Pope of the Piedmont blues
Gary Davis was one of the most extraordinary Piedmont blues guitar picker along with his younger fellow Blind Boy Fuller. Almost completely blind since being still a baby, in 1896, he managed to bring the Piedmont blues style to summits. The story says that in the 1920s, he broke his left wrist, that it wasn't properly treated, never set back in the right position, and that this malformation gave him the ability to create unusual chord patterns.
Until being ordained Baptist minister in 1933, at age 37, he was already famous as a secular folk-blues musician around his Piedmont region of the Carolinas. Afterwards he became the Reverend Gary Davis and turned to a more gospel-oriented repertoire.
In 1940, he moved up north to New York. When not on duty at his Missionary Baptist Connection Church in Harlem, he used to sing and preach in the streets of Harlem, particularly on 138th St. (hence the original 1961 title of the album, "Harlem Street Singer").
With the folk revival of the early sixties, Davis was invited to perform at the famous Newport Folk Festival and became a reference of for young musicians who started to attend his guitar classes and study his technique. Folkies like Stefan Grossman (who later did compile the exceptional Davis posthumous 3-CD box set "Demons and Angels" published in 2000), Dave Van Ronk, David Bromberg, Roy Book Binder or even Woody Guthrie, and later Bob Dylan, were deeply influenced by his fingerstyle guitar mastering.
According to the LP's liner notes, the present album was recorded in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, on August 24, 1960, in only three hours, most of the titles being first takes ! That goes to show how much the Rev. was mastering his art.
Originally issued under the title "Harlem Street Singer" in 1961 as already noted here above, it was later re-issued as "Pure Religion" in 1972 and 2014.
Exclusively made of religious inspired songs mixing gospel, Piedmont folk-blues and ragtime, the whole album keeps a high musical and instrumental level from beginning to end , with a perfect sound quality which remarkably renders Davis vocal and instrumental virtuosity.
Davis has a deep warm soul shaking voice. He sings like he would preach, with intense fervor, sometimes crossed by fits of shouting and humorous vocal tricks and jokes, like in his great version of "Samson and Delilah" (a cover of Blind Willie Johnson's "If I had my way"). Actually, his singing is getting more and more intense song after song until the final "Twelve Gates To The City", while his fingerstyle guitar picking is flawless all the way.Reading
> I strongly advise the reading of "You Got To Move, a reflection upon Rev. Gary Davis" by Jonathan Oldstyle (!), a very interesting study of the Rev.'s life and work illustrated with black & white pics and videos : https://thedocumentrecordsstore.com/rev-gary-davis-you-got-to-move/
Videos
> A Harold Becker's short film capturing the atmosphere of Rev Gary Davis' life in Harlem in the 1960s : https://youtu.be/WktfKeVA9ac
2) Music
> On 12-string guitar in 1966 at Pete Seeger's Rainbow Quest Show (with Seeger futzing around with banjo) :
> "Hard Walkin' Blues" (from the "Rev Gary Davis-The Video Collection" DVD compiled by Stefan Grossman) : https://youtu.be/zr4MrbZB7bg
> - "Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning" (a nice cigar in mouth) : https://youtu.be/ib8bCR5lFug
> "Death Don't Have No Mercy" : https://youtu.be/v1BvK_00loQ
> Performing "Buck Dance" at the Blues & Gospel Caravan in 1964 in Paris (France) : https://youtu.be/bg1mKe8kK2A