The Oxhorn Music Mix

This recording of Cocaine Blues by Blind Reverend Gary Davis, sounds like it’s gonna fall apart under the crush of all the cobwebs and dust. But the Reverend’s brilliant, sparkling finger picking provides the momentum to keep the edifice intact.

Despite his backwoods birth in 1896, Davis’ unique guitar technique was a huge influence on the folk and blues revival of the 60’s, and can be heard in The Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan and Jorma Kaukonen.

Cocaine Blues evokes a stroll through humid country, fragrant pastures, religious revivals moonshine, barbecue, old men on rocking chairs chewing dip on their porches. You can hear it all in the steel plod of the bass notes, one-two, one-two, the march steady like a steam engine pulling a long train of cars. The treble arpeggio betrays the grace and majesty of the locomotive coming round the bend, while Reverend Gary Davis listens and plays this song.

Sounds like the love child of: Blind Lemon Jefferson and Robert Johnson

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Photo by Bill Smith

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