FESTIVAL FORUM
Debate, discussion and argument - gear, bands and gigs - it's your call
2004 FESTIVAL ARTISTES
The who's who of Festival 2004; pictures, links, the lot
2004 GIG REVIEWS
Photo's and Gig Reviews of ALL the stages/venues of Festival 2004
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POSTER 2004
The 2004 Poster is available free to download right now
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PROGRAMME 2004
What was on in 2004
All the bands, venues and times
ACOUSTIC STAGE
The "Acoustic Stage" (in reality an eclectic mix of music from Delta Blues to
flat out rock) at The Shore Hotel has it's own website which is now updated
with new pictures and info..
ISLE OF MAN BLUES CLUB
The Manx Blues Club; where the Festival sprang from
venue, dates, history etc..
TICKETS
Which stage requires tickets?
Click here for all the info
ARTISTS
Bio's, pic's and loads of info.
VENUES
Info & Location
NEWSLETTER: SUBSCRIBE NOW - FREE
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CONTACT US
Keep
us
in the know
MAP
Where is it? Here!
Includes Photo's of Laxey
TRAVEL
How to get to the Isle of Man
Stage: MAIN STAGE GIG REPORT 2003
Photo's and Report on the
Charterhouse International Blues Pavilion
Main Stage
Stage: ACOUSTIC STAGE
The Acoustic Stage has it's own web
site. You can check out: Previous
fest.s, pictures and details.
NEWSLETTER: SUBSCRIBE NOW - FREE
Be in the know...first
CONTACT US
Keep
us
in the know
MAP
Where is it? Here!
Includes Photo's of Laxey
TRAVEL
How to get to the Isle of Man
SPONSORS
Without our sonsors
there would be no
Fest - Who are these
generous people?
Domicilium: Internet Providers to the Festival
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Bushy's Big Wheel Blues Festival 2003 is
a fund raising event for the British Red
Cross. Please give generously.
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Guy Davis on the Main Stage at The Isle of Man Blues Festival 2004 - click to
enlarge
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Guy with Watermelon Slim on the Main Stage of the Isle of Man Blues Festival
2004 - click to enlarge
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Guy celebrates a great gig at The Isle of Man Blues Festival 2004 with a fan -
click to enlarge
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The hands of a master bluesman - Guy plays the Main Stage at The Isle of Man
Blues Festival 2004 - click to enlarge
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First some press comment:
"renaissance bluesman", "100% pure blues"
"A singer and guitarist in the rural mould of Robert Johnson and Mississippi
John Hurt, he has got a voice like Howlin' Wolf dipped in honey. He is also an
enchanting storyteller, able to deliver a shaggy-dog story while barking and
simultaneously making train noises on a harmonica - a reminder of a time when
the phrase "novelty song" didn't necessarily have music-lovers running for the
exits. He utilised ye olde food/sex metaphor in Home Cooked Meal and made it
sound dirtier than you would have thought possible. He is fabulous."
"It's difficult to know where to begin with the story of New York City bluesman
Guy Davis. Accomplished and acclaimed as a musician, composer, actor, director
and writer, Davis somehow makes the term multi-talented seem woefully
inadequate."
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- Jim Musser
Icon Magazine
February 13, 1997
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He's got some Blind Willie McTell and some Fats Waller, some Buddy Guy and some
Taj Mahal. He's got some Zora Neale Hurston, some Garrison Keillor, and some
Laura Davis (his one-hundred-year-old grandmother). He's a musician,
composer, actor, director, and writer. But most importantly, Guy Davis is a
bluesman. The blues permeates every corner of Davis' creativity. Throughout
his career, he has dedicated himself to reviving the traditions of acoustic
blues and bringing them to as many ears as possible through the material of the
great blues masters, African American stories, and his own original songs,
stories and performance pieces.
Davis' creative roots run deep. Though raised in New York city, he grew up
hearing accounts of life in the rural south from his parents and especially his
grandparents, and they made their way into his own stories and songs. Davis
taught himself the guitar (never having the patience to take formal lessons)
and learned by listening to and watching other musicians. One night on a train
from Boston to New York he picked up finger picking from a nine-fingered guitar
player.
His influences are wide and varied. Musically, he enjoyed such great
blues musicians as Blind Willie McTell (and his way of story telling), Skip
Jones, Manse Lipscomb, Mississippi John Hurt, Elizabeth Cotton, and Buddy Guy,
among others. It was through Taj Mahal that he found his way to the old time
blues. He also loved such divers musicians as Fats Waller and Gustav Holst.
His writing and storytelling have been influenced by Zora Neale Hurston and
Garrison Keillor.
He made his broadway musical debut in
1991 in the Zora Neale Hurston/Langston Hughes collaboration "Mulebone," which
featured the music of Taj Mahal. In 1993 he performed Off-Broadway as
legendary blues player Robert Johnson in "Robert Johnson: Trick the Devil." He
received rave reviews and became the 1993 winner of the Blues Foundation's W.C.
Handy "Keeping the Blues Alive Award."
Looking for more ways to combine his love of blues, music, and acting,
Davis created material for himself. He wrote "In Bed with the Blues: The
Adventures of Fishy Waters" -- and engaging and moving one man show. The
Off-Broadway debut in 1994 received critical praise from the "New York Times"
and the "Village Voice". Davis also performed in a theater piece with his
parents, actors/writers Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, entitled "Two Hah Hahs and a
Homeboy," staged at the Crossroads Theatre in New Brunswick, NJ in the spring
of 1995. The show combined material written by Davis and his parents, with
music, African American Folklore and history, as well as performance pieces by
Hurston and Hughes. Of Davis' performance, one reviewer observed that his
style and writing "sounds so deeply drenched in lost black traditions that you
feel that they must predate him. But no, they don't. He created them."
Davis' writing projects have also included a variety of theatre pieces and
plays. "Mudsurfing," a collection of three short stories, received the 1991
Brio Award from the Bronx Council of the Arts. "The Trial," an anti-drug
abuse one-act play that toured throughout the New York City shelter system, was
produced Off-Broadway in 1990, at the McGinn Cazale Theater. In 1992, Davis
lengthened the play, renamed it "The Trial: Judgement of the People," and
presented it at the same theater. Davis also arranged, performed and co-wrote
the music for an Emmy award winning film, "To Be a Man." In the fall of 1995,
his music was used in the national PBS series, "The American Promise."
In the past few years, Davis has concentrated much of his efforts on
writing and performing music. In the fall of 1995, he released his Red House
records debut "Stomp Down Rider," an album that captured Davis in a stunning
live performance. The album landed on top lists all over the country,
including in the "Boston Globe" and "Pulse." Davis' next album, "Call Down
the Thunder," paid tribute to the blues
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