AVID Roots continues with its Three Classic Album Plus series with a re-mastered 2CD release from the Reverend Gary Davis, complete with original artwork, liner notes and personnel details (where available).
“Pure Religion And Bad Company”; “Say No To The Devil”; “A Little More Faith” plus side two of “American Street Songs: Harlem Street Spirituals”
If you were asked to come up with the perfect template for a blues singer you could not do better than coming up with the name of our next special guest, the Reverend Gary Davis. Born in South Carolina into a large family of eight siblings, he would be the only one to survive to adulthood. Blind from an early age he was also treated poorly by his mother and was eventually given to his paternal grandmother to raise him. His father would die when Davis was only ten years old. So in the mid 1920s, he took his guitar and headed down the road to try to make a living. He turned up in Durham North Carolina where he met Blind Boy Fuller and fell in with the Piedmont blues scene. More importantly he was introduced to the American Record Company where he was to make his first professional recordings. Perhaps even more importantly, and certainly so for Davis, he became a Christian and was ordained as a Baptist minister. From this time on Gary Davis became the Reverend Gary Davis and would never again play secular music but confine his live and recorded output to purely religious music. And what powerful music it is! A brilliant guitar style and rough sand-paper voice made an awesome combination as you will hear on our four selections.
CD1
1. Blow Gabriel from American Street Songs-Harlem Street Spirituals (side 2)
2. Twelve Gates To The City from American Street Songs-Harlem Street Spirituals (side 2)
3. Sampson and Delilah from American Street Songs-Harlem Street Spirituals (side 2)
4. Oh Lord, Search My Heart from American Street Songs-Harlem Street Spirituals (side 2)
5. Get Right Church from American Street Songs-Harlem Street Spirituals (side 2)
6. You Got To Go Down from American Street Songs-Harlem Street Spirituals (side 2)
7. Keep Your Lamps Trimmed And Burning from American Street Songs-Harlem Street Spirituals (side 2)
8. There Was A Time When I Was Blind from American Street Songs-Harlem Street Spirituals (side 2)
9-23: ‘Pure Religion And Bad Company’
9. Pure Religion
10. Mountain Jack
11. Right Now
12. Buck Dance
13. Candy Man
14. Devil’s Dream
15. Moon Goes Down
16. Cocaine Blues
17. Runnin’ To The Judgement
18. Hesitation Blues
19. Bad Company
20. I Didn’t Want To Join The Band
21. Evening Sun Goes Down
22. Seven Sisters
23. My Heart Is Fixed
24-25: ‘Say No To The Devil’
24. Say No To The Devil
25. Time Is Drawing Near
CD2
1-8: ‘Say No To The Devil’
1. Hold To God’s Unchanging Hand
2. Bad Company Brought Me Here
3. I Decided To Go Down
4. Lord, I Looked Down The Road
5. Little Bitty Baby
6. No One Can Do Me Like Jesus
7. Lost Boy In The Wilderness
8. Tryin’ To Get To Heaven In Due Time
9-20: ‘A Little More Faith’
9. You Got To Move
10. Crucifiction
11. I’m Glad I’m In That Number
12. There’s A Table Sittin’ In Heaven
13. Motherless Child
14. There’s A Bright Side Somewhere
15. I’ll Be All Right Some Day
16. You Better Mind
17. A Little More Faith
18. I’ll Fly Away
19. God’s Gonna Seperate
20. When I Die I Live Again
