Guy Davis

• You Don't Know My Mind [Red House, 1998] **
• Butt Naked Free [Red House, 2000] ***
• Give in Kind [Red House, 2002] ***
• Chocolate to the Bone [Red House, 2003]
• Juba Dance Featuring Fabrizio Poggi [M.C., 2013] *
• Kokomo Kidd [M.C., 2015] **
• Be Ready When I Call You [M.C., 2021] A-
• The Legend of Sugarbelly [M.C., 2024] A-

Consumer Guide Reviews:

You Don't Know My Mind [Red House, 1998]
blues his heritage, his politics, his craft ("Best I Can," "If You Love Somebody") **

Butt Naked Free [Red House, 2000]
"Ain't no bluesman, I'm the bluesman's son/But I'll sing this song until my daddy comes" ("Ain't No Bluesman," "Let Me Stay Awhile"). ***

Give in Kind [Red House, 2002]
country blues in the spirit of friendship, like John Hurt did it ("Good Liquor," "I Don't Know") ***

Chocolate to the Bone [Red House, 2003]

Juba Dance Featuring Fabrizio Poggi [M.C., 2013]
Well-mannered modern bluesman partners with Italian harmonica virtuoso and reveals that he learned "Prodigal Son" from Josh White, not the Stones (but not Robert Wilkins either) ("Love Looks Good on You," "Lost Again") *

Kokomo Kidd [M.C., 2015]
Ossie and Ruby's Seeger-schooled kid sounds freshest on new originals, a feat for any 63-year-old ("Kokomo Kidd," "Wish I Hadn't Stayed Away So Long") **

Be Ready When I Call You [M.C., 2021]
I've long been mildly impressed by Ossie and Ruby's blues-soaked son, who turns 71 in May. But as I listened harder to his 21st album I found there wasn't much mild about it. Yes there are fun songs here: the near-novelty "Badonkadonk Train," the hopeful "I Got a Job in the City," in its mean way the Trump-thumping bonus cut "It Was You." But it's the specificity and bite of the overt protest songs that had me listening harder, with three earning my full attention: the all too leaden "Flint River Blues," Davis's undiminished outrage at the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, and "Palestine, Oh Palestine," one of the rare responses to that horror to achieve something resembling felt balance without beginning to pretend that all evils are equal. A-

The Legend of Sugarbelly [M.C., 2024]
Now 72, Ossie and Ruby's inheritor has long been classified a blues singer, but on this album I'd make him more what in his youth was called a folksinger, and one who showcases his own material at that. Up front, where he's mostly getting laid, he's less a dog than a rounder and less a rounder than a deeply affectionate male human being: "I know you love another man but that's all right/Every now and then I get to wonder/Who's gonna love you tonight." And though I couldn't swear how new most of these lyrics are (two Leadbelly copyrights, for one thing), one of their several charms is that many of his own feel like they could go either way. "I dream the same dream every night/I dream the same dream every night/Darkness comes and tries to steal my light," for instance. Or "Had a special pair of shoes that he kept in a sack/Had a heel in the front and a heel in the back/Riley took off when he heard the hounds coming/Couldn't tell which way Riley was running." Or "10,000 biscuits in each hand/He sopped his way to the promised land." Or "Musta been a bedbug/Cause a chinch can't bite that hard." Or even "He ran across the water like Jesus Christ." A-