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Cedell Davis Live Review

“Keep the Blues Alive” | CeDell Davis Live Review, Album Review, and Interview | Magnolia Festival | Spirit Of Suwannee Music Park | October 16, 2015

by • November 12, 2015

CeDell Davis discovered a harmonica in a pea patch on the plantation where he grew up. He was eight years old at the time. Rural Arkansas was a tough place for a black man to be raised in the 1930s. To hear CeDell Davis tell it, both in person and on record, makes life today not seem half bad.

After that fateful day, Davis’s love affair with the blues would slalom through obstacle after seemingly insurmountable obstacle. At age ten, he lost full function of his right hand when stricken with polio. No big thing for a man like CeDell, a man fortified like granite — smooth and beautiful, yet tough as nails. Instead of giving up the guitar, he grabbed a butter knife, held it like a strangled chopstick, and used that to play the neck with his right hand.

In the 1950s, while touring as a member of Robert Nighthawk’s band, Mr. Davis was trampled during a police raid at a nightclub. Davis lost function of both of his legs and was relegated to a wheelchair. Undeterred, he continued playing guitar and touring.

Then, just a few years ago, Davis suffered a stroke. This time his upper extremities were left without much of their function. Still, the band plays on. CeDell has continued to make his special brand of affective blues music right up through Magnolia Fest 2015 at Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park.

When asked about the things he has endured — poverty, racism, and all the aforementioned obstacles — CeDell says that those things have to do with other people, not him.

He just wants to ‘keep the blues alive.’ ”

Most kids don’t really know the blues these days, he says. Some are good at making music, his guitar player Zakk Binns for example. Students like Zakk listen and learn from CeDell, but does he ever learn anything from the kids?

“No,” he says matter-of-factly followed by his infectious chuckle. Mr. Davis is ostensibly touring in support of his Grammy nominated album, Last Man Standing. But the true mission is clearly to “keep the blues alive.”

If the blues meets its demise, that end will not come for lack of effort on CeDell’s part. His latest album, with the wonderful backing band that accompanied him at Mag Fest last month, is a clinic in Davis’s unique brand of the blues. CeDell’s voice may not have the same clarity it once did, but the power of his storytelling gets its due on Last Man Standing through the masterful production of Jimbo Mathus.

What Davis’s voice lacks in clarity, it makes up for in emotion. The album was recorded live, with extemporaneous anecdotes included in the mix. It feels like a jam session from a bygone era. An era when guys got a little rowdy, but still did a job well. He tells tales of growing up in Arkansas, moving to Mississippi, learning to play guitar with Dr. Ross, and of course, women.

It says as much about this author as it does CeDell that the conversation naturally flowed to women, when we spoke before his wonderful Magnolia Festival set. They are certainly the object of his attention on Last Man Standing — a muse for his 88 year old young soul.

On “Purty Women” Davis remarks that there are indeed attractive ladies in attendance — a common condition for the legend. He is never far from the company of females.

With 88 years of magnetism under his belt, CeDell has plenty of fodder for a Grammy nominated blues album. He asks for a “Teenie Weenie Bit,” and implores a paramour to “Turn on Your Light.” The sparse production of the album highlights the authenticity of CeDell’s interaction with the music. His voice comes in when it’s moved to join the party. The organic nature of that creative process comes across beautifully — both on record and live.

Last Man Standing maintains an almost haunting quality while still sounding fresh. 

The record is steeped in a life lived hard, but well, yet the music clips along like something very fresh. Not exactly contemporary, but not quite a relic of the past either.

The kids don’t play the blues like that anymore, CeDell told me. The kids never played the blues like that, Mr. Davis. No one plays the blues like that, sir. You are one of a kind; and we are lucky to have you still touring and gracing stages across the world with your incredible tales.

CeDell Davis’s, Last Man Standing, is available on Sunyata Records. The recording and the man deserve a Grammy. Regardless of that outcome, Last Man Standing deserves a listen.

CeDell Davis Live Review and Album Review by Jason Earle.

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