Washita love child : the rise of Indigenous rock star Jesse Ed Davis / Douglas K. Miller ; with a foreword by Joy Harjo.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Miller, Douglas K., 1976- author.

Contributor:

Harjo, Joy, writer of foreword.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Davis, Jesse Ed.

Guitarists--United States--Biography.

Guitarists.

Rock musicians--United States--Biography.

Rock musicians.

Indians of North America--Biography.

Indians of North America.

Musicians--United States--Biography.

Musicians.

Musicians--Biography.

United States.

Genre:

Biographies.

Biographies

Physical Description:

xxv, 371 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates ; illustrations (chiefly color) ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, N.Y. : Liveright Publishing Corporation, [2025]

Summary:

"No one played like Jesse Ed Davis. One of the most sought-after guitarists of the late 1960s and '70s, Davis appeared alongside the era's greatest stars--John Lennon and Mick Jagger, B.B. King and Bob Dylan--and contributed to dozens of major releases, including numerous top-ten albums and singles, and records by artists as distinct as Johnny Cash, Taj Mahal, and Cher. But Davis, whose name has nearly disappeared from the annals of rock and roll history, was more than just the most versatile session guitarist of the decade. A multitalented musician who paired bright flourishes with soulful melodies, Davis transformed our idea of what rock music could be and, crucially, who could make it. At a time when few other Indigenous artists appeared on concert stages, radio waves, or record store walls, in a century often depicted as a period of decline for Native Americans, Davis and his Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, Seminole, and Mvskoke relatives demonstrated new possibilities for Native people. Weaving together more than a hundred interviews with Davis's bandmates, family members, friends, and peers--among them Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, and Robbie Robertson--Washita Love Child powerfully reconstructs Davis's extraordinary life and career, taking us from his childhood in Oklahoma to his first major gig backing rockabilly star Conway Twitty, and from his dramatic performance at George Harrison's 1971 Concert for Bangladesh to his years with John Trudell and the Grafitti Man band. In Davis's story, a post-Beatles Lennon especially emerges as a kindred soul and creative partner. Yet Davis never fully recovered from Lennon's sudden passing, meeting his own tragic demise just eight years later. With a foreword by former poet laureate Joy Harjo, who collaborated with Davis near the end of his life, Washita Love Child thoroughly and finally restores the "red dirt boogie brother" to his rightful place in rock history, cementing his legacy for generations to come." -- Amazon

Contents:

Prelude. Farther on down the road

Overture. My ship has come in. Natural anthem ; A Kiowa-Comanchi Tipi ; Six-gun city, or, You can take the boy out of Oklahoma

;

But you can't take Oklahoma out of the boy ; Turned on in Tinseltown ; ¡Jesse Davis! ; The circus comes to town ; Where am I now (When I need me) ; Was it just a dream? ; The great abandonment ; I will retreat no further ; You sacrifice yourself for your people

Coda. Satanta's bugle

Acknowledgments

Bonus tracks. Side A.: Jesse Ed Davis, "Anyway you wanna do, or; Eternal Jimi Hendrix" ; Side B: Excerpts from aka Grafitti Man fan letters ; Side C: Jesse's mixtape for Patti ; Side D: Discography

Interviews and collections.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 331-354) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Miller, Douglas K., 1976- Washita love child.

ISBN:

9781324092094

1324092092

OCLC:

1464864291