THE B@@MER S@@NER, Kiowa Blues King - Jesse Ed Davis!!

Among American Indians, The Blues is big. Around Indian Country, where I live, there are many great Blues Artists. So it is no surprise to me to find a Kiowa Indian, whose dexterity with a Fender, and with his degree in Literature from Oklahoma University, took to writing of Blues songs, Jesse's influence is still thundering. Davis played with all the greatest Blues Artists in the world, including Eric Clapton. It is time for The Oklahoma Music Heritage Foundation, to vote Jesse into its Music Hall of Fame. It is time that Oklahoma becomes, ... "JesseEdDavisized."

Jesse was born in 1944 in The Naval Hospital on the North Campus in Norman. His mother was a full-blood Kiowa Indian, named Saumkeah. Jesse graduated from the University of Oklahoma, but afterward wasn't happy doing anything but playing the Blues. I believe that Jesse graduated in 66 or 67. during his first two years, the Folk Music Craze was big, and OU sponsored Friday-At-Four, on the patio of the Student Union. I don't recall him playing, though, they did bring in some of the great historical African American Blues players. I remember one, :) who played the blues using a knife as a slide. It was incredible. After graduation, Jesse spent two years in the business community and was drawn back to his heritage and love, The Blues. Davis played with Eric Clapton, Taj Mahal, The Beatles and is considered one of the greatest Blues players of his time. If you can name a Blues artist, Jesse played with them. Davis was out of the limelight during the late '80s, struggling with overcoming a drug abuse problem.

Jesse graduated from Norman High School, in 1962. His dad was of Comanche decent, so the full-blooded Kiowa Indian is incorrect, but close, if his dad was of Comanche and Kiowa bloodline, his American Indian veins held pure Indian blood. Four years of college, which he did, would put him graduating from Oklahoma University in 1966 or 1967.

With The Beatles, and the exit of folk music, the coffee shops in OKC and Norman shut down. Friday-At-4 was a thing of the past. From his bio, Jesse really didn't start his music career for a couple of years after his graduation, so that would explain why he wasn't on the campus scene. On the other hand, after '65, I was off the campus housing, and, thus, wasn't part of the music scene. Jesse was a full-blood Kiowa Indian/Comanche Indian. He died in a Laundrymat in 1988, Venice, California. He left his wife and son. I live in Kiowa Country with their headquarters at Carnegie, Oklahoma, two skips and a hollar down the road where we presently live. All of the information above is incontrovertably true. Listening to his double LPs on one CD, you will find referrences to the Washita River, Market Street in Anadarko, Anadarko, The Drum, Reno Street in Oklahoma City, a place where homeless still live the street of homeless and drug addicted used to hang out, and one can hear Tulsa mentioned in his songs.

Anadarko hosts a Blues Festival every year in August. Most of the Blues Artists who perform are American Indian.

There is some grainy, 38 MM film of him playing at a Blues Fest, a benefit, and, in fact, more than likely the first of those type of festivals. Farm Aide, AIDs, and other "raise money" festivals are now a part of our life.

Look at his picture above. Thanks, to my son, Darrin, I wouldn't have had any clue that Jesse existed. I have, also, put out a call on my Blues List, and if anyone can come up with accurate Bio's, it will come from that list.

So, come back here to find the most accurate facts on this great Kiowa Indian. Remember, too, that many other Blues artists, think Janice Joplin, died of drug over-doses. If you have seen the documentary on the Canada Railroad event, you will see all of the artists smoking reefers, drinking tons of booz, and partaking of hard drugs, supplied by the Railroad events manager. I've seen the documentary, but most assuredly, Jesse was on that train.

Jesse Ed Davis web gleanings

I saw him play in '68 and again in '70. Jesse Ed was one of the all time greatest guitar players. (Chris lists his middle name as Edwin.) Thanks Chris!

