52 weeks of blues

The Reverend Gary Davis, born April 30, 1896, was one of the greats of the early bluesmen, a master of the Piedmont style with a hauntingly powerful voice. His early life reads like a blueprint for blues men of the era: partially blind from birth; fully blind by 20; the only child of 8 to survive infancy; his father was shot and killed by a Sheriff in Birmingham, Alabama when Gary was just 10.
Born in the middle of the Piedmont region, in Laurens, South Carolina, Gary grew up on a farm. His mother played marching band records by John Phillips Sousa and took him to church sing alongs and country dances. He fell in love with the guitar the first time he heard one: “The first time I ever heard a guitar, I thought it was a brass band coming through. I was a small kid and I asked my mother what it was and she said that was a guitar.”
Gary first started on the guitar at age 6 and he started singing for the Centre Raven Baptist Church in Gray Court, South Carolina. As a teen, he slipped on ice and badly broke his left arm. It was set in plaster at an unusual angle, and he continued to play. This cocked wrist position aided him in producing unusual chord voicings. At the age of 15 his family moved to the city of Greenville, South Carolina which was home to a burgeoning blues scene. The great Willie Walker, said to be the best guitarist of his generation, was at the centre of a group of young bluesmen including Sam Brooks. Josh White would later describe Walker as the best he’d ever seen. Walker took Davis under his wing, they performed in a string band together, and the young Gary adopted Walker’s highly complex finger picking style.
After a few years living and performing in Asheville, North Carolina, Gary Davis moved to Durham, N.C. in 1926 where he was performing as a full time street musician. Durham had a thriving blues scene, and Gary was teaching and performing with the likes of Blind Boy Fuller and Bull City Red. He met and married his first wife in Durham, but it turned into a short marriage when he discovered she was unfaithful. This led him to briefly live in Washington N.C and to seek solace in his religion – he was ordained as a Baptist Minister in 1933 and began performing more spiritual and gospel tunes in his repertoire.
In 1935 a local record store owner and talent scout, J. B Long, invited Gary, Bull City Red and Fuller to record for the American Recording Company. Travelling to New York, Gary recorded 15 tracks, including “I Saw the Light,” “I Am the Light of the World,” and “You Got to Go Down.” Disagreements over payment for these sessions led to Gary becoming disillusioned with the idea of being a recording artist, and for 19 years he resisted further attempts to record him. He went back to being a full time street musician.
Two years later, in 1937, Davis married his second wife Annie and moved to Mamaroneck, New York. There Davis found a thriving music and arts scene, with a lot more diversity than the blues scene in Durham. In addition to the blues, New York hosted a massive folk movement where artists like Lead Belly, Pete Seeger, Dave van Ronk and Woodie Guthrie played in coffee houses. Gary quickly came to love this scene, playing in bars and coffee houses by night and on the street during the day. His highly sophisticated Piedmont style of finger picking found a welcoming audience, and he became very popular.
In 1940 he moved to Harlem, becoming a minister at the Missionary Baptist Connection Church and taught his style to a host of up and coming guitarists. In the late 40s and early 50s, the folk movement was gaining national attention and this was the catalyst for the blues revival of the early 1960s. In 1954, Gary Davis returned to the studio for the first time in 19 years and cut a fully length album with Sonny Terry on harmonica titled “Blind Gary Davis – The Singing Reverend”. An appearance at Carnegie Hall as part of a folk line up followed in 1958 and established Gary as the pre-eminent acoustic finger picking blues guitarist of his generation.
A steady stream of new records flowed during the 60s, either studio albums or live recordings from his many folk festival appearances. Commercial acts like Peter, Paul and Mary covered some of his tunes and his influence over folk and blues quickly became well known. In the late 60s a new form of folk with artists like Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead continued to be inspired by Davis’ guitar style and song craft.
The Reverend Gary Davis died of a heart attack on May 5, 1972 in Hammonton, New Jersey.

“Slipping ’til My Gal Comes In Partner” is an old time dance song. The Reverend’s version of it is the only known ‘original’ recording of the song – every other version is a cover of Davis’ recording. He actually recorded two versions, this one in E and a deeper one in C#, and both were released after he died in collections of out takes and live recordings. It is very, very likely that he learnt it in his youth playing at dances and the like, and at the time of the recordings he was the only person in the world who knew how to play the tune. These recordings show us a glimpse of what music was played in the dance halls of the 1920s and 30s.
The song itself is a 12 bar in E, played in standard tuning. It follows a somewhat traditional familiar 12 bar format albeit with a slightly unique turnaround: 4 bars of E; 2 of A; 2 of E (with a B7 sometimes in the first bar); 1 bar of E with a B bass/C#; an ascending run in E, half a bar of B7 then E to end the repetition where he sets up the next go around.
This song is very, very difficult. The Reverend only used one finger to finger pick, but he was simply one of the best of all time. He is quick, fairly clean, covers the fret board and improvises very lyrical passages in every bar. One under appreciated aspect of Davis’ playing was his use of open strings inside melodies, and he does it with great effect in this piece – the open strings blend right into the melodies he is playing.
Davis generally uses the major or major pentatonic scale to improvise around, but adds in phrases from the blues, minor and minor pentatonic scales to add variety and create emotion at different times. He is a master of the thumb, not only using beautifully executed bass lines played by the thumb, but he also uses it to add emphasis in a few places. He doesn’t have a consistent bassline throughout the piece; he brings it in and out when he needs to.
All I can say is learn the chord forms; learn the structure; learn your scales and improvise like the good Reverend does. Good Luck!

Here are the basic chord shapes the good Reverend improvises around. Empty bars mean repeat the previous shape. Slashes mean alternate chord shapes you can try. The E/B is an E chord with a B note as the bass note.
E for 4 bars
A for 2 bars | E B7 | E |
E/B C# | E | E B7 | E |

Straight into it. He misses a few notes in the A section, so I’ve added what I think he was trying to do.

Make sure you’ve looked the The Chords, and read The Song, and good luck!
Verse 1
Verse 2
Verse 3: x = click your fingers on the beat!
Verse 4
Verse 5
Verse 6 – click those fingers!
Verse 7
Verse 8
Verse 9
To the outro…

Phew!