Arcadia Music Cafe are delighted to present an evening with Guy Davis!
Do not miss this one off opportunity to see a world talent in our intimate wee venue.
Guy Davis is a two-time, back-to-back Grammy nominee for Best Traditional Blues, a musician, Actor, Author, and Songwriter. Guy uses a blend of Roots, Blues, Folk, Rock, Rap, Spoken Word, and World Music to comment on, and address the frustrations of social injustice, touching on historical events, and common life struggles. His background in theater is pronounced through the lyrical storytelling of songs “God’s Gonna Make Things Over” about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, “Welcome to My World”, and “Got Your Letter In My Pocket”. His storytelling is sometimes painful, deep, and real, an earthy contrast to modern-day commercial music, meant to create thought, underlined by gentle tones from his guitar or banjo fingerpicking.
A self-taught “Renaissance Man”, he first heard the banjo at a summer camp run by John Seeger, the brother of the American Folk Musician, Pete Seeger, and soon after, asked his father for one.
His records, while terse and truthful, are softened by songs like “We All Need More Kindness In This World”, denoting lyrical inspiration from Pete Seeger’s “If I Had A Hammer”, then teased with lyrically strutting works nudged by Hip Hop and Honky Tonk, like “Kokomo Kidd”. The contrast between pieces provides a robust, balanced experience, while giving Guy and his audience a healthy outlet for frustration through song and dance.
Along with his music writing and performance, Guy has written several scripts for stage and film. He recently debuted his latest piece, “Sugarbelly and Other Tales My Father Told Me” at the famed Crossroads Theatre in New Brunswick, NJ. He previously presented his other New York Foundation for the Arts winning play at the Crossroads, “The Adventures of Fishy Waters: In Bed with the Blues”, a one-man show whose Off-Broadway debut in 1994 received critical praise from The New York Times and the Village Voice.
When asked about his experience as a performer, Guy has replied, “There is no tale so tall that I cannot tell it, nor song so sweet that I cannot sing it.”
His performances feature a mix of his original songs and cover songs by Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Mance Lipscombe, Blind Willie McTell, Leadbelly, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and many others. His admiration for antiquities parallels his love of music, “I like antiques and old things, old places, that still have the dust of those who’ve gone before us lying upon them.” Blowing that dust off just enough to see its beauty is something Guy has excelled at for over twenty-five years of songwriting and performing. like savoring the ghosts of old sounds while still enjoying modern music.
Guy is a songwriter greatly influenced by his love of theater and storytelling, who derives joy from touring and seeing people from all walks of life. His hope is to bring people together, with the commonality that we are all people regardless of class, race, or personal experience, a lesson he learned from his long time friendship with Pete Seeger. Guy feels that Pete’s greatest strength was his ability to bring total strangers together, and have them all singing harmony by the time they left at the end of the night.
While not touring, Guy writes and occasionally performs his one man plays. He teaches Master Classes in Blues guitar styles, harmonica, or acting/stage presence at music camps like Common Ground On The Hill, SAMW, Swannanoa, Fur Peace Ranch, Centrum, and others. Guy has developed an education program spotlighting the Blues For Young Listeners called “Routes of the Blues”, and has been on the artist rosters of The Lincoln Center Institute in NYC, Young Audiences of NJ, the State Theatre in New Brunswick, NJ, and The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. He has performed for children across the U.S. and Canada, as well as in Greenland, Ecuador, Indonesia, Australia, The UK, and The Basque Region of Spain. His song, “I Will Be Your Friend,” was the title to a teacher’s aide project that included two dozen songs and “Activities For Little Peace Makers” created by The Southern Poverty Law Center called “Teaching Tolerance”.
“Truth be told, there just aren’t many who can deliver Americana in as interesting and entertaining a manner – or give acoustic traditional blues such a contemporary sound – as Davis, and it sure is a lot of fun hearing him explore the different sides of the genre …”