Tom Morgan Acoustic Blues

Influences & Inspiration

— Most of all, Reverend Gary Davis—Rev. Davis was my teacher, mentor and inspiration when I was a teenager. I got to spend time with the “Rev” in 1971 when his manager, Manny Greenhill--also the manager of Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan--asked me to take care of Davis for an afternoon. It was a life changing experience for me to be in the powerful presence of the living embodiment of a musical style that went back to the 1800s. Learning Rev. Davis' extraordinary fingerpicking style was a major focus of my late teen years. I performed two of Davis's showstopper pieces in the U.S. national fingerpicking championship in Winfield, Kansas in 1993. I always include some of his powerful music in my performances—sometimes on the six-string banjo just like Rev. Davis used to do. I have performed the music of Rev. Gary Davis in four continents.

— Mississippi John Hurt—I love Mississippi John Hurt and his music! John Hurt did his first recordings in 1928, disappeared from public view, and then was rediscovered in '63, when he was received with great enthusiasm in the folk festivals and coffee house circuit. Hurt was a huge influence in the folk/blues revival. By 1966 he was gone. I got to see John Hurt play in '63 when I was nine years old in Berkeley. But it wasn't until I was 15 that I got really excited about Hurt's beautiful songs and gentle vocals and beautiful, deceptively simple fingerpicking style. I don't know how many hours I spent in front of a turntable, learning Hurt's pieces note for note. To this day I always play some of Mississippi John Hurt's wonderful fingerstyle folk/blues pieces.

— Blind Blake—Blake, more than anyone else we know about, was the creator of Piedmont style ragtime blues guitar. Blake's piece "West Coast Blues," which he recorded in 1927, was the first recording of a guitar player "ragging" the blues. Blake was a brilliant guitarist—one of the only guitarists Rev. Davis ever spoke highly of. I often play at least one Blind Blake piece in a a performance, maybe more.

— Doc Watson--as a teenager beginning to play fingerstyle guitar in the late '60s, I was greatly inspired by Doc Watson's stunningly beautiful guitar playing. I tended to focus more on learning his wonderful fingerpicking pieces than on his flatpicking pieces. I was always thrilled whenever I got an opportunity to go to one of Doc's fantastic concerts.

— Skip James

— Big Bill Broonzy

— Tampa Red was one of the early blues pioneers, a Chicago-based blues and hokum player who played stellar bottleneck slide blues guitar. I typically play at least one of Tampa Red's great slide guitar classics in most of the shows I do.

— Robert Johnson
— Son House

— Mississippi Fred McDowell--I got to meet Fred McDowell when I was 15. By then he was playing electric guitar. He'd always begin by stating emphatically, "I do not play no rock /n roll." For me, it was his earlier acoustic playing that I love the most, particularly his deep, authentic Mississippi slide guitar--the real deal!

— John Fahey
— Dave Van Ronk

— Jorma Kaukonen/Hot Tuna--If you know the music of acoustic Hot Tuna, you will have some sense of the kind of music I play. Jorma never actually learned from Rev. Gary Davis directly (I did), but he was heavily influenced by Rev. Davis' music, having learned to play the style from someone else who had learned from Rev Davis when Jorma was a student at Antioch College in the '60s. I've enjoyed trading Rev. Gary Davis stories. Jorma is more improvisational than I am inmy style, which is not surprise given his background with Jefferson Airplane, etc.

— Ry Cooder--Ry also spent some time learning from Rev. Gary Davis, as I did. But on top of that, Ry also became well known for mastering of a broad range of other roots guitar and stringed instrument styles. Ry has for decades pursued obscure branches on the tree of American folk, blues and country traditions and worked tirelessly to perfect his craft within each style. like many others, I find inspiration in Ry's playing, particularly in his exceptional bottleneck slide work and in his flawless fingerpicking skill.

— Taj Mahal