In loving memory of Cyril Davies
 Cyril Davies: Father of British Blues Harmonica
Born at St Mildred's, 15 Hawthorn Drive, Willowbank, Denham, Buckinghamshire, near London, he was the son of William Albert Davies, a labourer, and his wife Margaret Mary (née Jones). He had an elder brother named Glyn, and the family is believed to have come from Wales.
Cyril Davies began his career in the early 1950s first within Steve Lane's Southern Stompers, then as part of an acoustic skiffle and blues group with Alexis Korner.[citation needed] He began as a banjo and 12-string guitar player before becoming Britain's first Chicago-style blues harmonica player.[citation needed]
In 1962, Davies and Korner opened a club called the Ealing Club in London, adding bassist Jack Bruce, saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith and drummer Charlie Watts, to form the electric band Blues Incorporated. The album R&B from the Marquee features both Davies and Korner.
Many young musicians visited the Ealing Club and 'guested' with Blues Incorporated, including Rod Stewart, Paul Jones, Ronnie Wood, Keith Richards, Eric Burdon, Mick Jagger, Brian Jones and Ginger Baker.
Soon there was musical tension in the band, as some members wanted to play crowd-pleasers like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley tracks while Cyril Davies was a blues purist who wanted to play what he saw as only genuine Chicago-style R&B. Following the dissolution of Blues Incorporated in October 1962, Davies formed the Cyril Davies All-Stars in November 1962 and recorded five tracks for Pye Records, who had announced an R&B label featuring music imported from Davies' favourite Chicago musicians ("Country Line Special", "Chicago Calling", "Preaching the Blues", "Sweet Mary" and "Someday Baby").[4] The original line-up, largely recruited from Screaming Lord Sutch's Savages, was later subject to frequent changes, particularly after Davies' death.
A number of 'R&B All-Stars' tracks with various line-ups, including Carlo Little, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Nicky Hopkins, are to be found on different record labels and anthologies - the name apparently continuing for several years. Those compilations include, A Shot of Rhythm and Blues (Sequel Records), Stroll On (Sony Music), and Dealing With the Devil (Sony Music).
Davies died of acute leukemia in January 1964.
More about Cyril Davies at cyrildavies.com
Cyril Davies - Cyril Davies & Roundhouse Jug Four
 Styles: Jug Band
Released: 1961
Label: Kenton
File: mp3@192K/s (from vinyl)
Size: 14.1 MB
Time: 10:16
Art: front
Side 1
1. K.C. Moan (Teewee Blackman)
2. Hesitation Blues (W.C. Handy)
Side 2
3. It's the Same Thing (Will Shade)
4. Short Legs Shuffle (Jeff Bradford)
Personnel:
Cyril Davies (harmonica, 12 string guitar and vocals)
Jeff Bradford (mandoline, guitar on Short Legs Shuffle, and kazoo)
Reg Turner (jug)
Lisa Turner (banjo and vocalist)
Recorded in Kenton, Middlesex, August 3, 1961.
Directed by Cyril Davies
Released: Aug 3rd, 1961 (VJM, VEP10 )
Liner Notes by Brian Rust
Notes: Jug bands there have been a-plenty on records, made exclusively in America, chiefly in the cities of Memphis, Louisville, and Atlanta, mainly during the classic era of jazz from 1922 to 1931. There origin is as old as the blues; to the big companies operating in America today, they are not a commercial proposition any more, it seems. But this group, resident in London's folk-song club, the Roundhouse, in London's Wardour Street, is the first British jug band ever to make a record for commercial release.
The leader and general all-rounder (no pun intended!), Cyril Davies, used to play with our Steve Lane's Famous Southern Stompers and is the composer of that strangely attractive minor-key melody THE STAGGERS which has been recorded for us by Colin Kingwell's Jazz Bandits (VEP-11). On the session that produced the above tracks, he knelt before the microphone, the better to record the instrumental number SHORT LEGS SHUFFLE, which suggested its name. The rippling folksy banjo by petite Lise Turner, wife of the jug player Reg, is one of the most attractive and unusual sounds on any VJM record.
The first track on each side is a tribute to the Memphis Jug Band and its leader, Will Shade, who for nearly four years (February 1927 to November 1930) directed many sessions in Memphis and some in Atlanta, playing all the instruments used by Cyril Davies and Jeff Bradford. K.C. Moan was actually issued here on Regal-Zonophone in February 1937, but while a good sale of such a record could probably be expected now, it meant nothing to the public then. A more thoroughly satisfying blues performance has seldom been recorded, and this version echoes that mood.
W.C. Handy's HESITATION BLUES is a well-tried folk song, with countless variations on the lyrics. Lise Turner sings with Cyril Davies on this and IT'S THE SAME THING, and the effect is quite remarkably close to the sound of the country blues bands that made records "on location" in the South upwards of three decades ago.
This is not a skiffle group as the term as the term came to be misused by the Tin Pan Alley men in 1956 and a couple of years thereafter; it is a group of four enthusiastic and artistically sensitive people, mature in years, not teenagers, who have steeped themselves in their idiom with these happy results. ~ Brian Rust
Cyril Davies & Roundhouse Jug Four
Cyril Davies & His R & B All Stars - The Sound of Cyril Davies
 Styles: British Blues
Released: 1964
File: mp3@192K/s (from vinyl)
Size: 13.6 MB
Time: 9:53
Art: front
Side 1
A1. Country Line Special - 2:17
A2. Chicago Calling - 2:27
Side 2
B1. Preachin' The Blues - 2:10
B2. Sweet Mary - 2:57
Personnel Side One:
Cyril Davies - Vocals and Harmonica
Rick Brown - Bass
Bernie Watson - Guitar
Nicky Hopkins - Piano
Carlo Little - Drums
Produced by Peter Knight Jr. at Pye's Marble Arch studios on 27 Feb 1963.
