What a month it's been! Ellen and I have been sifting through mountains of photographs and tapes. Shockingly, we came across a 1951 home recording of Reverend Gary Davis... which we now believe to be the earliest home recordings of him. Previously, the earliest recordings known were from 1953, released by Folkways Recordings in the mid-2000s. This tape was almost lost to time.
Here is the story in Ellen's words:
How did this tape get into my “archive” of tapes that I’ve dragged through a long life of folksongs? I am not certain, but I think it was recorded that day in 1951... when a group of seven fellow students that our classmate, John Cohen, had pulled together, were insinuating ourselves into a sedan meant for about 4 of us and John’s treasured recording machine. Crowded it was, a foreshadowing of how the day would go.
We met Gary Davis in the Bronx as he was coming home from singing in the streets of the city. He invited us all up to his nearby apartment. It was almost as small as John’s car. We piled into the living room space, moving the one large table in the middle to one wall, giving anyone coming into the room only space to crawl under or squeeze past it.
Gary played, and played. Even though he sang mostly church songs, it made little difference to us — his playing, the “music,” was right out of the traditions of street singers and blues players. He had been working all day, but he loved playing, and he was amazing. How in the world, I wondered, could one person do all that on a single guitar? How could he get that running base and also the melodies (in harmony, to boot) on the upper strings?
To me, he was a phenomenon. His music offered glimpses of other places I realized I had to visit and understand.
A few weeks later, John gave me this tape you hear now. He knew I wanted to listen to that day again. I never imagined that the next time I would see Reverend Gary Davis in person would be in 1962 at the Swarthmore Folk Festival, when he and I would share a two-part concert.
I saw Davis mesmerize other musicians; he became much respected in the early days of the Folksong Revival in NYC, but he might have been just a bit too early for the time major black musicians took to the Revival Stage. It was a very white world, those early days.
I kept John’s tape with others I treasured, and escaped to another world of entertainment, complete with egos, stars, rumors, and a jargon all its own. The years of education I received in that other world were hardly more profound than the education I received that one crowded day in the Bronx.
- Ellen Stekert
Ellen deserves a medal for preserving this tape recording. I have just uploaded one track, and the complete tape will be uploaded in the next couple of days.
Want to support us? Please subscribe to my Patreon and purchase Ellen's songs on Bandcamp: ellenstekert.bandcamp.com/ patreon.com/swinginpig
Swingin’ Pig
What a month it's been! Ellen and I have been sifting through mountains of photographs and tapes. Shockingly, we came across a 1951 home recording of Reverend Gary Davis... which we now believe to be the earliest home recordings of him. Previously, the earliest recordings known were from 1953, released by Folkways Recordings in the mid-2000s. This tape was almost lost to time.
Here is the story in Ellen's words:
How did this tape get into my “archive” of tapes that I’ve dragged through a long life of folksongs? I am not certain, but I think it was recorded that day in 1951... when a group of seven fellow students that our classmate, John Cohen, had pulled together, were insinuating ourselves into a sedan meant for about 4 of us and John’s treasured recording machine. Crowded it was, a foreshadowing of how the day would go.
We met Gary Davis in the Bronx as he was coming home from singing in the streets of the city. He invited us all up to his nearby apartment. It was almost as small as John’s car. We piled into the living room space, moving the one large table in the middle to one wall, giving anyone coming into the room only space to crawl under or squeeze past it.
Gary played, and played. Even though he sang mostly church songs, it made little difference to us — his playing, the “music,” was right out of the traditions of street singers and blues players. He had been working all day, but he loved playing, and he was amazing. How in the world, I wondered, could one person do all that on a single guitar? How could he get that running base and also the melodies (in harmony, to boot) on the upper strings?
To me, he was a phenomenon. His music offered glimpses of other places I realized I had to visit and understand.
A few weeks later, John gave me this tape you hear now. He knew I wanted to listen to that day again. I never imagined that the next time I would see Reverend Gary Davis in person would be in 1962 at the Swarthmore Folk Festival, when he and I would share a two-part concert.
I saw Davis mesmerize other musicians; he became much respected in the early days of the Folksong Revival in NYC, but he might have been just a bit too early for the time major black musicians took to the Revival Stage. It was a very white world, those early days.
I kept John’s tape with others I treasured, and escaped to another world of entertainment, complete with egos, stars, rumors, and a jargon all its own. The years of education I received in that other world were hardly more profound than the education I received that one crowded day in the Bronx.
- Ellen Stekert
Ellen deserves a medal for preserving this tape recording. I have just uploaded one track, and the complete tape will be uploaded in the next couple of days.
Want to support us? Please subscribe to my Patreon and purchase Ellen's songs on Bandcamp:
ellenstekert.bandcamp.com/
patreon.com/swinginpig
2 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 57