Written By: Dan O'Donnell
Guy Davis is not just the quintessential traveling bluesman; he is a recognized master of The Art of The Blues by those who should know. Just 11 years after picking up his first guitar The Smithsonian Institution thought he was so good they signed him to record for them on their Folkways label, which emphasizes authentic blues performances. Since then he has performed on or issued nearly 40 albums, with countless covers of his tunes recorded by other bands.
He has played the part of Robert Johnson off-Broadway in ‘Trick the Devil,’ and has played the blues on Broadway in ‘Mulebone,’ which featured the music of Taj Mahal.
His roots to the blues and African-American community run deep. His parents, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, still reign as pre-eminent figures in the black entertainment community, not just for their on-screen portrayals (Ruby co-starred in “A Raisin in the Sun” and “The Jackie Robinson Story,” among many others) but for their civil rights activism and outspoken opposition to the McCarthy hearings.
The couple were awarded the National Medal of the Arts in 1995 and were recognized with Kennedy Center Honors in 2004. Though Ossie died in 2005 his memory lives on in “Fishy Waters,” whose title character hails from Waycross, GA—Ossie’s hometown.
The couple were friends with Martin Luther King and Malcolm X as well as many other prominent African-Americans from the national stage. Guy grew up hearing stories of life in the rural south from his father and his grandmother as well as his parents' houseguests--tales which have now become a part of the tapestry he weaves with his songs of hope, despair and joy.
Localmusicgear.com met with Guy on the set of his one man show at the Crossroads Theatre in New Brunswick, NJ—appropriately sharing names with the Robert Johnson blues song—to discuss his gear. And to hear the story of the man who became a blues master as well as composer, actor, instructor, world traveler and adventurer (he remains, to this day, the only blues player I have ever heard say, “I remember the first time I rode a dog sled…”).
His first encounter with a guitar was when he was five, Guy said. “When I was just a wee lad, my aunt Angelina, my mother’s sister, put an acoustic guitar across my lap after she played it. And I was so amazed, I stuck my hand into the sound hole and tried to pull the music out.” He said that he would listen to Angelina’s son, Brian, who fingerpicked the guitar and that led him to listen to other fingerpickers. Pete Seeger and Leadbelly were two of his early favorites.
Guy began taking banjo lessons when he was eight, but his life changed one day in 1967, when at the age of 16 he heard the sounds of two bluesmen who were already legends.
“The first electric guitar I saw played up close in front of me was by Buddy Guy--he was playing with Junior Wells. Buddy was playing a beautiful powder blue strat and Junior just sucked the air outta that harmonica,” Guy (Davis) said. “After seeing Buddy Guy play, I just had to have a guitar.”
“Right there on the Amtrak, I saw I could do that fingerpicking. So I practiced, and I went from picking with one finger and a thumb to two fingers and a thumb, to three fingers and a thumb,” Guy said. “That’s what gives me that Blind Blake sound.”
His first guitar, bought after seeing Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, was a Hagstrom 3. But he found that electric guitars didn’t give him the sound he wanted.
“I want the full sound because I like to be able to play where I don’t have to plug in,” Guy said. “I like to be able to play like when I was a kid, at summer camp you’d hear the counselors get out their acoustics, or people sitting on the front porch playing and talking.”
He says that whenever he’s on tour he takes a look at the pawnshops and music stores in the towns he passes through.
“Everywhere I go I look (for guitars) not only in music stores, I look in pawn shops, second hand stores,” Guy said. “I look just because I want to see. It’s like seeing pretty girls. I look because it’s fun.”
His acoustic guitars, of which he has an extensive collection that includes a custom built Carlo Greco 6-12 double-neck acoustic, have pickups on them now—Fishman bridge pickups with ‘tailpipes’ leading out the strap button. He is a Gibson devotee, but not because of any particular brand loyalty. Their sound just hits him in the right place.
“I don’t know what it is, there’s something big about the sound. Big and dependable, especially in the reissues they made in the ‘80s or ‘90s,’ he said slowly. “There’s something about Gibsons that works for me. I don’t have anything against Martins, I’m going to look into Guilds, but Gibsons really do it for me.”
Instruments used on his latest CD include a 2001 Gibson J-50 reissue named Nora (after his sister because, “she sings so sweet”), his main fingerpicking guitar, a 1997 Gibson J-45 (named Ruby, after his mom) and a 1968 12-string Gibson B-25-12 (named “Black Betty Bamalam”). He also uses a 1959 Gibson Southern Jumbo and a Guild 12-string as well as a Gibson-made Kalamazoo archtop from “the 30’s or 40’s” that he’s named Pamela Stradivarius II (Pamela Stradivarius I was a vintage Epiphone archtop).
