GUY DAVIS INSTRUMENTAL CROSSROADS ANTWERP, 2011

Spellbinding instrumental performance by Guy Davis, and strong emotional support from him for Jan van der Stappen (cafe premises faces likely closure, due to lease issues), the proprietor of Crossroads cafe, Antwerp, Belgium, when Guy performed there on Sunday, June 12th, 2011.

Website:
http://guydavis.com/guydavis/mainfinal.htm

Extract from the Guy Davis website:

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 Campanion", "Mountain Stage" or David Dye's,"World Café"., 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.
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 them 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.

His writing and storytelling have been influenced by Zora Neale Hurston, Garrison Keillor, and by the late Laura Davis (his one hundred and five year-old grandmother).

Of the fifth album "give in kind", Music critic Dave Marsh wrote, "Davis never loses sight of the blues as good time music, the original forum for dancing on top of one's sorrows. Joy made more exquisite, of course, by the sorrow from which it springs."

It was this album that caught the ear of Ian Anderson, founder and lead singer of one of Rock & Roll's greatest bands, "Jethro Tull", who invited Guy to open for them during the summer of 2003. He wrote in his invitation, "Folk Blues (Sonny Terry, J.B. Lenoir) is where I started. Hearing Guy is like coming home again."

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.

GUY DAVIS
GUY DAVIS
GUY DAVIS

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Guy
• Davis
• blues
• singer
• guitarist
• banjo
• pure
• tradition
• Crossroads
• cafe
• Antwerp
• Belgium