{"id":23806,"date":"2022-10-05T05:30:11","date_gmt":"2022-10-05T09:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=23806"},"modified":"2022-09-26T09:08:49","modified_gmt":"2022-09-26T13:08:49","slug":"eb-davis-ambassador-of-the-blues-part-3-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/10\/05\/eb-davis-ambassador-of-the-blues-part-3-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"EB Davis: Ambassador of the Blues (Part 3 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

For many years as he was becoming a noted force in Berlin’s blues scene, Davis continued his duties as a member of the U.S. Army. Asked to elaborate on his responsibilities, he initially demurs. \u201cI think the documentary can explain it better than I could,\u201d he says. The documentary to which he refers is a 2015 production, How Berlin Got the Blues<\/i>. This short subject \u2013 subtitled The Secret Life of EB Davis<\/i> \u2013 tells the story of Davis\u2019 life, including his move to Berlin, his career as a blues vocalist and band leader, and his sensitive work for the military.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Davis relents and opens up a little about his work for the army. \u201cThe basic job was keeping the communications open between the Russian generals and the American generals,\u201d he says. \u201cWhenever one wanted to say something to the other, I would transmit it back and forth.\u201d And to the outer world, Davis kept the two parts of his life \u2013 the army and the blues \u2013 completely separate. But the hidden truth was more complicated than that.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The army] kind of encouraged that,\u201d Davis says. \u201cBecause [with The Superband] I could travel throughout the East, and that would\u2026 serve a double purpose. You know what I mean?\u201d He doesn\u2019t elaborate further, but confirms that he became fluent in German long ago.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The audiences at those concerts behind the Iron Curtain were a little different than what The Superband encountered back in West Berlin. First of all, the concertgoers were primarily military personnel. \u201cThere were some civilians, too,\u201d Davis says. \u201cBut they were invited guests. The general public couldn’t just walk into the concert.\u201d<\/p>\n

And as each show would begin, the East German audience maintained a reserved character. \u201cI guess that was because of the circumstances they were living under,\u201d Davis says. But once they got a taste of EB Davis and The Superband, that all changed. \u201cOnce the music got going, they were jumping around and dancing just like all the rest,\u201d Davis says with pride.<\/p>\n

Things changed after the wall came down in 1989, and while reunification was a good thing for Germany, Europe and ultimately the world, not all of the changes in Berlin were positive. \u201cAfter reunification, a lot of people who didn\u2019t come to Berlin before started coming for a weekend or something,\u201d Davis says. \u201cThey saw that there was such a thriving music scene. But what happens with too much of anything is saturation: the soup don\u2019t taste as good as before.\u201d Despite the changes, Davis and his band would continue to find success in Berlin and beyond.<\/p>\n

When Davis finished with the military, he was approached by a German record company. \u201cThey offered me a nice little contract,\u201d he says with a smile. \u201cSo I said, \u2018Okay, I\u2019ll stay [in Germany] for a little while because of the contract.\u2019\u201d But, he says, one thing led to another. One of those things was his marriage to Nina. \u201cAnd after I ended up getting married, I found that I could make a decent living here just from the music,\u201d Davis says. \u201cSo I said, \u2018Maybe I\u2019ll get it while the getting is good!\u2019\u201d He decided to stay in Germany.<\/p>\n

Davis agrees with the observation that across history, Black American musicians have often been received with more honor by European audiences than by audiences back in the States. And he has definite ideas as to why that\u2019s the case. \u201cLet\u2019s take blues, for example,\u201d he suggests. \u201cIn Europe, blues is viewed as an art form, which it is<\/i>. But in many parts of America, it\u2019s not viewed as such.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s even more to it, Davis believes. \u201cA lot of the European audiences like to understand what you\u2019re singing about; they\u2019re interested in the lyrics and what the story\u2019s about. Whereas when we play in America, sometimes it\u2019s just a party.\u201d<\/p>\n

From Davis\u2019 perspective, there\u2019s a big difference between European and American audiences for the blues. In Europe, he says with a hearty laugh, \u201cthey listen more, and they\u2019re willing to pay<\/i> more! So that\u2019s two<\/i> outstanding differences!\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part, Davis isn\u2019t a blues prophet without honor at home. \u201cI was playing the King Biscuit Blues Festival in Helena, Arkansas in 2008,\u201d he recalls. \u201cA guy came up to me and introduced himself and said, \u2018I\u2019m going to nominate you to be the Arkansas Ambassador of the Blues!\u2019\u201d That same year, he was honored in his adopted home of Germany when the Deutscher<\/em> Musik Verein<\/em> (German Music Society) named him Best R&B Singer in Europe.<\/p>\n

More recently, when Davis was playing a set at the 2021 edition of that same festival, he was stopped mid-set. \u201cA guy came on to the stage and said, \u2018Excuse me: I have to stop the music for a minute, because we have to award you something.\u2019\u201d Then and there, Davis received an Excellence in Blues award.<\/p>\n

In addition to a regular schedule of live performances \u2013 with The Superband as well as fronting a quartet that often features wife Nina \u2013 Davis has recorded and released a steady stream of albums. Discogs.com lists only six \u2013 the earliest, a cassette-only release, Asskicking Blues!!<\/i> dating back to 1995 \u2013 but there are at least a half dozen more, plus several live concert DVDs. Davis\u2019 1996 CD, Fool for the Ladies<\/i> features tenor saxophonist Big Jay McNeely on two tracks.<\/p>\n

Davis and The Superband still gig at The A-Trane; they\u2019ve released two live albums documenting their sets at the Berlin club. And the group remains a fixture of blues festivals across the European continent. Davis believes he knows why the blues today has such a strong appeal internationally.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlues is basically a simple music,\u201d he explains. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to be a college professor to understand it.\u201d He says that even if \u2013 as is sometimes the case with audiences in Europe \u2013 listeners don\u2019t fully comprehend the lyrics, \u201cyou can understand the feel of it. If you keep it up long enough, you get the feeling from it.\u201d In his travels around the globe, Davis says he hears the same thing. \u201cWe\u2019ve played in so many countries, and no matter where we go, there\u2019s somebody saying, \u2018Oh, I have a blues band.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

EB Davis believes that anywhere you go \u2013 \u201ceven Siberia,\u201d he laughs \u2013 you can find a local blues band. \u201cAnd,\u201d he says, \u201cI don\u2019t really know of any other music that has touched every corner of the world the way blues has.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two… For many years as he was becoming a noted force in Berlin’s blues scene, Davis continued his duties as a member of the U.S. Army. Asked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23816,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,41],"tags":[4952],"class_list":["post-23806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-interview","tag-eb-davis","cat-9-id","cat-41-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23806"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23818,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23806\/revisions\/23818"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}