Davy Graham
November 14, 2007 by nonotes
Know anything about Davy Graham?
Well I’d never heard of him until quite recently, by way of this brief live-performance review in a Manchester newspaper.
Subsequent research — by which I mean Googling — indicates that he’s an important figure in guitar/folk history, largely because of his solo acoustic instrumental piece “Anji,” written in the late 1950s, when he was 19, and released on a record in 1962. By some accounts, Graham (who is sometimes Davy, and sometimes Davey, for reasons that are a little murky to me) helped spark the folk revival in the UK; Paul Simon has apparently called him “perhaps Britain’s greatest guitarist. Simon & Garfunkel did a version of “Anji” on one of their records.
Nevertheless, Graham seems to have subsequently fallen into obscurity, until he was re-introduced to the public by way of a BBC Radio documentary called “Whatever Happened to Davy Graham?” And thus we find him performing in Manchester:
He opened with a pair of fiendishly difficult Spanish baroque pieces, his fingers spidering across the frets. After casual vocals on Careless Love and, more impressively, St James Infirmary, he criss-crossed instrumentally, via Ireland, to various parts of the Balkans.
I haven’t found any evidence of a recorded version of “SJI” by Graham, which is too bad, because he certainly has the sort of background that would lead me to believe he’d have a nice take. But you can hear some of his music at his site. And “Anji” is available on iTunes.
“Anji,” Davy Graham
A couple of years ago I did some research into the song "St. James Infirmary," wrote up what I found, emailed that essay to friends and posted it on my web site (as part of a series of "Letters From New Orleans," as I was living in that city at the time). Based on the feedback, I wrote a second version of the essay, and asked for more feedback. Based on that, I wrote a 
Dear Mr Walker,
I found my way here via a mutual interest in St James Infirmary, and the essay in your excellent book ‘Letters From New Orleans’, and noticed your comment about Davy Graham, he is indeed a legendary figure in folk circles, in the UK at least, and has very recently completed his first tour for about 30 years - big influence on Richard Thompson, Bert Jansch, Jimmy Page, Paul Simon too I think, friend of Jackson C Frank, he has recently been drawn from long period of reclusive obscurity and debt by his mentor and manager who was touring with him, so seeing him in Leeds recently was a real delight, and he did indeed perform SJI, in the third person version, where the story is overheard in a bar, the gold coin and stetson hat all present and correct. He also performed Randy Newman’s ‘Yellow Man’!
best regards
Peter Mills
Wow, a firsthand report from a gig! That’s as cool as it gets. Thanks much for the comment. I would love to hear his version of SJI, perhaps there’ll be a live release from this tour? Hearing that Newman tune would be cool too.
Thanks again for taking the time, much obliged, rw