In addition to performing traditional recitals, concertos with orchestra, and chamber music, John Davis tours with three unique, theatrically-driven, programs, Will the Real Thomas Wiggins Please Stand Up!, The John Davis Caravan: Standing At the Crossroads, and Halley's Comet: Around the Piano with Mark Twain & John Davis, all outgrowths of his lifelong immersion in African American culture of the Deep South.
WILL THE REAL THOMAS WIGGINS PLEASE STAND UP!
Conceived, written, and performed by John Davis, Will the Real Thomas Wiggins Please Stand Up! is a one-man, multi-media, theatrical concert featuring the charming and historically-evocative music of the Georgia slave pianist/composer, Thomas Wiggins, more popularly known as "Blind Tom." Blending live performances by Davis of Tom's piano works with a host of theatrical elements, including projected video images, pre-recorded firsthand accounts by those who crossed paths with Blind Tom, stage lighting, and supplementary music, Will the Real Thomas Wiggins Please Stand Up! retraces Davis' personal quest to unlock the mysteries of Wiggins' controversial life and career.
THE JOHN DAVIS CARAVAN: STANDING AT THE CROSSROADS
Another outgrowth of John Davis' career on the cusp between classical music and the blues has been The John Davis Caravan: Standing At the Crossroads, Mr. Davis' nightclub show of "roots" American piano works .jpg)
influenced by Deep Southern black culture. In a nod to Ray Charles, James Brown, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Little Milton, Z.Z. Hill, Denise LaSalle, Marvin Sease, and Bobby Rush, just some of the legendary performers Mr. Davis have seen firsthand in the series of predominantly-black night-clubs and theaters that still flourish in the Deep South, Standing At the Crossroads adopts many of the flamboyant, evocative performance rituals common to all chitlin' circuit revues--piped-in pre-show historic soul-blues recordings by many of the circuit's major figures, a loud-mouthed, fast-talking emcee (akin to those employed by James Brown, Bobby "Blue" Bland, and Little Milton), and hilarious interchanges between Mr. Davis, the emcee, and the audience (a reference to the notoriously humorous shows of Marvin Sease, Denise Lasalle, and Bobby Rush), elements that serve as a cultural backdrop to the blues-inflected piano music that is being performed. By set's conclusion, Standing At the Crossroads has achieved a similar effect to that of any typical chitlin' circuit show: a musical experience that, despite its artifice, is both evocative and entertaining, and, at its core, deeply moving.
HALLEY'S COMET:
AROUND THE PIANO WITH MARK TWAIN & JOHN DAVIS
An extension of Davis Newport Classic CD of the same name, Halley's Comet: Around the Piano with Mark Twain & John Davis pays musical tribute to America's most famous author, Mark Twain, whose career, like Davis', lies at the intersection between white and black culture and high and low culture in American society. On the program, Davis will perform pieces from the CD with connections to Twain, interspersed with readings of often hilarious, sometimes appalling, and always fascinating quotations from Twain and his contemporaries. And don't be surprised if Davis plays Twain-related works from John Davis Plays Blind Tom and Marshfield Tornado: John Davis Plays Blind Boone, his two earlier, critically-acclaimed, hit Newport Classic recordings that have defined, excavated, and disseminated a previously-unacknowledged American roots music.