imitators.


I think "our" Rev. Davis , who probably has more imitators and admirer's than any other musician in this genre with the possible exception of Robert Johnson, also stands as an unique and inimitable artist. Much as I applaud the efforts of people like Stephan Grossman, Ernie Hawkins, Jorma Kaukonen, Andy Cohen, Frankie Basile, and even me, to perform or disseminate his music, all of us fall very very far from the mark. He really cannot
be equalled let alone surpassed. The focus on his guitar work, in isolation, is, musically and artistically an error (excepting for his instrumentals obviously), and his voice, a great one, and his manner of singing, also great, are inimitable and when put together with his instrumental genius, present an artist of the greatest historical importance. I hope one day to hear him spoken of in the same company as Hiefitz, Gould, Horowitz, Marion Anderson, Stravinsky, Picasso, Matisse, Joyce, Nabokov, or even Bob Dylan, as a supreme twentieth century master.

[blueshome]

A fitting tribute. Thanks Phil

[uncle bud]

Hey Phil, quiet Children of Zion works too! Sounds great. One day I will learn this and it's gonna be a helluva day.

Was this a song you learned directly from Rev. Davis? It's hard to wrap my mind around that. "OK kid, today you will learn Children of Zion."

I love the version from Pete Seeger's Rainbow Quest. It is probably the performance I have watched most of anything I have.

[Mr.OMuck]

Yes Andrew Children of Zion was one that I asked Rev. Davis to teach me. One day when you're in NY i'll let you listen to the recording of the lesson, the 17 year old me trying to play along with Gary Davis,,,,it actually isn't close to being the most difficult of his songs, he told me that the song was 500 years old!

[frankie]

It's difficult in its own way - and wonderfully done here. Hat's off to you, Phil! Trascendent!