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Well I had started that about the age of twelve... see my mother had a guitar, my father made her a present of a guitar, and he taught her a few chords, but I first started on a little outfit I made with a cigar box... I made a guitar with a cigar box, had peg keys, bored holes in the head, and I had uh... the strings graduated from fishing twine down on to thread - Johnny St. Cyr, guitarist for the Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers in an interview with Alan Lomax on how he learned to play guitar
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic. Chicago UP have updated their website concerning this book. Slowly inching its way to publication.....
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo19609757.html This has been forwarded to me. I'm guessing review copies have been circulated......
http://singout.org/2015/02/24/ian-zack-say-no-to-the-devil-the-life-and-musical-genius-of-reverend-gary-davis/ From the sing out review " [/size]but when it came to women, he was notorious. Waitresses at folk clubs steered clear of him. On a European tour in the sixties with Buffy Sainte-Marie, he took many occasions to touch her inappropriately. Zack dismisses it, saying that Buffy had no complaint, but it makes me wonder, did she have any other choice? It doesn?t seem like the reverend thought too much of women guitarists either, saying he didn?t like the playing of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a player also well-known as a mentor for many. Most, if not all, of his students were men." I'm very glad this book is finally seeing light. As for the Sing Out review......The reviewer, coming from a feminist perspective pronounces that RGD seemed to behave inappropriately with women and sites his well known Buffy St. Marie grope episodes. She doesn't however mention what a hellacious bitch his mother was, who in some versions of his blindness story threw lye in his face, and later abandoned him, so if we're going to do the useless gender blame dance, let's at least give credit where its due. I just had to "SING OUT" about that one! Well it's all publicity but look who heads the list of Davis students. I know, I know alpha order but...
http://pressblog.uchicago.edu/2015/02/26/every-student-who-studied-with-the-rev-gary-davis.html I've pre-ordered via Amazon UK who give a delivery date of 13 April. I'd also add Danny Hirsch who studied with Davis and was my second guitar teacher, and who fanned my Davis fever, and my erstwhile bandmate Mike Schwartz who after studying with Davis was the direct catalyst for both Ernie Hawkins and me to seek him out. There's also Mary Flower's ex husband who's name escapes me.
Google books UK have made the acknowledgements/introduction available plus various chapters in truncated form. I guess the same holds for Amazon US!
ScottN
Became available yesterday on Kindle for 10 bucks. I'm about a quarter of the way through it so far and am enjoying it. The writing style is infinitely better than the Lonnie Johnson bio that I finally got through. I would definitely give it a thumbs up so far.
Thanks, Scott This has been drawn to my attention. "pop matters"? Three screens of it.
http://www.popmatters.com/feature/191296-say-no-to-the-devil-the-life-and-musical-genius-of-rev.-gary-davis/P1/ Well I just learned that the Davis' lived for 16 years at 405 East 169th St. in the Bronx until 1960 which means I was living a mile and a quarter away in the same borough for six overlapping years. Signs and portents, signs and portents. I've also been reading the immense Van Gogh Biography that came out a few years back and its interesting to do a mental misery tally of these two artistic giants. There's no question that Davis lead the much harder much more impoverished life, but he had the satisfaction of living long enough to see his work honored and to reap some reward for his Genius.
Van Gogh of course did not. We know almost everything about how Van Gogh felt about things from the copious number of letters he left behind (mandatory reading for all Blues Lovers and all on line) and we can watch him describe his decent down the rabbit hole. Nobody thinks to question the mental health of Davis, though the current ideas about depression can hardly begin to encompass the real horrifically depressing circumstances he and his contemporaries often found themselves in. Both had a staggering degree of sheer will, demonstrated in the overcoming of their circumstances and internal demons. Both bequeathed the world a timeless, priceless artistic legacy.
Tags: Rev. Gary Davis
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