Jan Davis...who?

Are you a fan of twangy,surf,hot rod,secret agent,exotica,spanish-ish,and somewhat kitchy,but very rockin' git-fiddlin'? Then you NEED to pick-up "Boss Guitar, the best of Jan Davis". Jan was an LA session cat back in the 60's who played with all kina people; the Ventures, Dick Dale, Kim Fowley, the Routers, and B. Bumble and the stingers, to name a few. He's definately a "lost Legend of surf guitar". The best of is a collection of greatness from 62-64 when he whipped out single after single under his own name. Trust me on this one...if you don't deem it to be worthy of your TIKI bar playlist or cruzin' around in yer hot rod...I'll buy it back! It's that good,better'n Link Wray!! And weirder too, he taught himself to play guitar and didn't know how to tune it so he invented what he calls "Hawaiian tuning" !? He later became an amazing flamenco player and because he was(is)white,6' 5" and blonde he was kind of an oddity in that world, never mind being fast as shit! Anyhoo, it's on Sundazed Records and it is AWSOME!! Enjoy.
PS, no I don't work for Sundazed Records.

[ Edited by: on 2004-06-15 18:49 ]

On 2004-06-15 18:45, tikitortured wrote:
And weirder too, he taught himself to play guitar and didn't know how to tune it so he invented what he calls "Hawaiian tuning" !? He later became an amazing flamenco player

yes that is weird.
a haole flamenco guitar player invented "Hawaiian tuning"

!!!!

Now I'm no guitarist, I know not of such things as "Hawaiian Tuning" but the cat ain't playin' no ukulele. Sorry for my ignorance about the many ways one can tuna fish...I mean guitar.

I know not of such things as "Hawaiian Tuning"

well there is such a t'ing but it aint called that.

Jan Davis had some great stuff - I've been looking forward to getting that Sundazed collection of his tunes. A couple of his songs also appear on the Crypt/Strip collection, Jungle Exotica.

Genre purists should note, that collection is not Exotica in the Marty and Arty sense, but more like exotic 50s-60s RnR.

-Randy

Oh yeah, one more note - one circulating legend (recently discussed on another board) is that Davis did the yells in Dick Dale's famous version of Miserlou, since Davis was once among the Del-Tones. But the Dickster says he can't remember who did it, so it might just be a suburban legend.

-Randy

About the "Hawaiian Tuning", I read it differently. I thought the point was that Davis didn't have any training so he invented his own style of tuning. Then he came up with his own name for his own style - maybe he picked that name because with that tuning it sounded a little Hawaiian to his ears. He could've called it his Ringdangdoo Tuning if he wanted to - no slight intended to the indigenous peoples of Ringdangdoo.

I don't think anyone was claiming that Jan Davis invented the original style of Hawaiian tuning, whatever the official name for it is (ie, slack key or whatever). That'd be a pretty funny claim because that style has been around much longer. In fact, the fact that there already was such a style and sound is probably why Davis thought his tuning sounded similar!

-Randy

The legend is actually true, Jan did the hootin' an a hollerin' on Dale's Miserlou. He also did the "chaka-chaka" rhythm guitar on it(don't get mad at me if "chaka-chaka" is not a proper guitar term...I'm a drummer).That Jungle Exotica CD is pretty wacky with lots o' cheese, and that's my dad playing drums on Jan's "Watusi Zombie". Truth be told, Jan Davis is actually my uncle. But I'm not hyping his CD because of that...I'm hyping it because it is an incredible CD and I thought all y'all Tik o' philes would dig it as much as me.

[ Edited by: Tikitortured on 2004-06-18 09:53 ]

[ Edited by: Tikitortured on 2004-06-18 09:55 ]