Cyril Davies... British Blues Harp Pioneer

Blues From The Roundhouse #3

The following passage is from the Harry Shapiro book "Alexis Korner - The Biography". From about 1958 to 1960 he [Alexis] began to drift away from Cyril and the Roundhouse and play around the embryonic folk scene happening at different venues. His relationship with Cyril was always on-off. We'd split up because we got on each other's nerves as people though we still admired each other as musicians. Cyril got this bug that you had to live it to understand it and therefore wanted to do everything that Leadbelly had done - several GBH [Grievous Bodily Harm] charges - he hadn't actually got himself involved with a murder, but it was that kind of thinking that I couldn't take at all. By then he was reading paperbacks on Al Capone, you know, he was really sinking, sinking right down to that essential sort of thing.

The long-time Korner family friend and fellow musician / bandmate, David Stevens, recently relayed Bobbie Korner's recollection of Cyril's behavior during this time - "she didn’t know whether Cyril's rough Yorkshire personality was assumed or the REAL Cyril. There were hints of him associating with dubious characters - he would phone them late at night, from a phone box, and say things like "Keep talking - there are some people after me".

So, Alexis' horizons were expanding. Besides writing and broadcasting Alexis was networking (perhaps his greatest stength); honing his craft by playing different venues and by participating in recording sessions with a variety of folk & blues performers. The following are the sessions on which Alexis would play prior to his musical reunion with Cyril performing blues intervals at Chris Barber shows in early 1961. Alexis plays mandolin on this Oct. 29, 1959 session for Rambling Jack Recording as Nick Wheatstraw for Lomax, Alexis plays guitar on Feb. 4, 1958 Alexis on guitar with Champion Jack, Nov. 9, 1959 More mandolin for Elliot by Alexis, Nov. 24, 1959 Alexis played guitar with Little Brother for this session on Aug. 18, 1960 Alexis plays guitar on four tracks with Mr. Sykes on Jan. 21, 1960. A marathon session Jul. 14, 1960, with Memphis Slim, has Alexis playing guitar on 14 tracks Alexis and Davy Graham on guitars, April 1961 Alexis on electric (!) guitar Aug. 10 1961; cool band...Barber, Korner, Keith Scott & James Cotton!!

Since his death over 30 years ago, a mythology has built up around Cyril Davies - most of it crap. He wasn't a GBH merchant, hadn't been in jail, had never exhibited paranoid or schizophrenic tendancies and didn't die of leukaemia. In truth, he was a wonderful person, with a heart of gold - and don't let anyone tell you different says Brian Knight who studied harmonica, guitar and panel beating under Cyril.Cyril was great says Geoff Bradford, "he was the first one. Bands now have 30 years of role models and records to learn from - but he was doing it from scratch" - Pete Frame's 'The London R&B Explosion'

John Pilgrim was washboard player with the original Vipers Skiffle Group and recorded with Jo Anne Kelly and with Steve Rye. He backed Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee for three of their English tours. John wrote the obituary, excerpted here, for the late Brian Knight (b. Oct. 14, 1939 – d. Sept. 25, 2001) that appeared in the Guardian… Brian Knight, who has died of cancer aged 61, was a wonderful guitarist who came from that late-1950s repertory company of musicians who provided the cast for the 60s British rhythm and blues boom, but achieved little fame - or money - from it. Brian was working class, born in north-west London.

In 1957, after a five year stint in the Navy, 23 year old artist and music enthusiast Geoff Bradford decided to first test the musical waters in the Lonnie Donegan influenced skiffle group, ‘The Sunrisers’. We played at the Rising Sun in New Southgate…this was the time when Chris Barber was bringing the first people over from the States, blues players like Bill Broonzy…I was into it straight away! I think he was on TV once, [the] Six Five Special I think...it was the real thing. All that was available was Josh White, Lonnie Donegan, of course, and Leadbelly, anything else you had to go down to Dobell’s and buy it on acetates, the sandwiches you know and that’s how I got into it. When I was into the skiffle thing I went out and got everything I could…all the Big Bill Broonzy stuff…I ripped off everything he did! At the same time Geoff was drawn to the exotic sounds of Bo Diddley – “I thought…this is tremendous! I’m going to this instead of Broonzy…it’s got more vitality. So I thought what’s the best thing to do? So I put an ad in Melody Maker for a ‘blues band' and this piano player turned up whose name is Keith Scott. He had an enormous collection of records…Clarence Lofton, Cow Cow Davenport, etc. So him and me got together and he said why don’t you come up tomorrow and play the place was the Roundhouse. So we started there just as the two of us.

It was when Cyril and Alexis were running it. [We were playing ] Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell duets. By this time I was playing a ‘National’ guitar. We would do a fair imitation between us. I don’t know where he’d been before, but he had it all off pat. We played it as authentically as possible. Keith was at art college [Hornsey] and then got really into studying. Cyril and Alexis played as a duo, Cyril [on ] harp, 12 string and vocals; Alexis 0n guitar. They did early Leadbelly stuff. You’ve never heard anything like it. You would have thought it was Leadbelly. It was incredible!