Link Davis

Lewis Lincoln "Link" Davis (born July 8, 1914 in Sunset , Texas , † February 5, 1972 ) was an American rockabilly , country and cajun musician . His biggest hit was the Cajun classic Big Mamou from 1953.

Life

Childhood and youth

Link Davis was born in Sunset Ward, one of eight children, but his family soon moved to Wills Point, Van Zandt County , near Dallas , Texas. At the age of ten, Davis received a fiddle from his father, which he had already mastered professionally at the age of twelve. In the late 1920s he formed a trio with two of his brothers and played small barn dances . He later learned the saxophone , clarinet , bass and piano .

Career

Beginnings

In 1929 Davis was regularly heard on WRR from Dallas and had his first professional engagements with the Chrystal Springs Ramblers from Fort Worth . With this group he made his first recordings in 1937. With the emergence of western swing in Texas in the early 1930s, musicians like Bob Wills , Moon Mullican and Bob Dunn had more and more influence on Davis, who left the Chrystal Springs Ramblers after 1937 and played in various local western swing groups and even for some time led his own band, in which a black pianist also played.

In 1943 Davis was drafted into the military but only served three months. A year later he was discharged from the army and in 1944 found work with Cliff Bruners Texas Wanderers , one of the most important western swing orchestras of the 1930s. In the same year Davis played the tenor saxophone on one of Bruner's Decca sessions in New York City . In 1945 he joined Leo Soileau's Cajun band and played for him in "Showboat". He also had his own band and married in 1945 in Port Arthur , where he lived at the time. During this time he was heavily influenced by Cajun music, not least through Soileau and his wife, who came from the French community. In 1947 he received his first recording contract with the newly founded label Imperial Records and played his first solo records ; he was accompanied by Lee Bells Bluebonnet Playboys.

Rise and Starday Years

In 1947, Davis's son Lewis Lincoln Davis, Jr. was born, better known today as Link Davis, Jr. With a family to support, Davis was always on the lookout for work in bars, clubs, and dance halls. From 1949 he played in Harry Choates 'band, went on tour with him and recorded various songs with Choates for Gold Star Records , including a version of the R&B hit Good Rockin' Tonight , which was released as Have You Heard the News .

After a brief stint in Corpus Christi , Texas, Davis joined Benny Leaders Bayou Billies in 1950, who accompanied him on his first session for Columbia Records ' new Okeh label. This session, which took place in Houston , produced Davis's biggest hit, Big Mamou, of 1953. The song had a long tradition in cajun culture even then, but it was only through Davis and the subsequent cover versions that it became a classic of the genre. Between 1953 and 1955 Davis held more sessions for Columbia, but the success of 1953 could not be repeated.

In 1955 he made rockabilly recordings for Nucraft, but switched to Starday Records in 1956 . At this time, Davis also found regular engagements at the Houston Hometown Jamboree and the popular Louisiana Hayride . For Starday, Davis continued to record rockabilly songs that were popular at the time. The first of these Starday singles was Sixteen Chicks , a song that Davis wrote with Wayne Walker and was later covered by Joe Clay . In the course of 1956 other rockabilly titles followed such as Grasshopper Rock , Don't Big Shot Me or Trucker from Tennessee . With Sixteen Chicks Davis entered the local Houston C&W Billboard Charts and was hired by the Gold Star Studio together with Hal Harris ( guitar ) and Doc Lewis (piano) as a studio musician from 1956 and is on numerous Starday records and recordings by other labels to listen. For example, he played the saxophone on JP Richardson's hit Chantilly Lace and also accompanied Johnny Preston on Running Bear and Joey Clay, Glenn Barber , Eddie Noack and George Jones in sessions.

Later career

After numerous Starday singles, Davis moved to Allstar Records from Houston in 1958 , where he continued to demonstrate his versatility as he recorded a wide range of music genres (rockabilly, rock'n'roll, Cajun, country). In the late 1950s, Davis released numerous records on small, local labels in the Houston area.

