Gary Davis

Hearing the Reverend Gary Davis at Eliot House Tuesday night was a fascinating experience. One of the last of the street singers, Davis performs with an honesty that is becoming rare in folk singing. It was good to hear many of the old blues songs sung the way they were meant to be performed. In this age of the commercial and souped-up folk song, one easily forgets how the originals used to sound.

Davis, like any good "authentic" singer, picked up his style and his songs from the people he grew up with, and later from the people he worked with. A good guitarist while still in his teens, he has contributed much to his particular genre. Now, at 65 years of age, his voice no longer commands the power and sonority which must have marked his younger years, but he is still compelling.

His attraction, though, is not in beautiful singing. Davis sings with a rasping voice that sometimes hollers, sometimes just talks rhythmically. But somehow he manages to capture the feeling of the blues, and that makes him something special.

What is unique about Davis is that his songs are not the traditional "sinful" blues. He doesn't tell of the woman who did him wrong, or the man he killed. Rather, he sings religious blues, and talks of his sometimes joyful, but often melancholy relationship with God.

In a Davis performance, the voice does only half the job, and maybe less than that. His guitar becomes an animate creature, vital to the song. Unlike so many of the new style folk performers, Davis uses his guitar to provide more than a tonal background. Often the guitar will answer the voice or repeat the melody; sometimes Davis just starts singing a phrase and trails off, letting the guitar pick up the melody and finish it. This is done so skillfully (and perhaps in some cases unconsciously), that the listener hardly notices the change in instruments.

It is, perhaps, a mistake in terminology to say Davis performs. He seems nearly oblivious to his audience; occasionally he looks up to ask a question, but in general he is unconcerned. He is playing for his guitar, and the guitar is working for him. The listener does not get the sense of communication with the man on the stage that most singers, and particularly Pete Seeger, manage to produce. There are no waves of emotion sweeping the audience. Instead, one feels that he is eavesdropping on a private conversation--a very intimate and interesting conversation--but quite private.

Some of this communication gap might have been created by the physical setting. Eliot's cavernous dining hall, filled though it was, is hardly suitable for Davis' art. No concert stage would be appropriate, for that matter. These songs, at least the way Davis sings them, need to be heard in more personal or more natural settings.

Nevertheless, Davis won a tremendous ovation of appreciation. The applause was a fitting tribute to vibrant musician and a person of great courage. The reverend Gary Davis, now a struggling Harlem resident, is blind.