Be Ready When I Call You marks a creative high watermark for Guy Davis as 12 of the 13 tracks were penned by him. The release is a musical gumbo for the ears as Guy incorporates blues, folk, and Americana elements. Guy Davis' previous record for the label was the 2017 Grammy-nominated record with Fabrizio Poggi, "Sonny & Brownie's Last Train." Be Ready When I Call You marks the fourth record that Guy and M.C. Records have released together and the 13th in his career.
The first single/video from the record is "God's Gonna' Make Things Over" which revisits a shameful corner in American history, the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. It took place from May 31-June 1.
During the Tulsa Race Massacre which from May 31 to June 1, 1921, a white mob attacked residents, homes and businesses in the predominantly Black Greenwood neighbourhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The event remains one of the worst incidents of racial violence in U.S. history, and, for a period, remained one of the least-known: News reports were largely squelched, despite the fact that hundreds of people were killed and thousands left
homeless.
"The Black folks just got took. They had a beautiful area called Greenwood, the "Black Wall Street", and the White folks burned it to the ground. I wanted it to be a song that calls out for humanity -- not for whiteness or anti-whiteness, but humanity." - Guy Davis
Growing up in a family of artists (his parents were Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis), Guy Davis fell under the spell of Blind Willie McTell and Fats Waller at an early age. Guy's one-man play, The Adventures of Fishy Waters: In Bed With the Blues, premiered Off-Broadway in the '90s and has since been released as a double CD. He went on to star Off-‐Broadway as the legendary Robert Johnson in Robert Johnson: Trick The Devil, winning the Blues Foundation's "Keeping the Blues Alive" award.
Guy Davis has spent his musical life carrying his message of the blues around the world, from the Equator to the Arctic Circle, earning him the title “An Ambassador of the Blues." His work as an actor, author, and music teacher earmark him as a renaissance man of the blues, yet the blues remain his first and greatest love.
Website: guydavis.com