Guy Davis to perform at Towne Crier in Beacon
Guy Davis knows how to have fun. One of his favorite jokes as he tunes his guitar is, "Sorry, I'm having trouble with my G string."
But once he sinks into a song, the room is transported. "Playing is a personal thing that hits my soul," he says. "The music takes me on a trip to the country, where there's rivers, grass, rocks, trees; come with me, and I'm a happier camper."
Davis also travels back in time to a specific place, evoking the 1920s and 1930s Mississippi Delta blues and ragtime era, when guitarists mimicked the piano by playing multiple parts at a time using a thumb pick to drive the rhythm and either bare fingers or metal banjo picks to pluck the chords and melodic lines.
"People watched Blind Blake play and asked him, 'Where's the other guy hiding?'" Davis says.
The son of prominent actors and activists Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee — who befriended Pete Seeger during the Civil Rights era — Davis will bring a Towne Crier audience into the wilderness and back to the past on Feb. 15.
Davis has done plenty of acting, including in the 1984 hip-hop film Beat Street, and in 2023 produced incidental music for the Broadway revival of his father's play Purlie Victorious, which received six Tony Award nominations.
After hearing a didgeridoo in Australia, "I fell in love immediately," he says, and learned the circular breathing technique required to maintain the wind instrument's drone; the sound is like Tuvan throat singing.
"It helps with my harmonica playing," says Davis, who squeezes out exquisite notes on the harp. Routinely covered by guitar media outlets, he also has two Grammy Award nominations.
Although Davis gravitated toward acoustic blues and began recording regularly in 1993, he still tours while juggling acting gigs and other projects.
Playing harmonica, putting a metallic slide on the ring finger of his left hand and using a 12-string guitar expand his sonic palette. The repertoire mixes originals and covers of the old-timers. His own work, delivered in a raspy voice, fits the period's vibe.
Davis crossed paths with Pete Seeger as a kid at Camp Killooleep in Vermont, a magnet for the folk music community, and learned banjo from one of Seeger's brothers, John.
"We lived in Mount Vernon and, one day, Pete was hanging out in our living room," he says. "When we moved to New Rochelle, there he was again."
Davis often tagged along when his parents visited Beacon, picking out Leadbelly tunes and listening to recorded relics, some of which seeped into his playing style.
"It was low-key; we weren't trying to accomplish anything," he says. "He influenced all the songs on my 1978 Folkways album Dreams About Life" and sang backup on one track.
Davis sailed on the Clearwater, Woody Guthrie and Sojourner Truth many times. In the 1970s, he participated in fundraisers to finish the boats and often opened for the folk bard.
"Once, in Poughkeepsie, we got there early and we were hanging out at a fountain," he says. "Soon enough, there's Pete with his pants rolled up, splashing around in the water, pushing the garbage to the side and getting all the kids in the area to take it away."
After a 2019 concert in Albany, one newspaper reported that the bluesman had reflected Seeger's "greatest gift," which was not his singing or songwriting but "his ability to turn an audience of strangers into close friends by getting them to sing along. Davis had just accomplished the same thing."
The Towne Crier is located at 379 Main St. in Beacon. Tickets for the Feb. 15 show, which begins at 7 p.m., are $25 online or $30 at the door. See dub.sh/TC-guy-davis. To download or order music, see guydavis.com.
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