CeDell Davis

CeDell Davis (born Ellis Davis) is a blues guitarist and vocalist. He is most notable for his distinctive style of guitar playing. Davis playing guitar by using a table knife in his fretting hand in a manner similar to slide guitar, resulting in a welter of metal-stress harmonic transients and a singular tonal plasticity. He uses this style out of necessity. When he was 10 he suffered from severe polio which left him little control over his left hand and restricted use of his right. He had been playing guitar prior to his polio and decided to continue in spite of his handicaps and thus developed his knife method as the only way he could come up with of still playing guitar with his limited use of his hands.

Davis was born on June 9, 1927 in Helena, Arkansas where his family worked on a local plantation. He enjoyed music from a young age, playing harmonica and guitar with his childhood friends.

Once he sufficiently mastered his variation on slide guitar playing, CeDell Davis began playing in various nightclubs and dives across the Delta area. He played with the great slide guitarist Robert Nighthawk for a ten year period from 1953-1963. While playing in a club in 1957, a police raid caused the crowd to stampede over Davis. He broke both legs rather severely in this incident and was forced to use a wheelchair from then on. The hardships resulting from his physical handicaps were a major influence in his lyrics and style of blues playing.

In recent times, Davis' music has been released by the Fat Possum record label to much critical acclaim. His 1994 album, "Feel Like Doin' Something Wrong", received a 9.0 from Pitchfork Media who called it "timeless."