Blind John Davis
b. 7 December 1913, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, USA, d. 12 October 1985, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Davis taught himself piano after being blinded in 1923, and led his own six-piece band for 15 years from 1938. He professed not to care for blues, but his fame rests on the hundreds of blues accompaniments he recorded during the late '30s and early '40s. Among those who used him were ‘Big’ Bill Broonzy, Tampa Red and ‘Doctor’ Peter Clayton. Usually he worked in a small band setting where his generally unspectacular playing would sometimes show a quiet inventiveness. His self-accompanied 1938 vocal recordings are mediocre, but his backup work, with its rolling right hand figures, was both immediately recognizable and creatively varied. In the postwar years, Davis was an early visitor to Europe, recording two albums in Paris in 1952, revealing a personal taste for song such as O Sole Mio and Lady Be Good. Despite his declared preferences they, and subsequent, albums emphasized blues and boogie, with a smattering of jazz and popular music. Seldom profound (although his song No Mail Today is a beautiful piece of controlled melancholy), Davis was always proficient and professional.