Rev. Gary Davis is the real thing. The authentic blind-seer. He is a genius with a brightly burning spirit, enormous musical intelligence, technical brilliance, an encyclopedic memory, driving passion, deep faith, a raunchy and gracious sense of humor. He (1896-1972) was born black in deep poverty in South Carolina, blind from an early age. He overcame these longest of odds to become world famous, a giant of American music. He brought together black and white styles, country gospel, folk themes, blues, jazz, ragtime, minstrel songs, dance tunes and popular song. He developed his own brilliant fingerpicking style that was deep, economical, and adaptable enough to easily cover all these genres. Supporting all his creativity was an unshakable faith that pulled him through the obscurity, the bitter hard times and crushing poverty he would endure until the folk music awakening of the fifties and sixties caught up to him.
In this book, Ernie Hawkins presents transcriptions of many of Rev. Davis' best known gospel arrangements. Direct Download audio files are included where Ernie plays each arrangement slowly. Of course it is highly recommended that you hear the original Rev. Davis recordings of each tune.
This collection is a companion piece to Ernie's four DVD box set Gospel Guitar of Rev. Gary Davis (GW813/16) and contains all the tunes presented in that collection as well as four new transcriptions.
Titles include: Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning, Samson and Delilah, Children of Zion, Oh Glory, How Happy I Am, I Belong to the Band, I'm Goin' to Sit on the Banks of the River, Death Don't Have No Mercy, Twelve Gates to the City, Let Us Get Together, Right Now, I Heard the Angels Sing, Crucifixion, I Am the Light of This World, You've Got to Move, We Are The Heavenly Father's Children, There's A Bright Side Somewhere, I Decided To Go Down, Will There Be Stars In My Crown?