Personnel Side Two:
Cyril Davies - Vocals and Harmonica
Cliff Barton - Bass
Geoff Bradford - Guitar
Keith Scott - Piano
Micky Waller - Drums
Madeline Bell & Alex Bradford - Vocal Backings
Notes: In Nov. '62 harpist Cyril Davies left Alexis Korner and Blues Incorporated, wanting a tougher city blues sound. He formed Cyril Davies R & B All Stars, taking Long John Baldry with him from Blues Incorporated and recruiting Screaming Lord Sutch's backup musicians Rick Brown (bass) and Carlo Little (drums). The All Stars also listed talented guitarist Geoff Bradford among their members.
The All Stars evolved into Long John Baldry's Hoochie Coochie Men in January '64 after Cyril Davies's death. Still Geoff Bradford on guitar - and Rod Stewart as one of the vocalists.
The Sound of Cyril Davies
Cyril Davies - The Legendary Cyril Davies
 Styles: British Blues, Acoustic Blues, Folk-Blues
Released: 1970
File: mp3@192K/s (from vinyl)
Size: 46.4 MB
Time: 33:47
Art: front
Side 1
1. Leaving Blues - 3:14
2. Roundhouse Stomp - 2:53
3. Rotten Break - 3:47
4. K.C. Moan - 2:53
5. Skip To My Lou - 1:54
6. It's The Same Old Thing - 2:19
Side 1
1. Alberta - 2:43
2. Hesitation Blues - 2:28
3. Ella Speed - 2:57
4. Good Morning - 2:35
5. Boll Weevil - 3:25
6. Short Legs Shuffle - 2:34
Personnel:
Cyril Davies - 12-string guitar (except 3,9,10,11), vocal (except 2,3), harmonica (2,4,6,8,12)
Alexis Korner - guitar (2,3,10,11), vocal (3,5), mandolin (2,5,9)
Mike Collins - washboard (2,9,11)
Terry Plant - bass (2,5)
Jeff Bradford - mandolin, guitar and kazoo (4,6,8,12)
Reg Turner - jug (4,6,8,12)
Lisa Turner - banjo and vocal (4,6,8,12)
Notes: Early in the morning of January 8th, 1964, I received a telephone call from John Martin: "I'm sorry to be the one who has to tell you this, John, but Cyril died last night." Cyril had been taken to hospital at six in the evening and within five hours was dead. I just could not believe it - he had been ill for some months, that I knew, but the suddenness of his death threw me. Some days before, as we were crossing the footbridge from our old stamping ground Eel Pie Island, he had said something that flashed back into my mind at that moment. "You know, John, I think this will be the last time I'll walk on this bridge".
As it happened, that particular evening at the Island was to be his last public appearance.
The first time I ever met Cyril Davies was a few weeks before the earliest tracks on this album were recorded. I was only a young kid just out of school at that time, just playing guitar and singing a little and very much in love with the blues. Although I had been listening to records by Bill Broonzy, and Muddy Waters among others since I was twelve, I had never heard English people playing and singing the blues until the evening I walked into the Roundhouse (the pub in Soho, not Arnold Wesker's ex-railway turntable shed) and heard Cyril and Alexis Korner. I used to go every Thursday evening and they would invite me to join them on the piece of lino between the piano and the bar, which served as the bandstand, encouraging me in my desire to be part of the blues scene. Those were great days, because apart from Cyril, Alex and myself performing, there were visits to the club by Big Bill, Muddy, Memphis Slim, Otis Spann, Ramblin' Jack Elliot and Derroll Adams and many more.
Of course, Cyril was better known then as a twelve-string guitarist than as a harmonica player. But later, in the days of the "Blues Incorporated" and the All Stars", he never played guitar on stage, so naturally became absolutely identified with harmonica. I have always thought it a great pity that his guitar playing was never utilized on his recordings for Decca and Pye. However, this situation can now be rectified as we listen to this collection of memorable recordings thanks to Doug Dobell.
As I listen, I look back and think of the little black Alsatian Uschi (still alive and well and monstrous in Kent) that he gave me from the litter of his scrapyard watchdog Kim. The entire barful of dockers on Teesside for whom he bought drinks all night. The inimitable way he curbed a tribal civil war in the back of a Timpson's coach outside Middlesbrough Infirmary. My sudden arrival back to sobriety one night in Burslem with a well-aimed harmonica hurled at my head from the stage. But there's not enough room on this sleeve to tell it all. Perhaps Doug might let me record an album one day so that I can tell you the WHOLE story of the Legendary Cyril Davies. ~ Long John Baldry
The Legendary Cyril Davies
• John 'Spider John' Koerner - Spider Blues •
• Josh White - Bluesman, Guitar Evangelist, Folksinger •
Posted by muddyOznake: Cyril Davies, Alexis Korner, Acoustic Blues, Folk-Blues, British Blues, Jug Band, England, Biography
|
We are a group of friends from different parts of the world which has one important thing in common, our love for the blues. We are here to promote blues and blues musicians who we think deserve more attention and that is the only purpose of this blog.