" In April of 1979, Trudell met Jackson Browne. This meeting led Trudell into the world of music. In 1982, with Jackson Browne's help, John Trudell recorded Tribal Voice, a fusion of poetry and traditional Native music, which was released on cassette. In 1985, Trudell met legendary Kiowa guitarist and songwriter Jesse Ed Davis. Together, they recorded Trudell's debut album AKA Grafitti Man, with Trudell writing and performing the spoken word vocals and Jesse writing and performing the music. Released on cassette in 1986, it was dubbed "the best album" of that year by none other than Bob Dylan. AKA Grafitti Man served early notice of Trudell's singular ability to express fundamental truths through a unique mix of poetry, Native instrumentation and unfettered blues and rock." (Internet Records)

"Trudell recorded two more albums with Jesse Ed Davis before Davis' untimely death in 1988 and would continue the work the pair had pioneered, this time in partnership with Mark Shark, on such landmark early 90's releases as Fables and Other Realities and Child's Voice: Children Of The Earth. A touring stint with Australia's incendiary Midnight Oil and roles in the feature films Thunderheart and Smoke Signals and the documentary Incident At Oglala helped spread the word of the artist's multi-faceted talents, as did a 1992 rerecording of AKA Grafitti Man, this time produced by Jackson Browne. Released on Rykodisc, the album was dubbed by Rolling Stone Magazine "a moving, shape-shifting rock & roll treatise on the state of the world." Two years later, Trudell would return with Johnny Damas & Me and, in 1999, released the acclaimed Blue Indians, once again produced by Browne. The album, remarked Parke Puterbaugh, in Rolling Stone, "is an affecting marriage of tribal rhythms, traditional chanting, modern musical backdrops and Trudell's penetrating poetics." (Net and record Bios)

"A full-blooded Kiowa/Comanche Indian, Jesse Ed Davis was perhaps the most versatile session guitarist of the late '60s and early '70s. Whether it was blues, country or rock, Davis' tasteful guitar playing was featured on albums by such giants as Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, John Lennon and John Lee Hooker, among others. It is Davis' weeping slide heard on Clapton's "Hello Old Friend" (from No Reason to Cry), and on both Rock n' Roll and Walls & Bridges, it is Davis who supplied the bulk of the guitar work for ex-Beatle Lennon."

"Born in Oklahoma, Davis first earned a degree in literature from the University of Oklahoma before beginning his musical career touring with Conway Twitty in the early '60s. Eventually the guitarist moved to California, joining bluesman Taj Mahal and playing guitar and piano on his first three albums. " by Steve Kurutz

A full-blooded Kiowa (sic) Indian, Jesse Ed Davis was perhaps the most versatile session guitarist of the late '60s and early '70s. Whether it was blues, country or rock, Davis' tasteful guitar playing was featured on albums by such giants as Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, John Lennon and John Lee Hooker, among others. It is Davis' weeping slide heard on Clapton's "Hello Old Friend" (from No Reason to Cry), and on both Rock n' Roll and Walls & Bridges, it is Davis who supplied the bulk of the guitar work for ex-Beatle Lennon.

Born in Oklahoma, Davis first earned a degree in literature from the University of Oklahoma before beginning his musical career touring with Conway Twitty in the early '60s. Eventually the guitarist moved to California, joining bluesman Taj Mahal and playing guitar and piano on his first three albums. It was with Mahal where Davis was able to showcase his skill and range, playing slide, lead and rhythm, country and even jazz guitar during his three-year stint.

The period backing Mahal was the closest Davis came to being in a band full-time, and after Taj's 1969 album Giant Step, Davis began doing session work for such diverse acts as David Cassidy, Albert King and Willie Nelson. In addition, he also released three solo albums featuring industry friends such as Leon Russell and Eric Clapton.

In and out of clinics, Davis disappeared from the music industry for a time, spending much of the '80s dealing with alcohol and drug addiction. Just before his death of a suspected drug overdose in 1988, Davis resurfaced playing in the Graffiti Band, which coupled his music with the poetry of American Indian activist John Trudell. The kind of expert, tasteful playing that Davis always brought to an album is sorely missed among the acts he worked with.

