The blues with Guy Davis

Davis is appearing at the Astor theatre 8 p.m. Nov. 12.

Whether Guy Davis is appearing on “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” or nationally syndicated radio programs such as Garrison Keillor’s, “A Prairie Home Companion” in front of 15,000 people on the Main Stage of a major festival, or teaching an intimate gathering of students at a Music Camp, Guy feels the instinctive desire to give each listener his ‘all.’ His ‘all’ is the Blues.

Guy can tell you stories of his great-grandparents and his grandparents, their days as track linemen, and of their interactions with the infamous KKK. He can also tell you that as a child raised in middle-class New York suburbs, the only cotton he’s picked is his underwear up off the floor.

He's a musician, composer, actor, director, and writer. But most importantly, Guy Davis is a bluesman. The blues permeates every corner of Davis' creativity.

Throughout his career, he has dedicated himself to reviving the traditions of acoustic blues and bringing it to as many ears as possible through the material of the great blues masters, African American stories, and his own original songs, stories and performance pieces.

His influences are as varied as the days. Musically, he enjoyed such great blues musicians as Blind Willie McTell (and his way of story telling), Skip James, Manse Lipscomb, Mississippi John Hurt, Elizabeth Cotton, and Buddy Guy, among others. It was through Taj Mahal that he found his way to the old time blues. He also loved such diverse musicians as Fats Waller and Harry Belafonte.

Davis' creative roots run deep. Though raised in the New York City area, he grew up hearing accounts of life in the rural south from his parents and especially his grandparents, and they made their way into his own stories and songs. Davis taught himself the guitar (never having the patience to take formal lessons) and learned by listening to and watching other musicians. One night on a train from Boston to New York he picked up finger picking from a nine-fingered guitar player.

Looking for more ways to combine his love of blues, music, and acting, Davis created material for himself. He wrote "In Bed with the Blues: The Adventures of Fishy Waters" - an engaging and moving one-man show. The Off-Broadway debut in 1994 received critical praise from the New York Times and the Village Voice.

Davis also performed in a theatre piece with his parents, actors/writers Ruby Dee and the late Ossie Davis, that was entitled "Two Hah Hahs and a Homeboy," staged at the Crossroads Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey in the spring of 1995. Of Davis' performance, one reviewer observed that his style and writing "sounds so deeply drenched in lost black traditions that you feel that they must predate him. But no, they don't. He created them."

In fact, there are many notables in the entertainment world who call themselves Guy Davis fans including Jackson Browne, Maya Angelou, and Jessica Lange, who had Guy perform his take on the Bob Dylan song, “What’s a Sweetheart Like You (Doing in a Dump Like This)” for a special fundraiser she and her husband Sam Shepard organized for Tibetan Monks in Minnesota. Most recently Guy had the honour of appearing in the PBS special on Jazz and Blues artist, the late Howard Armstrong. And he was an honoured guest at the Kennedy Center Awards, in which his folks received their medals, alongside other recipients like Warren Beatty, Elton John and composer John Williams from the President of the United States.