Sounds | Ward Davis, Black Cats and Crows (live)
- John Van de Mergel
- 17 jul 2021
- 6 minuten om te lezen
Alweer eentje die door de mazen van mijn net is geglipt. Davis brengt oerdegelijke country rock gedipt in blues. Met een diepe, warme, krachtige stem, bij momenten stevig gitaarwerk (o.a. van een zekere Scott Ian) en het episch gehalte van zijn nummers doet hij mij soms denken aan een Chris Stapleton. Yep, muziek die er bij mij vlotjes in gaat. Black Cats and Crows is verschenen op 20 november 2020 via Ward Davis Music.
Luister ook naar: Ain't Gonna Be Today Threads
lees
Sitting on the porch of his house in the foothills of the Smokies, Ward Davis exchanges a few friendly words with a neighbor and lights another cigarette. āWhen you put a record out, itās a forever thing,ā says Davis, breathing deeply. āWhether they mean something to me now or meant something to me then, these songs are part of my life.ā
Davisās much-anticipated third album, Black Cats and Crows, is a triumph: a muscly country-rock record filled with murderous story songs, heartbreaking vulnerability, and that unmistakable voiceāāDavisās weathered croon, a gift, barrel-aged then left out in the sun.
Produced once again by Jim āMooseā Brown, Black Cats and Crows is anchored in twin pillars: care for craft and disdain for sterility. Crackles and breaths come alongside outright virtuosity and skill, and the effect is warm and humanizing. āThis is my coping mechanism. I know music is a coping mechanism for a lot of people,ā Davis says. āItās important that itās crafted well, but itās also important that itās honest so that people can relate to it and get something out of it.ā
Davis has earned a legion of fans, loyal and spread out across the country. His 2015 debut album, 15 Years in a 10 Year Town, introduced a compelling artist who, up until then, had turned Nashville heads as a player and writer for others: Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard, Trace Adkins, Wade Hayes, Sammy Kershaw, The Roys, Jimmie Van Zant, and more recorded nuggets penned by Davis, and heād held down a steady gig as Ray Scottās keyboard player for years. In 2018, he released a gut-wrenchingly beautiful EP, Asunder, and continued to tour hard, winning over city after city.
Working himself raw to pay dues has always been part of Davisās story. āI grew up in Arkansas. I donāt like to say Iām a country boy, but I kind of am. When I was a kid, I didnāt wear shoes unless I had to,ā he says, laughing. At just 7-years-old, he fell hard for piano, but his piano teacher grew frustrated with the Garth Brooks songs he insisted on learning by earāāand the notes he refused to learn to read. āOne day, before my lesson, she told me to call my mom. She said, āTell her to come get you. I canāt teach you to do what youāre doing. You need to find somebody who can,āā Davis says, chuckling. āBut I never really did. From there, I just kind of took it out on my own.ā
Davis cops to letting up on piano when he realized the āguy with the guitar was getting all the girls.ā He began teaching himself chords on an old guitar his dad, a wildlife biologist, had won in a poker game. His father encouraged him to buy his own. Working summers in tomato fields earning about $3.75 an hour, Davis saved. āI spent all my tomato money on a Martin guitar,ā he says with a grin.
When Davis moved to Nashville in 2000, he joined the Music Row community, writing songs by day, waiting tables by night. āYou do the 10:30 a.m. co-write, then the 2:30 p.m. co-write, then you go wait tables at Applebeeās,ā Davis says. āThat was my life for a long time. It became like a factory job. Whatās the point? It sucks all the creativity out of you. Now, I donāt write unless I want to. If I donāt have something to write about, I donāt.ā
For Davis, freedom works. Black Cats and Crows opens with āAināt Gonna Be Today,ā a vocal showcase and tongue-in-cheek confession over crying electric guitars. He wrote the song with Kendell Marvel. Crowd favorite āGet to Work Whiskey,ā another clever ode to surrender, first generated attention via a YouTube video Davis shot himself and is now a staple in Davisās live set.
