Everything about Cyril Davies totally explained
Cyril Davies (
23 January 1932 -
7 January 1964) was one of the first British blues
harmonica players and
blues musician.
Born at St Mildred's, 15 Hawthorn Drive,
Willowbank,
Denham,
Buckinghamshire, near
London, he was the son of William Albert Davies, a labourer, and his wife Margaret Mary (nee Jones). Cyril had an elder brother named Glyn, and the family is believed to have come from
Wales.
Davies began his career in the early 1950s first within
Steve Lane's Southern Stompers, then as part of an acoustic Skiffle and Blues group with
Alexis Korner. He began as a banjo and 12-string guitar player before becoming Britain's first
Chicago-style blues harmonica player.
In 1962, Davies and Korner opened a club called the
Ealing Club in London, adding bassist
Jack Bruce, saxophonist
Dick Heckstall-Smith and drummer
Charlie Watts, to form the electric band
Blues Incorporated, and they recorded the album
R&B from the Marquee.
Many budding young musicians visited the Ealing Club and 'guested' with Blues Incorporated, including
Rod Stewart,
Paul Jones,
Ronnie Wood,
Keith Richards,
Eric Burdon,
Mick Jagger,
Brian Jones and
Ginger Baker.
Soon there was musical tension in the band, as some members wanted to play crowd-pleasers like
Chuck Berry and
Bo Diddley tracks while Cyril Davies was a blues
purist who wanted to play what he saw as only genuine Chicago-style
R&B. Following the dissolution of Blues Incorporated in October 1962, Davies formed the
Cyril Davies All-Stars in November 1962 and recorded five tracks for
Pye Records, who had announced an R&B label featuring music imported from Cyril's favourite Chicago musicians ("Country Line Special", "Chicago Calling", "Preaching the Blues", "Sweet Mary" and "Someday Baby"). The original line-up, largely recruited from
Lord Sutch's Savages, was later subject to frequent changes, particularly after Cyril's untimely death. A number of 'R&B All-Stars' tracks with various line-ups, including
Carlo Little,
Jimmy Page,
Jeff Beck and
Nicky Hopkins, are to be found on different labels and anthologies - the name apparently continuing for several years. Davies died in 1964 (frequently reported as of
leukaemia but some accounts suggest it was
pleurisy and others small cell lung cancer). The core band was taken over by
Long John Baldry and formed the basis of his 'Hoochie Coochie Men'.
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