There is a CD of Jesse's which can be found on eBay. I've ordered it. It says it is a combination of two vinyls. I have ordered the CD. Of course, as well, you can pick up som Taj Mahal CD's of that era and find him playing lead on those.

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Mahal, Taj - Taj Mahal CD

Taj Mahal CD
Taj Mahal
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Detailed Information
List Price $11.98 (You save $2.09)
Category Rock/Pop, Urban Soundtrack, Blues, Contemporary Blues
Label Legacy Recordings
Orig Year 1968
CDU Part# 1089076
All Time Sales Rank 19243
Catalog# 65858
Discs 1
Street Date Sep 05, 2000
Studio/Live Studio
Mono/Stereo Stereo
Guest(s) Jesse Edwin Davis; Ry Cooder
Additional Info Remastered

Posters From Allposters.com
Spirit - At the Whiskey A-Go-Go

14 x 20 inch
Art Print

Price: $15.99

Fillmore East: The Lost Concert Tapes 12/13/68
Kooper, Al
Fillmore East: The Lost Concert Tapes 12/13/68

CD $7.69

Notes
Personnel: Taj Mahal (vocals, slide guitar, harmonica); Ryland "Ry" P. Cooder (guitar, mandolin); Jesse Edwin Davis (guitar, piano); Gary Gilmore, James Thomas, Charles Blackwell (bass); Sanford Konikoff (drums). Producer: David Rubinson. Reissue producer: Bob Irwin. Recorded in August 1967. Originally released on Columbia (9579). Includes liner notes by Tom Nolan, Taj Mahal & Stanley Crouch. Though these 1968 sides were cut in LA at the apex of the burgeoning counterculture movement, the main influences at play here are those of the Mississippi Delta blues. Featuring early performances from Ry Cooder and Jesse Ed Davis, TAJ MAHAL is the joyfully confident debut that propelled the eponymous bluesman to national recognition. Comparable to similar experiments by Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield and British blues maven John Mayall, Mahal's sound is both intensely traditional and aggressively pure. For an example of the former, check out the album's closer, "The Celebrated Walkin' Blues," the intro of which sounds as if it could Mahal's self-titled solo debut, released in 1967, featured an amalgamation of musicians from different ethnicities. "We were a mixture of what America was all about, red, black and white," Mahal said.

He considers the band's electric guitarist, the late Jesse Edwin Davis, a Comanche Indian, "one of the most underrated electric guitar players of the century." Audiences weren't accustomed to such diversity on stage. been recorded any time in the previous 30 years, while "Statesboro Blues," with Davis's thrillingly raw slide interjections featured heavily throughout, is an intensely focused performance still capable of producing chills decades after the fact. There's no tinkering with genre here, as was later to become the style with countless '60s and '70s blues rock bands--what's on offer on TAJ MAHAL is a direct electrified line to the heart and soul of a seminal American art form. This edition features alternate artwork to the original, chosen by Mahal himself, and contemporary liner notes by celebrated critic Stanley Crouch.

Jesse Ed Davis* -- Washita Love Child -- Jesse Edwin Davis -- Wounded Bird (Washita River meanders through Carnegie, Anadarko, and Chickasha, Oklahoma.

Goog Taste Music

2103 Edwards Ave

Muscle Shoals, AL 35661

GOOGLE THEM

Song Titles on double LP DISk. All Songs written by Davis

1) Reno Street Incident (Every Okla resident knows of Reno Street in OKC)

2) Tulsa County

3) Washita Love Child (River runs through Carnegie, Washita, Anadarko

4) Every Night is Saturday Night

5) You Belladonna You

6) Rock'n Roll Gypsies

7) Golden Sun Goddess

8) Crazy Love

9) Red Dirt Boogie, Brother

10) White Line Fever

11) Farther On Down The Road

12) Sue Me, Sue You Blues

13) My Captain

14) Ululu

15) Old Susannah

16) Strawberry

17) Make a Joyful

18) Alcatraz

"Haven't had it yet," he says. "Maybe it'll happen tonight. There have been a lot of highlights though: Abraham's Children's Ivor Wynn Stadium concert, where a minor teenage hysteria riot broke out and the police had to stop the show after the third song. Sharing a bill with Teenage Head at the Millhaven Pen. Getting to play bass for Taj Mahal's band for two sold-out Toronto shows when his bassist got turned back at the border. Jesse Edwin Davis actually taught me the bass parts 20 minutes before we hit the stage!"
by Arlo Guthrie

