Davey Graham

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Davey Graham
Hat, released in 1969
Hat, released in 1969
Born 22 November 1940
Alias(es) Davy Graham
Genre(s) Folk
World music
Jazz
Blues
Label(s) Topic, Decca, Outright, Les Cousins
Years active 1959–Present
Official site Davey Graham Official Website

David Michael Gordon Graham, known as Davey Graham (originally Davy Graham), b. 22 November 1940 in Hinckley, Leicestershire, England, is a guitarist who is credited with sparking the folk-rock revolution in the UK in the 1960s. He inspired many of the famous practitioners of the fingerstyle acoustic guitar, such as Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Martin Carthy, Paul Simon and even Jimmy Page, and is best-known for his acoustic instrumental, Anji.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Davy Graham was born to a Guyanan mother and Scottish father and he took up the guitar at the age of 12. As a teenager, he was strongly influenced by a guitar player called Steve Benbow, who had travelled widely with the army and played a guitar style influenced by Moroccan music. At the age of 19, Graham wrote what is probably his most famous piece, at least for aspiring guitarists: the acoustic solo tune Anji (see below).

One way he came to the attention of guitarists was through a 1959 feature item in the BBC TV news program Monitor. The segment was produced by Ken Russell.

He introduced the DADGAD guitar tuning to British guitarists, though it is not clear if it originated with him. Its main attraction was that it allowed the guitarist more freedom to improvise in the treble while maintaining a solid underlying harmony and rhythm in the bass. While 'non-standard', or 'non-classical' tunings were widely practiced by guitarists before this (Open E and Open G tunings were in common use by blues and slide guitar players) his use of DADGAD introduced a second standard tuning to guitarists.

During the 1960s he released a string of eclectic albums with music from all around the world in all kinds of genres.

He was always unpredictable, which did little to endear him to concert organisers and the more commercial elements of the music world. On one occasion, in the late 1960s, he was booked for a tour of Australia but, when his plane stopped for an hour in Bombay, he changed his plans and spent the next six months wandering through India.

His continuous touring of the world, picking up and then recording different styles of music for the guitar, has resulted in many musicians crediting him with founding world music.[citation needed]

It is generally accepted that he also became addicted to drugs in the 1960s: see Colin Harper's book, referenced below, for details. First-hand accounts of Graham's concerts at this time agree that his performances, which were sometimes brilliant, were on other occasions marred by symptoms consistent with cocaine addiction. In an interview published in The Guardian (see below), he recalled taking a bottle of LSD with him on a ship from Barcelona and shooting up opium in Istanbul, before describing the 10,000 ladybirds he saw on his window that morning. Certainly he reached a point where he ceased to work and entered a period of obscurity and comparative poverty: in this respect, he is often compared with other musicians, such as Syd Barrett and Peter Green who were victims of drug addiction. Nevertheless, he continued to teach the guitar, although (again according to The Guardian article) a lesson with him might consist of his turning on a record and leaving his student to listen to it whilst he went to the pub.

He was the subject of a 2005 BBC Radio documentary Whatever happened to Davy Graham ? [1] and in 2006 featured in the BBC Four documentary Folk Britannia [2].

Now he is playing concerts again, and working with other guitarists, including Bert Jansch, Mark Pavey, Duck Baker and Martin Carthy. He is planning to record a new album including some new material, as well as reworking of his earlier material.

[edit] Angi / Angie / Anji

Davey Graham's acoustic guitar solo Angi, named for his (then) current girlfriend, appeared on his debut EP 3/4 AD in 1962. The tune spread like wildfire through a generation of aspiring guitarists, changing its spelling as it went. Bert Jansch included it on his 1965 debut album as Angie. But the spelling Anji became the most popular after it appeared in this way on Simon and Garfunkel's best-selling 1966 album Sounds of Silence, and it was as Anji that Chicken Shack recorded it for their 1969 100 Ton Chicken album.

The origin of the tune remains controversial. At the time it was written, various young acoustic guitarists, including Graham, used to meet at "The Gyre and Gimble" coffee shop in John Adams Street, near Charing Cross, London. It was customary for them to exchange riffs and learn new ideas from one another and it was always claimed by one of them, named Sydney Katzenell, that he was the original author of Anji, and that Graham simply developed and polished it. Certainly, the tune is an amalgamation of several musical ideas: the main riff has similarities with the song "Hit the Road Jack" (written by Percy Mayfield); other parts draw on "Big Noise from Winnetka" (written by Bob Haggart) and a later section is based on "The Work Song" (by Nat Adderley).

[edit] Filmography

  • The Servant, directed by Joseph Losey in 1963 portrays an uncredited Graham as a guitarist playing.
  • Cain's Film, a short directed by Jamie Wadhawan in 1969, features Graham as himself (playing Rock Me), along with Alexander Trocchi, William Burroughs, Feliks Topolski and Shawn Philips, also as themselves. Graham is also credited as the composer.
  • Davy can also be seen in a 1959 BBC documentary of guitar playing "Cry Me a River".
  • He can also be seen on a BBC documentary about himself.

[edit] Discography

  • - 3/4 AD (EP) (*) (1962)
  • - From a London Hootenanny (EP) (**) (1963)
  • - The Guitar Player (1963)
  • - Folk, Blues and Beyond (1964)
  • - Midnight Man (1966)
  • - After Hours (***) (1967)
  • - Large as Life and Twice as Natural (1968)
  • - Hat (1969)
  • - Holly Kaleidoscope (1970)
  • - Goddington Boundary (1970)
  • - All that Moody (1976)
  • - The Complete Guitarist (1978)
  • - Dance for Two People (1979)
  • - The Guitar Player ... Plus (1996)
  • - Playing in the Traffic
  • - New release out now available at www.DavyGraham.com
  • (* With Alexis Korner, guitar, on one track)
  • (** The Thameside Four and Davy Graham)
  • (*** Issued in 1997, recorded at Hull University)

Collaboration: Shirley Collins and Davy Graham.

  • - Folk Roots, New Routes (1965)

[edit] References

[edit] External Links

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