While David Davis has built a career around a sound that holds true to the music created by the pioneers of bluegrass, his latest, self-titled project takes a distinctly contemporary path that appears to suit the style of this bluegrass veteran.

Davis was raised in an Alabama farming community and was exposed to bluegrass at an early age. In fact, David Davis is a direct link from the actual origins of bluegrass. “My dad’s older brother, Cleo Davis, was Bill Monroe’s first Blue Grass Boy in 1938. Cleo, my dad and Bobby, the younger brother, all played music growin’ up. Cleo went to play in Nashville with Bill [Monroe] from the latter part of ‘38 to, I guess, the early part of ‘40.” However, the bluegrass odyssey of Cleo Davis soon turned toward family. “He came back to the Lakeland/ Tampa, Florida area and wanted to form a band himself, and then go back to Nashville.” David proudly states that “my dad was a good guitar player. My uncle said that, when he came back from Nashville my dad was a better guitar player than he was, but the next thing you know, World War II starts and they all go to the service.”

“My dad got hurt in the service,” David whispers, “It was in some kind of maneuver when a mortar shell blew up around him and his arm took a big hit. They had to take the right hand off. He was hurt, bad, in the hospital over there and then in Atlanta at a Veteran’s Hospital. He had to learn to walk again.” Yet despite his tragedy David’s father never gave up. “I never saw anything that my dad couldn’t do, except tie his shoelace. I feel like he wanted to play music and it just didn’t work out for him.”

David has vivid memories of his youth and his father’s support of his dreams. However, his mood grows solemn as he discusses a specific time in his childhood. “I learned to play guitar, when I was eight or nine years old, from my dad. I remember, my aunt had an old guitar that was in my mom and dad’s closet. Like a kid might, I was digging around, treasure hunting, and I found this old black guitar.” The boy then asked his father to teach him to play. “I’m sure he never even tried to play a guitar since he got hurt and his old guitar was left overseas. So he got these really big, three-cornered picks, and cut two corners off. He would tape that pick to the stump of his arm; his arm was tapered down below his elbow, down to the wrist area, and he showed me chords on the guitar. If it (the song) wasn’t too fast, he could play rhythm and do runs.”

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