"Concert collaborations between Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger had a truly magical cross-generational folk music bond, but also were a showbiz boxoffice venture, an aspect that no amount of shucking or jiving can hide. The recordings that were released from these onstage meetings are enjoyable, but hardly memorable. In some cases the shlock factor is so mighty that, on a track by track basis, this album could be used to repelf as well as attract, just as surely as the hefty double-album itself could be used as a weapon. Not that Seeger nor the young son of his former singing partner Woody Guthrie would advocate such a thing."

"The Guthrie connection leads to a strong "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)". "Joe Hill", tough as ever, might require a bit of patience, but the jug band "Stealin' sneaks up at the beginning of the fourth side to give the entire album a new jolt of energy. The set's promise of a concert recording is not entirely misleading, though the sides mix and match excerpts from four different gigs. Cowboy songs are a nice connection for the two men, with "Lonesome Valley" another strong part of the final side. "Guantanamera" is horrid, though, and Seeger is sure stilted when it comes to old English balladry. In the musicians' musician column, these recordings feature nice back-up lead guitar from native American picker Jesse Edwin Davis, who has a nice feeling for both country and blues. Some listeners will want to give the two frontmen the hook and just listen to Davis."

Posted by Eugene Chadbourne [+] |

" In April of 1979, Trudell met Jackson Browne. This meeting led Trudell into the world of music. In 1982, with Jackson Browne's help, John Trudell recorded Tribal Voice, a fusion of poetry and traditional Native music, which was released on cassette. In 1985, Trudell met legendary Kiowa guitarist and songwriter Jesse Ed Davis. Together, they recorded Trudell's debut album AKA Grafitti Man, with Trudell writing and performing the spoken word vocals and Jesse writing and performing the music. Released on cassette in 1986, it was dubbed "the best album" of that year by none other than Bob Dylan. AKA Grafitti Man served early notice of Trudell's singular ability to express fundamental truths through a unique mix of poetry, Native instrumentation and unfettered blues and rock." (Internet Records)

"Trudell recorded two more albums with Jesse Ed Davis before Davis' untimely death in 1988 and would continue the work the pair had pioneered, this time in partnership with Mark Shark, on such landmark early 90's releases as Fables and Other Realities and Child's Voice: Children Of The Earth. A touring stint with Australia's incendiary Midnight Oil and roles in the feature films Thunderheart and Smoke Signals and the documentary Incident At Oglala helped spread the word of the artist's multi-faceted talents, as did a 1992 rerecording of AKA Grafitti Man, this time produced by Jackson Browne. Released on Rykodisc, the album was dubbed by Rolling Stone Magazine "a moving, shape-shifting rock & roll treatise on the state of the world." Two years later, Trudell would return with Johnny Damas & Me and, in 1999, released the acclaimed Blue Indians, once again produced by Browne. The album, remarked Parke Puterbaugh, in Rolling Stone, "is an affecting marriage of tribal rhythms, traditional chanting, modern musical backdrops and Trudell's penetrating poetics." (Net and record Bios)

"A full-blooded Kiowa/Comanche Indian, Jesse Ed Davis was perhaps the most versatile session guitarist of the late '60s and early '70s. Whether it was blues, country or rock, Davis' tasteful guitar playing was featured on albums by such giants as Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, John Lennon and John Lee Hooker, among others. It is Davis' weeping slide heard on Clapton's "Hello Old Friend" (from No Reason to Cry), and on both Rock n' Roll and Walls & Bridges, it is Davis who supplied the bulk of the guitar work for ex-Beatle Lennon."

