Davis was one of the great guitarists for hire in the late 1960s and early 1970s, playing on records and on stage with true rock royalty. After touring with Conway Twitty and playing on Taj Mahal’s first three albums, he went on to work with George Harrison, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Leonard Cohen, and Keith Moon, among many others. When it came time to record his own albums, the friends who showed up to play along told the story of just how essential Davis had become: Contributors to Jesse Davis (1971) included Eric Clapton, Gram Parsons and Leon Russell.
Davis, who died in 1988, isn’t the only Native to make the issue. The list of 100 greatest guitarists includes Robbie Robertson (Six Nations Mohawk, #59) and Link Wray (Shawnee, #45) and is unsurprisingly topped by Jimi Hendrix, the 1/4-Cherokee innovator who was one of the first two musicians inducted to the NAMA Hall of Fame in 1998. (The other was Buddy Red Bow, Lakota.)
2 comments:
So far, I have heard the late Jesse Ed Davis was Kiowa for sure, but I have never read consistent information about his other tribal roots. I read Cherokee, Comanche, Creek, Muscogee and Seminole. What were his parents and could someone please get it right?
Indians have a strange history in American diversity:
Early 20th century: Indians were *the* tokens.
1970s: Things start changing. We start seeing the five-token dynamic in fiction. Indians are often left out.
1980s~1990s: The rise of boy bands. During this time, the mainstream media reveals how Aryan it is.
2008: Obama elected, showing that there's no racism left anywhere in America. Now pardon me as I clean the dripping sarcasm out of my keyboard.
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