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.

Hesitation Blues is a traditional blues and folk songs, first published in 1915 and first recorded in 1916. Different artists have interpreted it in unique ways, but Davis’ two lines of verse/two lines of refrain is the standard way to sing it.
It is in standard tuning and modulates between Am and its harmonic major key of C. It is closer to ragtime or folk than the usual blues structures featuring fairly frequent chord changes highlighting the minor to major progression. The progression is the same for all verses – 12 bars repeated over and over with improvisational melody lines over the top of an alternating bassline. Davis, as with all his finger picking, uses a thumb and index finger approach with his right hand and this lends to tune an idiosyncratic rhythm.
Davis has a very strong thumb technique, and uses it to play lead in notes to prominent bass notes. It’s very difficult to control the level of volume on these notes. You need to use them to set up the main following note, so play them soft and subtly.
His melodic lines are the work of rare genius, following a different rhythm than the bass lines. Unlike the straight on the beat thumb rhythm (albeit with the lead in notes) for the melodyhe uses a strict shuffle rhythm that adds great momentum, and it is his sense of pitch that is the greatest element of this piece. He improvises melodies on the spot and always uses spot on pitch to build up the movement in the music. He knows exactly where he is going and never gets lost. His melodies are mainly based around the major and pentatonic scales.
I suggest practising with just the chords to get the 1-2-3-4 rhythm established in the opening bars down before trying any melody lines. That rhythm is steady through out the piece and you can get a good sound just highlighting the chord changes. As it becomes second nature, add in the melodies.

Note:The good Reverend improvised lyrics over the guitar, so a lot of what he sings is hard to decipher. Here are the basic lines he sang. The refrain is repeated after every ‘verse’.

Am                E                   Am                E 
I woke up this morning just 'bout half past four 
 Am               E                   C7
Hesitation blues was knocking on my door
Refrain
F                                                            C
Tell me, how long, do I baby, have to wait
G7                           C                           C7              F7          C
Can I let you know? Why must I hesitate?

Ain't no use in me working so hard 
I got me two good women  working in the rich folks' yard

I ain't your good man, ain't your good man's son 
But I can get in the place of your good man 'til your good man comes

Well, I ain't no miller, ain't no miller's son 
But I can grind a little corn 'til the miller comes

I ain't no wine presser, ain't no wine presser's son 
But I can buy you a little groceries 'til the grocery man cames

I ain't no cradle rocker, ain't no cradle rocker's son 
But I can do a little rockin' for you 'til the rocker man comes

Well, I ain't no doctor, ain't no doctor's son 
But I can cure a few cases 'til the doctor comes

Eagle on the dollar say, "In God We Trust" 
Woman flashy, wants a man but I declare she want a dollar first

I ain't no bookkeeper, ain't no bookkeeper's son 
But I can keep a few books 'til the bookkeeper comes

I ain't no milkman, ain't no milkman's son
But I can keep you supplied 'til your milkman comes

I ain't no chauffeur, ain't no chauffeur's son 
But I can do a little driving 'til your chauffeur comes

Well, I ain't no back-breaker, ain't no back-breaker's son 
But I can stretch out my back 'til your back-breaker comes

I ain't got no woman and I ain't got no kid 
Ain't got no daughter to be bothered with

I ain't no rent payer, ain't no rent payer's son 
But I can scrape up a few rents 'til the rent payer comes

Well, I ain't been to heaven but I've been told 
St. Peter learnt the angels how to do the Jelly Roll

Me and my buddy and two or three more 
We get good women everywhere we go

Well, I hitched up the mule and the mule wouldn't pull 
Took the hunches off the mule and put the hunches on the bull

Blacker the berry the sweeter the juice 
I'd be a fool if I quit the woman I got because it ain't no use

I got hesitating stockings, hesitating shoes
I got a hesitating woman singing me the hesitating blues

My good gal quit me, I ain't going to wear no black
I always got something to make her come running back

Men in the country hollering, "Whoa, haw, gee!" 
Women in the city flying around asking the question, "Who wants me?"

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust
Just show me a woman that a man can trust

You know, my mother told me when I was just six years old 
I'm going to be a good women getter God bless your soul

The progression follows the same chord changes all throughout with improvised melody lines over the top. The thumb hits the alternating bass n most bars, except the C after the F where you do a lick. Here are the first 4 verses:
Verse 2
Verse 3
Verse 4

The solo follows similar ideas to the improvisation of the progression. The open bars are pure melodic genius, and the ending ‘turnaround’ requires some practise to get the timing of the chords correct. It’s a simple chromatic run of root/5th chords, but it’s the syncopated rhythm that really makes it.