Customer Reviews

Complete Early Recordings

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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Impassioned gospel-blues from one of the foremost streetsinging preachers and bluesmen. The songs are taken from old 78's so there is some minor hiss present, but the power of Davis' voice and the ringing of his fingerstyle guitar distracts you from any imperfections in the source material. A minor quibble: the liner notes are generally good at explaining Davis' career and playing style of this time, but never breaks down when each song was recorded and other useful track info.

If your oldtime blues collection could use a little religion, then the Complete Early Recordings of Rev. Gary Davis is a pretty good place to start.

Reverend Gary Davis. These are the earliest known recordings of THE MAN. His guitar skill truly must be heard to be believed. At points I swear there are at least two or three seperate guitars, but it's all coming out of him. Simply incredible.
Most people may be familiar only with his later stuff, but for my money this is the gold. A musician just getting first exposure, like college athletes in a way, always have something to prove, and it shows well on this disc. Mostly gospel and ragtime tunes, the Reverend was not particularly fond of straight-up blues, but his style and skill will surely impress anyone with an interest in blues, guitar, or plain musicianship. Outstanding. One of my most deserved 5 stars.

It's strange that a CD, advertising itself as the 'complete' early recordings of this brilliant (and very influential) ragtime guitarist, should in fact, be lacking several of them - where have "I wish I could see" or "I am the light of the world" gone, for example? Still, it is a fine showcase of Rev. Davis' early recordings; but it could have, and possibly should have been better. It would have taken little effort to add the remaining titles, and there's certainly enough room on the CD.

This disc is full of unmatched guitar playing and ferocious vocals urging the listener to go to church and be redeemed. There is also a Blues song, "Cross And Evil Woman Blues", which sounds quite unlike all other Blues artists' repertoires. Though Gary Davis taught hundreds of students in the 1950s and 1960s, including Dave Van Ronk and Larry Johnson, he never played as well as he did on these seminal recordings.