By Kira L. Schlechter, SFMS Correspondent
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Bluesman Guy Davis is a popular performer among SFMS members and midstaters alike. He visits again Friday, this time at Whitaker Center's Stage Two, in support of last year's stellar album Sweetheart Like You, named for the Bob Dylan song of the same name (which he covers most effectively to kick off the record).
Davis, the son of acclaimed actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, e-mailed us answers to our questions about his music and his latest acting job on his Blackberry -- how 2010 -- as he ran errands around his New York home base.
Q: How did it come about that you're performing in the Broadway revival of "Finian's Rainbow"?
A: In February of '09 I was offered the part of the harmonica-playing sharecropper after being recommended by a producer who had gone years ago to the same summer camp as me (run by Pete Seeger's brother John). It showcased for a week in New York and went into full production a few months later on Broadway. I'd been on Broadway before, but never in a full-scale musical. Too bad the show closed -- it was some of the best work I ever did.
Q: Would you say you're focused mainly on music now, or are there any acting projects in the works you could talk about?
A: I am focused mainly on music now. I find the more I talk about my theater projects, the less I get done. To me, concert performance and theater aren't all that different, in terms of the bang I get out of being on stage.
Q: Were you ever tempted to pursue a full-time acting career considering the profound influence your parents must have had on you, or was it just more pursuing something creative in general that you knew you'd do?
A: I've always known that doing something creative on stage in front of people would be my destiny.
Q: You did the play "Two Hah Hahs and a Homeboy" with your folks back in 1995. That was some years back now, but what was it like being on stage with them?
A: It was fun, but not as free as working with peers and strangers.
Q: You do a lot of work with children (performing on albums for children, playing at schools, etc.). Do you think that is the main way blues (or maybe music in general) will survive, is by making sure the next generation is sufficiently exposed to it?
A: I love kids. I have one and I am one. Selfishly, I hope they'll be my audience in 10 and 20 years!
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Davis went on to talk about Sweetheart Like You:
Q: You said the title track was your "second go 'round" with it -- can you explain that?
A: I originally recorded [it] years ago as part of a Bob Dylan tribute album. I like my latest version better, even though the first one featured Levon Helm and T-Bone Wolk.
Q: Would you ever, or have you ever, done an album of all-original songs, and why or why not?
A: I'm known for singing 'fresh' songs -- I've yet to do an album of all originals.
Q: "Follow Me Down" and "Ain't Goin' Down" are both Lead Belly tunes, and while the former has a pretty straight blues feel, the arrangement of the latter almost has an Irish or Celtic feeling to it, with the lovely mandolin and the lilting rhythm. Was that intentional?
A: Everything I did was intentional. Whether it's good or not is another matter!
Q: Since you play so many different instruments, is there one out of all of them that speaks most directly to your soul? Perhaps harmonica?
A: The guitar is the instrument of my soul.
Q: "Words to My Mama's Song" borrows a heck of a lot from hip-hop. How did that song come about, both musically and lyrically? Would you say the "words to my mama's song" are a warning, in some way, perhaps things she told you in the past?
A: (That's) a warning poem. The music was written right in the studio. The lyrics were swimming in my creative placenta for years, put there by my mom, my uncle, and Pete Seeger.
Q: What is it about "Hoochie Coochie Man" that makes it such a standard in the blues canon, and what did you want to add to it with your interpretation?
A: Performing the blues makes me feel powerful, like the Hoochie Coochie Man. He's a man who woman can find in a dark room full of men. The only different thing I did was singing it in the key of E.
Q: In the liner notes, you say "Steamboat Captain" is "the secret expression of my soul" -- why?
A: (The song) is about a young boy who yearns to go to sea -- that describes me in my heart of hearts.
Q: You say in the liner notes that you wondered what "Can't Be Satisfied" would sound like on a 5-string banjo -- why that instrument in particular?
A: I love the banjo, plus I'm crazy! That's why I used it to play (that song)!
Q: If "Baby Please Don't Go" is, as you say, "the most covered blues song ever written," what made you want to take a stab at it too? As with "Hoochie Coochie Man," what did you want to add to it with your interpretation (you slow it down a good bit, for one thing -- it's sort of a plea now instead of so insistent and urgent)?
A: Truthfully, I didn't have a mission on 'Baby Please Don't Go' -- I just like the song.
Q: By inferring from the liner notes, could "The Angels Are Calling" be about your late father, and is that why you probably wouldn't perform it live?
A: (It's) not about my dad, but somehow I can hear his voice doing the words. It's (just) not ready for live performance (yet).
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Tickets for Guy Davis's April 23 show at Harrisburg's Whitaker Center are $20 for general admission, $16 for SFMS members and BSCP members. Students are admitted free thanks to support from the Pennsylvania Humanities Council. This concert is presented in partnership with the Blues Society of Central Pennsylvania, with support from Your Name In Lights Sponsor Paulette, Russ & Emily Matthews and John Laskowski (AKA Mothman). Additional support comes from the Governor's Advisory Commission on African American Affairs and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art. For more information, visit www.sfmsfolk.org.
Concert Series
