Rod Davis | |
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 Davis live on stage with The Quarrymen in 2011. | |
| Background information | |
| Born | 7 November 1941 Sefton, Liverpool, England, U.K. |
| Genres | |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, lecturer |
| Instruments |
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| Years active |
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| Member of | The Quarrymen |
Rodney Verso Davis (born 7 November 1941) is an English musician, best known for being a member of The Quarrymen, a band who would later evolve into The Beatles.
Davis was born in Smithdown Hospital, Sefton, Liverpool. Davis played in a jazz trio whilst at school with Gerald Greenwood (piano) and Les Brough (drums). [1] Rod was attending Quarry Bank High School, when he was asked to join The Quarrymen in 1957, along with Colin Hanton, as their banjo player: [1]
I lived in Woolton and first met John Lennon, Pete Shotton, Nigel Walley, Ivan Vaughan and Geoff Rhind at St. Peter's Sunday School when we were very small boys. I lived near Colin Hanton and we used to play street football together. I met Eric Griffiths when we both started at Quarry Bank School, and Len Garry when he became the Quarrymen's tea-chest bass player. Eric invited me to join the Quarrymen in early 1956 just after I bought a banjo.
The group, consisting of John Lennon, Eric Griffiths, Pete Shotton, Len Garry, Colin Hanton, and Davis, formed the first stable line-up of the group. Davis' tenure with the group was short, and he and Pete Shotton, left in August 1957, feeling that the group was moving away from skiffle and towards rock, leaving their instruments superfluous. [2]
Davis would make a record in 1961 as part of a band called the Trad Grads, by which time he played mandolin, fiddle, banjo, guitar, concertina, and melodeon. In a 1997 issue of Record Collector, he said that when he told Lennon about this in early 1962, Lennon "said, 'You don't play the drums, do you? We need a drummer to take back to Hamburg.'" Davis, who had gone on to attend Cambridge University, declined Lennon’s offer, allowing The Beatles to recruit Pete Best. The two men lost contact after this. [3]
In 1997, Davis reunited with the then-surviving members of The Quarrymen to perform a concert, to commemorate 40 years since the group's formation. [4] Shortly after, they embarked on a tour which took place in the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, and Japan, among many others. Davis has participated on all Quarrymen releases since; including their three albums; Get Back – Together (1997), Songs We Remember (2004), and Grey Album (2012). Their recent material primarily consists of rock and roll and skiffle songs from the 1950s.
Davis was portrayed by actor James Jack Bentham in the 2009 biopic Nowhere Boy . [5]
The Quarrymen performed in New York City, for what would have been Lennon's 70th birthday in 2010. [4]
As of 2016, Davis still tours with founding member Colin Hanton and Len Garry.
In the 1960s, Davis played the mandolin and fiddle in numerous Bluegrass bands. [1] In 1964, he played with "The Bluegrass Ramblers". They would later appear on an episode of Opportunity Knocks. [1] Davis taught French and Spanish until 1968, when he took up a job as an expedition driver for a company called Minitrek Expeditions, taking trips to Russia, Turkey and across the Sahara desert. [1]
Davis married his wife in 1970, before filing for divorce in 1982. [1] They settled in Hertfordshire, where both of their children were eventually born. [1] Rod worked for numerous different jobs in the travelling industry during his life, whilst also playing in a handful of different folk and bluegrass groups. Davis met his current partner, Janet, in the 1980s. [1] Around that time, he started lecturing in Tourism at Uxbridge College. [1] In 1996, he became a part-time lecturer at Brunel University. [1] He retired in 2006.
| Title | Year |
|---|---|
| Get Back – Together | 1997 |
| Songs We Remember | 2004 |
| Grey Album | 2012 |
| Title | Year |
|---|---|
| Live At The Halfmoon Pub Putney | 2005 |
| The Quarrymen Live! In Penny Lane | 2020 |
The Quarrymen are a British skiffle and rock and roll group, formed by John Lennon in Liverpool in 1956, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. Originally consisting of Lennon and several school friends, the Quarrymen took their name from a line in the school song of their school, the Quarry Bank High School. Lennon's mother, Julia, taught her son to play the banjo, showed Lennon and Eric Griffiths how to tune their guitars in a similar way to the banjo, and taught them simple chords and songs.
Skiffle is a genre of folk music with influences from American folk music, blues, country, bluegrass, and jazz, generally performed with a mixture of manufactured and homemade or improvised instruments.
Leonard Charles 'Len' Garry is an English musician, best known for being a member of The Quarrymen, a band who would later evolve into The Beatles.
