Grandfather Davis
Not long after I moved back to Memphis in 2005, I found myself in a guitar store waiting for a clerk to bring something from the back. At the time, I wore my hair long, and often I could be found sporting a denim jacket with Led Zeppelin’s famous Swan Song logo, a bare-chested angel with his arms thrown out to his sides, embroidered on the back in actual Levi’s-brand gold thread.
The length of my hair and the logo emblazoned on my jacket are of some import because, as I waited, I was addressed by an older man sitting behind a drum kit. The man had longish hair, though his was a stately gray, and he spoke with a British accent. I never learned his name, or I’ve since forgotten it, but he gave me advice that has been, for better or worse, one of the guiding principles of my life ever since.
“Fan of them?” he asked, and when I raised an eyebrow, he clarified, “Led Zeppelin.”
I confirmed his suspicion, and the man behind the drum set nodded his head, a little sadly. That’s when he blew my mind wide open. “I could’ve had that gig, you know,” he said, before going on to explain that he was from Manchester, England, and used to be in demand as a drummer. He’d been asked to try out for Zeppelin, but, he claimed, he had no interest in keeping the beat for, as he called them, “Jimmy Page’s new blues cover band.”
As much as the Davis men have disagreed about politics, fashion, and whether or not Led Zeppelin are just “noise,” we all inherited the hard work bug.
I laughed at that, as I think I was supposed to, but after demonstrating his undeniable chops on the drums, the old musician got serious. “Never say no to a gig,” he told me. “You can always quit, but you can’t get yourself asked back after they’ve gone and hired someone else.”
Good advice, no? Especially for a fledgling writer and musician just returned to his hometown and eager for any work he can find. Of course, that old man behind the drum set was probably born in Mississippi, not Manchester, and, after taking one look at my jean jacket and Jimmy Page wannabe haircut, figured he could fake an English accent well enough to lay a brain basher on the skinny kid in a music store. Well played, sir. Who could have known that his advice, probably offered in jest, would lead me to this gig — writing for a magazine I love?
Jesse Davis
Still, my meeting with the Man from Manchester, as I’ve come to think of him, has, in the intervening years, taken on mythic proportions for me. He appeared like a character out of Tolkein, a gray-bearded Gandalf of the guitar store, dispensing wisdom with the easy manner of a wizard blowing so many smoke rings.
To be fair, though, I was already primed for the Man from Manchester’s message. I come from a family of musicians — and hard workers. As much as the Davis men have disagreed about politics, fashion, and whether or not Led Zeppelin are just “noise,” we all inherited the hard work bug.
An example: When live, on-air performances were the norm for radio, my grandfather’s band used to steal such gigs from Roy Acuff. Yes, Roy Acuff, of Acuff-Rose Music fame, possibly one of the best fiddle players of all time.
On stormy nights, Grandaddy’s band would show up at a radio station, early, in tune, and willing to play for half of whatever Acuff was charging. They would put on worried expressions and tell tales of flooded roads. Hopefully good ol’ Roy’s car wasn’t stuck in the mud on some country road, they’d say. Again, I feel I must confess to being too credulous. My grandfather and his band couldn’t have pulled this stunt too many times; Acuff was the grandson of a senator and well-connected in Tennessee.
Still, whether it was a stunt pulled once or a few dozen times, the lesson I took away was this: Show up early, no matter the weather, because hard work will take you places.
