American Song
America was meant to be a light on the hill — a place others looked to when they needed to find their own way forward.
If America has ever truly been that light, it came from its music. From the people who suffered the most and somehow still found something worth singing about.
From colonial taverns to protest marches in the Eastern Bloc, from gospel churches to a ghetto in Soweto, American rhythms helped people band together, speak truth, and refuse to quit. Our songs became the world's songs — not because we exported them, but because people who needed hope reached out and claimed them as their own.
American Song tells the stories of the artists who made the music and the people who were moved by it. One era at a time. One genre, one band, one song at a time. Music that started by campfires, in cotton fields, in churches and juke joints — and moved out into the world to become something larger than any one nation could contain.
This is American Song.
American Song
The Greatest Music You've Never Heard: The Songs of Mark Davis (1)
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Part 1
Happy New Year, Everybody! (Even if you're reading this in July....)
Across the last five seasons of American Song, we've traveled the arc of American music and listened to some of the greatest songs ever recorded, by some of the best loved artists over a century of thrilling music that changed the world.
But what about all those artists whose music is as good, if not better, than those "giants", who (but for the fickle finger of fate) never got the massive acclaim that those rarified few received? What is it within a songwriter that drives their art and compells them to write, even if they're not filling stadiums, or winning Grammy's (questionnable why some of the folks who do receive them deserved it!).
I've been fortunate to share many road miles with one of these artists for most of my life, and in today's episode, I introduce him to you.
In 1995, LA Time music critic, Mike Boehm, said this about Mark's first album: "The two albums I couldn’t stop listening to in ’95 were a tie for the number-one position in my Top Ten. [One of these was] Mark Davis, “You Came Screaming”. Davis’ first album is graced by superb melodies and hall-of-fame influences. His intensely realized subject is the embattled condition of idealism in a fallen world."
Other music critics have said this:
"Getting at large truths with songs full of human-scale detail and unsentamentalized beauty. - Los Angeles Times
“Davis is truly a master of his craft… able to lift spirits even while supporting the weight of the world.” - Orange County Register
I hope you'll listen closely to this two part episode. I have a special feeling that when you do, you just might come to love this music and appreciate this artistic soul as much as I do.
Learn more about Mark Davis and support his music through these links:
https://songrites.com/mark-davis-and-the-inklings
https://markdavisinklings.bandcamp.com