Joe Davis

Joe Davis was an almost constant presence in the American music scene from the early days of recording through the 60's. He was many things, including songwriter, publisher, A&R man, producer, label manager and even a musical participant with a background vocal here or a train whistle there. He was involved with classic blues, swing jazz, rhythm and blues, doo wop, early rock and roll and was an innovator in the creating of children's records as well as a defendent on trial for printing other records that were considered obscene. Davis worked for big labels such as MGM; he also ran his own indie firms such as Beacon, JayDee and Davis. His career, told in painstaking detail in the brilliant Never Steal A Copyright by Bruce Bastin, is hardly a matter of black and white, and that applies to racial as well as aesthetic issues. While many music business people of his era were out and out crooks or racists, Davis tended to have cordial relationships with many key black artists, including songwriter and publisher W.C. Handy and the brilliant bluesman Gabriel Brown, whose career was one of several that Davis nurtured through the years. While it would be a stretch to suggest music history would have been entirely different had there been no Joe Davis, it is indeed difficult to approach any genre of American music without eventually peering over Davis' shoulder in a recording studio, or handling sheet music that profited him in some way--or perhaps temporarily put him out of business. It is his song publishing manuevering that has gotten him the most criticism. He came from a generation of music investors who were in the right place at the right time to literally seize hold of large amounts of material that previously had been in public domain. This included traditional...