With ominous guitarsāāincluding a mean electric guitar played by Anthraxās Scott IanāāāSound of Chainsā is a welcome modern addition to country musicās proud murder ballad tradition, with a dark, playful twist. Calling it the funniest song heās ever written, Davis wrote the tune with Greg Jones. āWe wanted to write a song about the guy who has never shown one sign of empathyāāno remorse,ā Davis says.
Davis continues themes of love and bloody revenge in the swampy āPapa and Mama,ā written by Ray Scott. After earning his first publishing deal, Davis took many of his early songs to Scott. āHeās got a great songwriting brain, and he let me have access to it,ā Davis says. āSome of the best songs Iāve ever heard are Ray Scott songs, and I want other people to hear them.ā
The other cover on the record is a vocal showcase: Alabamaās āLady Down on Love,ā delivered with tear- jerking sincerity by Davis, who first sang the song at his high school homecoming when he was 15. He laughs as he remembers, then adds, āThat songāāwhat a tragedy. Iāve always loved it.ā
Written with Cody Jinks and TN Jet, the albumās title track toys with tradition, eschewing linear narrative and instead indulging in despondent musings. Davis points to it as his favorite on the record. āItās not a country lyricāāitās like a Metallica lyric,ā Davis says. āI had just come out of a dark time in my life, and there was residual darkness in me. So, we wrote this song that is completely hopeless, and it felt really good. Itās not really a storyāāitās just a sad thought, manifesting.ā
Jinks and Davis also partnered to write āColorado,ā a stunner that is at turns nostalgic, conversational, and forlorn. The pairās individual writing stylesāāJinksā tactile realism and dismissal of rules, plus Davisās brutal honesty and impeccable structureāābring out the best in each other. With out-front vocals and stark imagery, āBook of Matchesā documents a long night of self-governed purging. A moving tribute to deep roots, āWhere I Learned to Liveā achieves relatability through specificity, and gives further evidence of the albumās implied argument that the best way to honor our pasts is to be honest about them.
Several songs on Black Cats and Crows also remedy the often-overlooked role of piano in outlaw music. A fine pianist who shrugs off any praise of his own playing, Davis looks up to the slip-note stylings of master Floyd Cramer. āHe would do these little flickers with the keys that arenāt complicated but really create a sound,ā Davis says. āI mimic him a lot.ā Kicking off with piano and fiddle, āThreadsā lays a weary heart bare, while the beautifully written āGood to Say Goodbyeā traces the push and pull that ensues when itās time to go.
āGood and Drunkā is a lesson in songwriting, heartbreaking and real. āThat was a hard one to write,ā Davis says. āIt was a bad day. I came home from a tour with Sunny Sweeney, and my ex-wife had packed up everything and put the boxes in the garage. I was sitting there alone, hungover, wanting a whiskey drink, and I realized I didnāt know where the whiskey was. But I had my legal pad out. So, I started writing this song.ā
Written 15 years ago, āHeaven Had a Handā reaches for a bigger plan in the midst of uncertainty. āI realize now itās about my daughter, even though it was written before she existed,ā he says. āWhen I hear it, I donāt think about my ex-wife. I think about my oldest daughter.ā Davisās evolving relationship with his own song is a testament to the power of honest art.
Written with Shawn Camp, standout track āNobodyā is sad-eyed humility, wrapped up in a song. Davis got the idea sitting on the couch, giving his youngest daughter a bottle. āNobody knows what a nobody I am,ā he sings over plaintive acoustic guitar. āI donāt think I can be more personal than this song,ā Davis says.
Davis mines his own worries and pain for a song without ever forgetting the other person who will eventually listen to it. āI want people to know these songs mean something to me,ā he says. āI hope they mean something to them. Maybe theyāll hear something thatāll make them feel better.ā
(IVPR Nashville)

