Link Davis

Link Davis was born in 1914 in Wills Point, Van Zandt County, TX, near Dallas. One of eight children, he formed a trio with two of his brothers during the late '20s, playing local dances. A natural musician, Davis started out playing the fiddle and later took up the saxophone. He gravitated toward Western swing music when he turned professional and one of his earliest known steady gigs was as a member of the Crystal Springs Ramblers, a Fort Worth-based outfit with which he cut his first record in 1937. It was after passing through several other local bands that Davis became a member of Cliff Bruner & the Texas Wanderers, playing fiddle or saxophone on a number of their records during the early '40s. He tried forming his own band -- later known as the Blue Bonnet Playboys -- in 1945, and cut his first solo sides in 1948. Davis moved to the Gold Star label the following year for one release, which included his version of "Good Rockin' Tonight," retitled "Have You Heard the News." Davis spent the 1950s working under a variety of names, as well as backing various other musicians, including bandleader Benny Leaders, Floyd Tillman, and Smith Spadacene (working as "the Harmonica Kid") on fiddle or saxophone, occasionally singing with them, and making music in a variety of idioms and styles, ranging from country blues and Cajun music to rockabilly. He was equally capable in all of these areas -- as far back as 1949, he'd cut a hot adaptation of "Good Rockin' Tonight" under the title "Have You Heard the News" -- and could easily have been a competitor in the new field of rock & roll when it began breaking out in the middle of the decade. Some of the flavor of his stuff, such as "Grasshopper," was a little too southern to ever find favor outside of the region, but he was better...