Editing Reverend Gary Davis (section)

==Biography==
Davis was born in Laurens, South Carolina in the [[Piedmont (United States)|Piedmont]] region,<ref name=ace/> on a farm that was, by his recollection, "way down in the sticks; so far you couldn't hear a train whistle blow unless it was on a cloudy day."<ref name=ace/>

Of the eight children his mother bore, he was one of two who survived to adulthood.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Reverend Gary Davis {{!}} Association for Cultural Equity|url=http://www.culturalequity.org/alan-lomax/friends/davis|access-date=2020-07-18|website=The Association for Cultural Equity|language=en}}</ref> He became blind as an infant. He'd recall his grandmother telling him he got "sore eyes" when he was three-weeks old, and the doctors put something in his eyes that "cause[d] [[ulcer]]s to grow" over the eyes and he ended up blind.<ref name=ace/>

He recalled being poorly treated by his mother and that his father placed him in the care of his paternal grandmother. Davis reported that when he was 10 years old, his father was killed in Birmingham, Alabama. He later said he'd been told his father was shot by the Birmingham sheriff.<ref>{{cite web|title=Rev Gary Davis|date=January 31, 2013 |url=http://arbiterrecords.org/music-resource-center/rev-gary-davis/ | publisher=Arbiterrecords.org|access-date=2016-11-18}}</ref> His mother re-married and gave birth to a boy.<ref name=ace/>

He sang for the first time at Gray Court's Baptist church in [[South Carolina]].<ref name="K. McNeil, 2013, p. 97">W. K. McNeil, ''Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music'', Routledge, Abingdon-on-Thames, 2013, p. 97</ref> He took to the guitar and assumed a unique multi-voice style produced solely with his thumb and index finger, playing [[gospel]], [[ragtime]], and blues tunes along with traditional and original tunes in four-part harmony.

[[File:Bullcityblues.jpg|thumb|left|Bull City Blues historical marker, [[Durham, North Carolina]]]]
In the mid-1920s, Davis moved to Durham, North Carolina, a major center of [[African American culture|black culture]] at the time. There he taught [[Blind Boy Fuller]] and collaborated with a number of other artists in the [[Piedmont blues]] scene, including [[Bull City Red]].<ref name="russell"/> In 1935, [[J. B. Long]], a store manager with a reputation for supporting local artists, introduced Davis, Fuller, and Red to the [[American Record Corporation|American Record Company]]. The recording sessions (available on his ''Complete Early Recordings'') marked the beginning of Davis's career. He became a Christian,<ref name="russell"/><ref>{{cite AV media notes |title= Meet You at the Station: The Vintage Recordings (1935–1949) | others= Reverend Gary Davis |year= 2003 |first= Chris |last= Smith |publisher= [[Document Records]] | url = http://musicbrainz.org/release/fdee45ea-3fab-440a-986a-c8766ae1ec46/cover-art | access-date = 2013-02-11 | oclc = 489027245}}</ref> and was ordained as a Baptist minister in [[Washington, North Carolina]],<ref name="K. McNeil, 2013, p. 97"/> in 1933. Following his conversion and after his ordination, Davis began to prefer inspirational gospel music.

In the 1940s, the blues scene in Durham began to decline, and Davis moved to New York.<ref name="russell"/> In 1951, he recorded an oral history for the folklorist Elizabeth Lyttleton Harold (the wife of [[Alan Lomax]]). who transcribed their conversations in a typescript more than 300 pages long.

The [[Roots revival|folk revival]] of the 1960s invigorated Davis's career, and he performed at the [[Newport Folk Festival]] in 1965. Eleven songs from those performances were released on the 1967 album ''At Newport''.<ref name="LarkinBlues">{{cite book|title=[[Encyclopedia of Popular Music|The Guinness Who's Who of Blues]]|editor=[[Colin Larkin (writer)|Colin Larkin]]|publisher=[[Guinness Publishing]]|date=1995|edition=2nd|isbn=0-85112-673-1}}</ref>{{rp|102}} In March 1969, Davis' former student and driver, [[John Townley]], who had since established [[Apostolic Recording Studio]], persuaded Davis to his first recording studio session in five years. The resulting album, ''O, Glory – The Apostolic Studio Sessions'' would be Davis' final studio album, released posthumously in 1973.<ref name=nodevil>{{cite book|last=Zack|first=Ian|title=Say No to the Devil: The Life and Musical Genius of Rev. Gary Davis|publisher=University of Chicago Press|location=Chicago, United States|date=2015|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=em7_BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA235|isbn=978-0-226-23410-6}}</ref>{{rp|235}}

[[Peter, Paul and Mary]] recorded Davis' version of "[[Samson and Delilah (traditional song)|Samson and Delilah]]", also known as "If I Had My Way", a song by [[Blind Willie Johnson]], which Davis had popularized. Although the song was in the public domain, it was copyrighted as having been written by Gary Davis at the time of the recording by Peter, Paul and Mary. The resulting royalties allowed Davis to buy a house and live comfortably for the rest of his life, and Davis referred to the house as "the house that Peter, Paul and Mary built."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hH7fPXQAb0 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211212/4hH7fPXQAb0| archive-date=2021-12-12 |url-status=live|title=David Bromberg: "I Belong To The Band," and "Tryin To Get Home" plus an interview about Gary Davis.|date=July 17, 2020 |access-date=March 6, 2021|publisher=[[YouTube]]}}{{cbignore}}</ref> The Grateful Dead covered "Samson and Delilah" on their album ''[[Terrapin Station]]'' and credited it to Davis. They covered Davis' song "[[Death Don't Have No Mercy]]". Eric Von Schmidt credited Davis with three-quarters of Schmidt's "[[Baby, Let Me Follow You Down]]", which Bob Dylan covered on his debut album for [[Columbia Records]]. The [[Blues Hall of Fame]] singer and harmonica player [[Darrell Mansfield]] has recorded several of Davis's songs. [[The Rolling Stones]] credited Davis and [[Mississippi Fred McDowell]] for "[[You Gotta Move (song)|You Gotta Move]]" on their 1971 album ''[[Sticky Fingers]]''.

Davis died of a heart attack in May 1972 in Hammonton, New Jersey.<ref>{{cite web|author=Doc Rock |url=http://thedeadrockstarsclub.com/1970.html |title=The 1970s |publisher=TheDeadRockStarsClub.com |access-date=2014-05-29}}</ref> He is buried in plot 68 of [[Rockville Cemetery]] in Lynbrook, New York.