“She’s carried me around a lot,” Guy said as he strummed Nora, the J-50 flattop. “One time I scraped the finish off this guitar and…I’m not sure what I was trying to prove, I wanted it to look less plastic. But it changed the sound, made it better. It made it so you could hear the wood of the guitar.”
He speaks like a structural engineer when he goes into the bracing techniques used on it.
He uses the B-25 12-string because it’s got a smaller body than most. “I generally prefer a smaller body on a 12-string because the sound washes around so much. I can get a better sound, and I can articulate better on a smaller body.”
He plays slide on both 6 and 12-string, coupled with his bouncing picking style and says he enjoys playing slide on a 12-string because “the 12 just gives you a texture that’s unbeatable.” His slides are typically cut brass pipe from a hardware store that he files smooth, though he did go through a period when he made his own glass slides from wine bottle necks.
“I actually cut them with a hack saw and filed them down. It worked okay, but I’m clumsy and I dropped ‘em and they’d break.” Then, echoing a blues song, he said with a smile, “I’d have to stay drunk just to keep slides around.” He often plays with his ring finger held on top of his slide (worn on his pinkie) when he plays, giving added definition to the notes.
He plays with Dunlop steel fingerpicks and a plastic thumb pick and has particular preferences about the strings he uses. His favorites are Dean Markley Blue Steel but he says he needs to use a .013” E string because “my touch on the guitar...I think I hit it kinda hard. And strings that are too light don’t give me the fullness that I want.”
He prefers nickel wound strings because “for some reason nickel seems to last me longer than the bronze round wounds.” He also uses a wound G-string because he says plain ones don’t intone correctly up the neck for him.
His harmonicas are all Hohner “Special 20” models which he plays, like his guitar, vigorously.
“I’ve played the Lee Oskars, but the reeds bend too easily,” Guy said. “But the tone I get out of the Special 20 is just so sweet, to me.”
He also uses a technique learned by horn players to hold notes longer called “circular breathing” when he plays harmonica, a technique he learned in Australia.
Though Guy is noted for his clean, traditional sound he does use effects sometimes. Not a high-tech gear rack, but old-school Boss stomp boxes: a tuner, an equalizer and a reverb/delay unit. Occasionally he will play live gigs through a Crate amp, but usually he just plugs into the DI box when he’s on the road.
When asked if he has advice for aspiring blues guitarists, he provided a simple answer.
“Use the lazy man’s system, use as little energy as possible” Guy said. “Get the biggest sound, but use the lazy man’s method. You can work up to more complicated things. Once you master the simple, the complex will follow.”
His guitar influences include Blind Blake and Muddy Waters, two blues legends, and Eric Bibb, an up and coming bluesman who is also a close friend. “Just like Hendrix set the bar in his day, Eric Bibb has set a bar for a sound that is so clear and clean.” He reserves his highest praise for Muddy Waters, because of his feel for the instrument.
“One of the most skillful touches is Muddy Waters. His touch was just so there. Just on the edge,” Guy reflected. “He was not a highly skilled guitar player, but he didn’t need to be. Combined with his voice, he was the party closer. When he came onstage everyone just put away their guitars.”
Guy says he is taking his listeners on a trip with his songs—a trip to simpler times and easier atmospheres.
“I do like to play the old style blues, and keep it old,” the 59 year-old guitarist said. “The music you hear on somebody’s porch, the songs from the past.” He adds that the instruments he uses are tools used to tell his stories of life using old blues songs played with a new perspective.
“I am a person who has stolen a great deal, and at the best, I earn what I steal,” Guy said. “They’ve got machines in Japan that can compose fugues now. Where does that leave us? The best we can do is take the art and make it better, make it as amazing as we can.”
In Guy's one-man show the character Fishy Waters is asked repeatedly, “What’s it like being a traveling bluesman, goin’ round and meetin’ all these people?” When he was asked that question, Guy smiled broadly.
For Ordering Information on “The Adventures of Fishy Waters: In Bed with the Blues,” or to find out when Guy will be appearing in your area, go to guydavis.com
Posted 02/2012
view this interviews photo album on flicker
For photography prints contact gusphoto@yahoo.com
view this interviews photo album on flicker
For photography prints contact gusphoto@yahoo.com
