Description
Ordained Baptist minister Gary Davis hailed from Piedmont South Carolina and grew up playing the distinctive style of Piedmont blues. With the decline of the Southern blues scene, Rev. Gary moved to New York City. Initially, he made his living as a street musician and preacher. Rev. Gary Davis, the blind son of dirt-poor sharecroppers in South Carolina, went on to exert a major influence on the folk scene of the 1960s and the early rock scene of the 70s. Bob Dylan called him “one of the wizards of modern music” and for Alan Lomax, the folklorist, he was “one of the great geniuses of American instrumental music”
With the emergence of the Greenwich Village folk scene, Rev. Gary quickly became a mentor to a long list of well-known musicians from Dave Van Ronk to Bob Dylan. Over the next two decades, a number of guitarists found their way to him to study blues guitar and occasionally hear a little preaching. Davis’ compositions were picked up by the Grateful Dead, the Rolling Stones, Peter Paul & Mary and Dylan, among others.
