A Requiem for Multitudes: Revisiting Chuck Berry’s America

Posted by Lance Davis - October 28, 2016 - Bob Dylan, Carl Hogan, Chuck Berry, Johnnie Johnson, Louis Jordan, Taylor Hackford, Walt Whitman

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With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums I play not marches for accepted victors only I play marches for conquer’d and slain persons –Walt Whitman, “Song Of Myself” Who could’ve predicted that it was Chuck Berry’s 90th birthday on October 18th that brought me out of retirebernation? Fact is, I’ve been […]

The Roots of Levon Helm

Posted by Lance Davis - May 27, 2012 - Bill Monroe, Conway Twitty, DJ Fontana, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Levon Helm, Little Richard, Louis Jordan, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, The Band

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Today would’ve been Levon Helm‘s 72nd birthday. Such a weird, humbling sentence to write. Following his death on April 19, my original plan was to survey his entire career, which in retrospect was absurdly ambitious. I still may do some smaller version of that, but the survey vacuum was quickly filled by the internet, with […]

The Bo Diddley Legacy – Part 1 of 2

Posted by Lance Davis - June 7, 2008 - Bo Diddley, Cab Calloway, Chess Records, Jelly Roll Morton, John Lee Hooker, Kool Moe Dee, Louis Jordan, Muddy Waters, Robert Palmer (writer), Sam Cooke, Soul Stirrers

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“My music has a little bit of a spiritual taste, but it’s also primitive. I play the guitar as if I was playing drums.” –Bo Diddley A musician doesn’t beat a drum, he plays a drum. He coaxes multiple rhythms from that drum, in an effort to tell his story and to support others contributing […]