Dom Flemons: “Saddle It Around” by Rev. Gary Davis скачать в хорошем качестве

Dom Flemons: “Saddle It Around” by Rev. Gary Davis

This performance is part of our online series: Reverend Gary Davis: In Search of the Harlem Street Singer. The New York Guitar Festival invited a dozen of our favorite artists to explore the music of the blind blues musician Reverend Gary Davis. Rev. Gary Davis performed on the streets of Harlem from the late 1940s until his death in 1972. He is one of those curious figures in music history who should be famous, but who’s also a lot better known than you might think. Overcoming poverty, racial discrimination and blindness, Davis made influential recordings and festival appearances, and his songs have been covered by The Rolling Stones, The Grateful Dead, Peter Paul & Mary, and Bob Dylan. Davis himself recorded as Blind Gary Davis and Rev. Gary Davis – he was ordained as a minister in the 1930s – and the two names seem to reflect the two halves of his personality.  Religious imagery fills his songs, and his version of the blues is heavily colored by the sounds of early gospel music.  But his guitar picking had a strong ragtime feel, and Mr. Davis was known to be, shall we say, a very secular guy when Mrs. Davis wasn’t around.  We know this because for most of the 60s and until his death in 1972, his Harlem apartment became a pilgrimage site for dozens of young guitarists eager to learn from someone who had lived the blues and played them from birth.  David Bromberg, Stefan Grossman, Dave Van Ronk, and Bob Weir are just some of the many students who left his apartment with new skills and often colorful, and occasionally off-color, stories.  Dom Flemons refers to himself as an “American songster,” and for good reason. The Grammy-winning banjo, guitar, bones, fife, and harmonica player – and former member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops – has a winning on-stage personality and a repertoire of over a century of American vernacular songs: old-time, ragtime, early jazz, minstrel songs, string band music and more.  The NYGF and the performing artists are asking viewers to donate to MusiCares. Learn more about the charitable foundation of The Recording Academy’s MusicCares COVID-19 Relief Fund, and donate to help the music community affected by the pandemic, here:  www.grammy.com/musicares/get-help/musicares-coronavirus-relief-fund Full schedule: Rosanne Cash & John Leventhal - Monday, May 4 Amythyst Kiah - Tuesday, May 5 Fantastic Negrito -Wednesday, May 6 Bill Frisell - Thursday, May 7 Dom Flemons - Friday, May 8 Sonia de los Santos - Saturday, May 9 Jorma Kaukonen - Sunday, May 10 Kaia Kater - Monday, May 11 Brandon Ross - Tuesday, May 12 Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams -Wednesday, May 13 Warren Haynes - Thursday, May 14 Larkin Poe - Friday, May 15 A statement from Dom Flemons: "Shortly after the release of my album Dom Flemons Presents Black Cowboys, a folk DJ friend from Canada sent me a show he had done on cowboys of color which included a wide variety of music from all over the world. One of the tracks featured on the program was “Saddle It Around” by Reverend Gary Davis. I’ve been a big fan of Reverend Gary Davis since I first heard him on the double LP Greatest Folk Singers of the 60s.  I’ve listened to many of his records and have always been in awe of his style and technique as well as his uninhibited singing voice. As Rev. Davis was an ordained minister, he did not make a habit of playing secular material in public or in concert but only in the privacy of his home. Researching the track “Saddle It around”, I found it had come from a recent album named In Church and At Home released by one of Davis‘s most prominent students Stefan Grossman. Having worked with Stefan Grossman before I gave him a call and asked about the song.  He mentioned that Davis was sort of an open book when it came to his music off stage.  When he was reminded of a song he would play it and would recall the situations where he learned it. “Saddle It Around” is a song that came to mind after Davis had heard Mississippi John Hurt play in concert during Hurt’s first trip to New York City in the 1960’s for the Friends of Old Time Music concert series. When Stefan asked about Hurt’s song “Spike Driver Blues”, Davis mentioned that the song Mississippi John played was in the “old time picking style” like he learned back in South and North Carolina as a boy. He learned “Saddle It Around” when he was a child from a performing duo Clara and Crete Fowles.  This is one of only a few songs that Davis played in this old time style.  I have to thank Stefan Grossman for not only recording the song originally but for also providing me with an additional recording of Davis reciting the words to the song and an extensive interview about his life."  ~ Dom Flemons, The American Songster #NYGF2020 #HarlemStreetSinger #ReverendGaryDavis