Customer Reviews

Rev. Gary Davis: The Video Collection

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This is a collection of all known video footage of Reverend Gary Davis. I feel that the performances for the Seattle Folklore Society and the two songs which follow it immediately after (the only footage in color) are worth the price of the dvd alone. The only drawback to the dvd is that the first half of it has Davis extending songs' lengths to the extent that they aren't merely songs, but more like opera performances in terms of their duration. To musicians, this is probably a positive, because they get to see Davis' finger work quite a bit. However, for people who are merely fans of the music and not musicians, or for those who don't know anything about acoustic Blues and Gospel music and are seeing and hearing this for the first time, sitting through a ten minute (or maybe longer) version of "Children of Zion" can be a bit difficult. Pete Seeger seems to feel the same way during the performance! In the end, I think this is definitely a dvd worth purchasing. It's put out by Stefan Grossman, just like the very good Mance Lipscomb- In Concert dvd. I'm really curious to read what everyone has to say about this dvd.

Stefan Grossman has done a great service in compiling all the known video of Gary Davis in one DVD. On one hand I'm disappointed that during his life we gave Rev. Gary Davis so little attention and the film of his work is so sparse and often crudely executed, but on the other hand I'm rather amazed that Stefan was able to find this much and took the time to piece it together in a package that anyone can own at a reasonable price. The performances range from toss-off to deeply moving, but either way, this is all there is. I'd say get it and enjoy.