"Born in Oklahoma, Davis first earned a degree in literature from the University of Oklahoma before beginning his musical career touring with Conway Twitty in the early '60s. Eventually the guitarist moved to California, joining bluesman Taj Mahal and playing guitar and piano on his first three albums. " by Steve Kurutz

A full-blooded Kiowa Indian, Jesse Ed Davis was perhaps the most versatile session guitarist of the late '60s and early '70s. Whether it was blues, country or rock, Davis' tasteful guitar playing was featured on albums by such giants as Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, John Lennon and John Lee Hooker, among others. It is Davis' weeping slide heard on Clapton's "Hello Old Friend" (from No Reason to Cry), and on both Rock n' Roll and Walls & Bridges, it is Davis who supplied the bulk of the guitar work for ex-Beatle Lennon.

Born in Oklahoma, Davis first earned a degree in literature from the University of Oklahoma before beginning his musical career touring with Conway Twitty in the early '60s. Eventually the guitarist moved to California, joining bluesman Taj Mahal and playing guitar and piano on his first three albums. It was with Mahal where Davis was able to showcase his skill and range, playing slide, lead and rhythm, country and even jazz guitar during his three-year stint.

The period backing Mahal was the closest Davis came to being in a band full-time, and after Taj's 1969 album Giant Step, Davis began doing session work for such diverse acts as David Cassidy, Albert King and Willie Nelson. In addition, he also released three solo albums featuring industry friends such as Leon Russell and Eric Clapton.

In and out of clinics, Davis disappeared from the music industry for a time, spending much of the '80s dealing with alcohol and drug addiction. Just before his death of a suspected drug overdose in 1988, Davis resurfaced playing in the Graffiti Band, which coupled his music with the poetry of American Indian activist John Trudell. The kind of expert, tasteful playing that Davis always brought to an album is sorely missed among the acts he worked with.

There is a CD of Jesse's which can be found on eBay. I've ordered it. It says it is a combination of two vinyls. I have ordered the CD. Of course, as well, you can pick up som Taj Mahal CD's of that era and find him playing lead on those.

+++

Personnel: Taj Mahal (vocals, slide guitar, harmonica); Ryland "Ry" P. Cooder (guitar, mandolin); Jesse Edwin Davis (guitar, piano); Gary Gilmore, James Thomas, Charles Blackwell (bass); Sanford Konikoff (drums). Producer: David Rubinson. Reissue producer: Bob Irwin. Recorded in August 1967. Originally released on Columbia (9579). Includes liner notes by Tom Nolan, Taj Mahal & Stanley Crouch. Though these 1968 sides were cut in LA at the apex of the burgeoning counterculture movement, the main influences at play here are those of the Mississippi Delta blues. Featuring early performances from Ry Cooder and Jesse Ed Davis, TAJ MAHAL is the joyfully confident debut that propelled the eponymous bluesman to national recognition. Comparable to similar experiments by Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield and British blues maven John Mayall, Mahal's sound is both intensely traditional and aggressively pure. For an example of the former, check out the album's closer, "The Celebrated Walkin' Blues," the intro of which sounds as if it could Mahal's self-titled solo debut, released in 1967, featured an amalgamation of musicians from different ethnicities. "We were a mixture of what America was all about, red, black and white," Mahal said.

He considers the band's electric guitarist, the late Jesse Edwin Davis, a Comanche Indian, "one of the most underrated electric guitar players of the century." Audiences weren't accustomed to such diversity on stage. been recorded any time in the previous 30 years, while "Statesboro Blues," with Davis's thrillingly raw slide interjections featured heavily throughout, is an intensely focused performance still capable of producing chills decades after the fact. There's no tinkering with genre here, as was later to become the style with countless '60s and '70s blues rock bands--what's on offer on TAJ MAHAL is a direct electrified line to the heart and soul of a seminal American art form. This edition features alternate artwork to the original, chosen by Mahal himself, and contemporary liner notes by celebrated critic Stanley Crouch.

This is certainly not definitive. I have emailed The University of Oklahoma and will contact the State of Oklahoma Musical Heritage Commission, to celebrate this great artist's impact on the US musical culture.