Davis also started his own record company, Tanker Records. In 1967 he suffered a stroke that subsequently confined him to a wheelchair. But Davis didn't give up on music; he continued to record and did not shy away from traveling to distant Nashville . But his health deteriorated noticeably, and finally Link Davis died in 1972 after a second stroke at the age of 57. Davis was one of the most significant and important people in the Houston music scene and made important contributions to the development of Cajun music, but also country and rockabilly. In 2009, Bear Family Records released a comprehensive boxed CD set containing a large number of Davis recordings.

Discography

Singles

year	title	Label #
1947 (?)	Have You Heard the News / Joe Turner	Imperial 670
1949	My Pretty Blonde / Born to Love You	Imperial 8004
1949	Why Did You Go Away / Tired of Being Lonesome	Imperial 8008
1949	I'm Tired / I'm Waiting for You	Imperial 8009
1949	Rice and Gravy Blues / Rice and Gravy Boogie	Imperial 8018
1949	I'm Grieving Over You / You Loved Me Too Late	Imperial 8025
1949	Steel Guitar Jump / You Low Down Conceited Dog	Imperial 8030
1953 (?)	Big Mamou / Pretty Little Dedon	Okeh 18001
1953	Lonely Heart / Time Will Tell	Okeh 18011
1953	Mamou Waltz / Hey, Garcon!	Okeh 18025
1954	Falling for You / Gumbo Ya-Ya	Okeh 18035
1955 (?)	The Crawfish Crawl / You're Little But You're Cute	Okeh 18048
1955 (?)	Mama Say No / You Show Up Missing	Okeh 18057
1955	Va Tchacher / Kajalena	Columbia 21350
1955	Grasshopper / Magnolia Garden Waltz (B-side by Floyd Tillman )	Nucraft 2026
1955	Cajun Love / Every Time I Pass Your Door	Columbia 21431
1956	Sixteen Chicks / Deep In the Heart of a Fool	Starday 45-235
1956	Sixteen Chicks / Grasshopper Rock	Starday 45-242
1956	Don't Big Shot Me / Trucker from Tennessee	Starday 45-255
1956	Cockroach / Houston	Coffin 136-45
1956	Bayou Buffalo / Would You Be Waiting	Starday 45-275
1957	Slippin 'and Slidin' Sometimes / Allons a Lafayette	Starday 45-293
1957	Big Coonie / Waltz of the Jambalaya	Starday 45-331
1958	Bon-Ta-Ru-La / Memories with You	Allstar 7171-45
1959	Ballad of Jole Blon / Visions	Allstar 7185-45
1959	Permit Blues / Airliner	Tanker 715
1960	Tee Mamou / Little People	Allstar 7203-45
1960	Big Coonie / Waltz of the Jambalaya	D 1135
1960	Big Mamou / Louisiana Waltz	Allstar 7305-45
196?	Cajun Honey / Big Mamou	Crazy Cajun 526
1961	Come Dance with Me / Five Miles from Town	D 1191
1962	Strolling / I Played that Song for You	Venus 1447
1962	Little Red Boat / Forget-Me-Nots	All Boy 45-8505
1963	Guy from Big Mamou / Jole Blonde	All Boy 45-8508
196?	Rice and Gravy / Ferry Ride	Al's 1501
196?	Johnny Be Good / My Last Good-Bye	Al's 1503
1963	Beatle Bug / I Keep Wanting You More	Kool 1026
1964	Big Mamou / Louisiana Waltz	Allstar 7305
19 ??	Broken Heart / You Played Around	Bayou 3001
19 ??	Big Houston /? (B-side of Floyd Tillman)	Western 1073

Albums

• 1969: Cajun Crawdaddy (Mercury)
• 2009: Big Mamou (Bear Family)

Web links

• Link Davis in the All Music Guide
• Link Davis on Hillbilly-Music.com (English)
• Detailed biography (English)
• Discography with audio samples