St. Clair Productions presents Bluesman and Storyteller Guy Davis on Saturday, February 4, 8 p.m. at the Unitarian Fellowship, 87 4th St., Ashland. Tickets are $20 in advance, $22 at the door, $10/12-17 and free under 12. Tickets available at the Music Coop in downtown Ashland, on-line at www.stclairevents.com or by calling 541-535-3562.
Guy Davis is a blues guitarist and banjo player, actor, and singer. He is the son of actors Ruby Dee and the late Ossie Davis. Davis says his blues music is inspired by the southern speech of his grandmother. Though raised in the New York City area, 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.
Throughout his life, Davis has had overlapping interests in music and acting. Early acting roles included a lead role in the 1984 film Beat Street and on television as Dr. Josh Hall on One Life to Live from 1985 to 1986. Eventually, Davis had the opportunity to combine music and acting on the stage. 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 "Keeping the Blues Alive Award.”
Davis wrote In Bed with the Blues: The Adventures of Fishy Waters, which he performed in Ashland as part of the 2003 Rogue Valley Blues Festival. Davis co-wrote and performed the music for the 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.
Davis now concentrates on writing, recording and performing music. He has been nominated for nine Blues Music Awards over the years including for "Best Traditional Blues Album", "Best Blues Song" (Waiting On the Cards to Fall) and as "Best Acoustic Blues Artist" two times.
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