Blues guitarist to perform at tribute dinner

Blues guitarist Guy Davis will appear at the Gordon Parks Celebration Tribute Dinner on Friday, October 8th to help honor his mother, Ruby Dee, who will receive the "Gordon Parks Choice of Weapons Award" at the event. Tickets are $25 each and may be purchased at the Gordon Parks Museum or in downtown Fort Scott at The Country Cupboard. The Tribute Dinner is part of the three-day Gordon Parks Celebration, October 6-9, at Fort Scott Community College.

Guy Davis is a musician, composer, actor, director, and writer. Throughout his career, he has dedicated himself to reviving the traditions of acoustic blues and bringing them to as many listeners as possible through the material of the great blues masters, African-American stories, and his own original songs, stories and performance pieces. Davis is a self-taught guitarist and learned by listening to and watching other musicians

The son of actors/writers Ruby Dee and the late Ossie Davis, Guy has had overlapping interests in music and acting. Early acting roles included a lead role in the film "Beat Street" and on television as character Dr. Josh Hall on "One Life to Live." Eventually, Davis had the opportunity to combine music and acting on the stage. He made his Broadway musical debut in 1991 in the Zora Neale Hurston/Langston Hughes collaboration "Mulebone," which featured the music of Taj Mahal. In 1993 he performed Off-Broadway as legendary blues player Robert Johnson in "Robert Johnson: Trick the Devil." He received rave reviews and became the 1993 winner of the Blues Foundation's "Keeping the Blues Alive Award" presented to him by Robert Cray at the W.C. Handy Awards ceremony.

Davis arranged, performed and co-wrote the music for an Emmy award winning film, "To Be a Man." In the fall of 1995, his music was used in the national PBS series, "The American Promise." Davis also performed in a theater piece with his parents entitled "Two Hah Hahs and a Homeboy," staged at the Crossroads Theatre in New Brunswick, NJ in the spring of 1995. The show combined material written by Davis and his parents, with music, African American Folklore and history, as well as performance pieces by Hurston and Hughes.

For the past decade, Davis has concentrated much of his efforts on writing, recording, and performing music. In the fall of 1995, he released his Red House records debut 'stomp Down Rider," an album that captured Davis in a stunning live performance. Many albums followed and his latest album, "Legacy" was picked as one of the Best CDs of the Year by National Public Radio (NPR), and the lead track on it, "Uncle Tom's Dead" was chosen as one of the Best Songs of the Year.

The proudest recording project he's been involved with is the one produced by his friend Larry Long, called "I Will Be Your Friend: Songs and Activities for Young Peacemakers," in which Guy contributes the title track. It's a CD collection of enriching songs combined together with a teacher's aide kit to help teach diversity and understanding. It is all part of the national "Teaching Tolerance" (www.tolerance.org) campaign and continues to be distributed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and sent to every public school in the country to help combat hatred.

Guy wrote a couple of children's songs and recorded with Dr. John for Whoopi Goldberg's "Littleburg" series, and appeared and sang in "Jack's Big Show," both for the Nickelodeon network, "Nick, Jr." Guy has participated in residency programs for the Lincoln Center Institute, the Kennedy Center, and the State Theatre in New Jersey. Most recently Guy had the honor of appearing in the PBS special on Jazz and Blues artist, the late Howard Armstrong. Guy was an honored guest at the 2004 Kennedy Center Awards when his parents received their medals alongside other recipients Warren Beatty, Elton John and composer John Williams.

The complete Celebration schedule is available on the website www.gordonparkscenter.org. Tickets for other Gordon Parks Celebration events are on sale at the Gordon Parks Museum located on the FSCC campus or in downtown Fort Scott at Country Cupboard. For more information contact the Center at 223-2700, ext. 515 or by email at gordonparkscenter@fortscott.edu. The Gordon Parks Celebration is presented in part by funding from the Kansas Arts Commission, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.