Eric Ronald Griffiths was a British musician and dry cleaner, he was best known as the guitarist in the original lineup of the Quarrymen until he left the group in the summer of 1958.
Peter Shotton was an English businessman. He was known for creating the Fatty Arbuckle's chain of restaurants and for his long friendship with John Lennon of the Beatles; he played the washboard in the Beatles' precursor the Quarrymen and remained close to the band, holding various positions related to their business ventures over the years.
"In Spite of All the Danger" is the first song recorded by the Quarrymen, then consisting of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, pianist John Lowe, and drummer Colin Hanton.
"Maggie May" is a traditional Liverpool folk song about a prostitute who robbed a "homeward bounder", a sailor coming home from a round trip.
Colin Leo Hanton is an English musician, best known as the drummer for the 1950s skiffle band the Quarrymen, led by a young John Lennon. He currently plays for the reformed version of the Quarrymen.
Christopher Nigel Walley is an English former golfer and tea-chest bass player and manager, best known for his association with band The Quarrymen, the precursor of The Beatles which included John Lennon. His surname has often been spelt incorrectly as 'Whalley' in numerous books and on web pages.
John Charles "Duff" Lowe was an English pianist. In the late 1950s, he played piano for The Quarrymen, the group who would evolve into The Beatles.
The Casbah Coffee Club, officially Casbah Club, was a rock and roll music venue in the West Derby area of Liverpool, England, that operated from 1959 to 1962. Started by Mona Best, mother of early Beatles drummer Pete Best, in the cellar of the family home, the Casbah was planned as a members-only club for her sons Pete and Rory and their friends, to meet and listen to the popular music of the day. Mona came up with the idea of the club after watching a TV report about the 2i's Coffee Bar in London's Soho where several singers had been discovered.
Gary Ruley and Mule Train is an acoustic bluegrass band based in Lexington, Virginia who also play New Grass and Jazz music.
Songs We Remember is the third album by the re-incarnated version of the Quarrymen, which was the band that eventually evolved into the Beatles. It is also the final album to feature founder member Eric Griffiths before his death in 2005.
Get Back – Together is the second album by the reformed Liverpool band the Quarrymen, which was the band that, in its original conception, evolved into the Beatles. It is also the first of two albums by the band that feature all surviving founding members together, as while the name the Quarrymen name was used in the 1994 album Open for Engagements seen as the first album since the reformation, it only featured Rod Davis and part-time member John Duff Lowe. Eric Griffiths and Len Garry make their first appearances on a studio recording, with drummer Colin Hanton also returning to the band for the first time since 1959, having previously appeared on the "In Spite of All The Danger" recording in 1958 as a b-side to a cover of Buddy Holly's "That'll Be the Day". It is also the only full length album featuring Pete Shotton, who also returned to the band in 1997 but later retired due to ill health. Shotton subsequently died in 2017. The album was recorded and mixed at Liverpool Music House by record producer and engineer Lance Thomas.
Phillips' Sound Recording Services was a studio in the house of Percy Francis Phillips (1896–1984) and his family at 38 Kensington, Kensington, Liverpool, England. Between 1955 and 1969, Phillips recorded numerous tapes and acetate discs for Liverpool acts, people and businesses in a small room behind the shop his family owned.
Nowhere Boy is a 2009 British biographical drama film, directed by Sam Taylor-Wood in her directorial debut. Written by Matt Greenhalgh, it is based on Julia Baird's biography of her half-brother, the musician John Lennon. Nowhere Boy is about the teenage years of Lennon, his relationships with his aunt Mimi Smith and his mother Julia Lennon, the creation of his first band, the Quarrymen, and its evolution into the Beatles.
The Cavern Club at 10 Mathew Street, in Liverpool was the venue where the Beatles' UK popularity started. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best were first seen by Brian Epstein at the club. Epstein eventually became their manager, going on to secure them a record contract. Best was replaced by Ringo Starr on 16 August 1962, which upset many Beatles fans. After taunts of, "Pete forever, Ringo never!", one agitated fan headbutted Harrison in the club.
"Freight Train" is an American folk song written by Elizabeth Cotten in the early 20th century, and popularized during the American folk revival and British skiffle period of the 1950s and 1960s. By Cotten's own account in the 1985 BBC series Down Home, she composed "Freight Train" as a teenager, inspired by the sound of the trains rolling in on the tracks near her home in North Carolina.
The Charles River Valley Boys were an American bluegrass group who toured and recorded in the 1960s and were best known for their 1966 album, Beatle Country, presenting bluegrass versions of songs by the Beatles.
William Frederick Smith is an English former musician, who was a founding member of The Quarrymen. His tenure with the group was short, only performing with them for one month.
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