A remarkable and historic discovery has just been made in the world of American roots music: a lost 1951 tape of legendary blues and gospel guitarist Reverend Gary Davis has surfaced, believed to be the earliest known home recording of the artist. The tape was uncovered by renowned folklorist Ellen Stekert while sifting through her personal archive of field recordings and photographs — a collection spanning more than seven decades.

The earliest previously known home recordings of Reverend Davis dated to 1953 and were released by Folkways Recordings in the mid-2000s. This newly rediscovered tape predates those by two years and captures Davis at a vital moment: still a street performer in New York City, just beginning to draw the attention of young folk enthusiasts who would soon help propel him to legendary status.

“How did this tape get into my ‘archive’ of tapes that I’ve dragged through a long life of folksongs? I am not certain,” Stekert reflects, “but I think it was recorded that day in 1951… when a group of us insinuated ourselves into a sedan meant for about four fewer of us, along with Dick Hatch’s treasured recording machine. Crowded it was, and a foreshadowing of how the day would go.”

Reverend Gary Davis — then a blind street musician working the sidewalks of New York — had just returned from a day of playing when the group encountered him in the Bronx. He invited the teenagers up to his small apartment. “It was almost as small as Dick’s car,” Stekert recalls. “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.”

The tape, recorded by fellow student Dick Hatch, was given to Stekert a few weeks later. “He knew I wanted to listen to that day again,” she says. “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.”

Reverend Davis would go on to be a towering influence in the folk and blues revival movements of the 1960s, inspiring artists such as Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk, and Ry Cooder. But in 1951, his music was still largely unknown outside the neighborhoods he played in.

“I saw Davis mesmerize other musicians; he became a much-respected player 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 this 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, the world of academia, were hardly more profound than the education I received living through, and re-listening to, Reverend Gary Davis’ music  from that one crowded day in the Bronx.”

The recording, which has been remastered by Ellen’s producer, Ross Wylde, can be heard in its entirety on the Swingin’ Pig YouTube channel. To support Ellen and her team’s work digitizing and releasing her archives, listeners are encouraged to subscribe to her Patreon, where the Davis recordings are uploaded in lossless quality.

Press Contact:
Ross Wylde
(650) 867-5830
RossWyldeMusic@gmail.com

Ellen Stekert links:
• Spotify
• Bandcamp