With powerfully-crafted lyrics that invoke Dylan, and melodies and harmonies as brilliant and fresh as the Beatles',this folk/rock/pop/experimental 11-song CD is a must for anyone.

11 MP3 Songs
ROCK: Folk Rock, ROCK: 60's Rock



Details:
Evan Davis was born once upon a time in Akron, Ohio. His parents were both musical, even magical, at times. His mother was a classically trained singer, whose pianist was Akron jazz visionary Pat Pace in his early days. His father was an acting student who gave up acting to support his family. Into this came Evan, a child with a near perfect pitch, who could immediately memorize theme songs to TV shows and so on at a very early age. He began writing songs at about age 8. Seemed like he always wanted to make a record. Evan was pushed and shoved and knocked about all through school until a friend urged him to try out for the Select Choir at Coventry High School. Once he sang a solo, all the bullies and naysayers walked a clear path around him: Evan had found his power. Once out of high school, Evan was wandering in downtown Akron around 1980 and went to The Bank, an old bank that had been turned into a nightclub. There he saw Akron bands The Bizzaros and Tin Huey putting on a show (both bands would soon be signed to major labels: Mercury and Warner Brothers, respectively). There he met the leader of The Bizzaros, Nick Nicholis, who was assembling music for a compilation of Akron Artists at the time for his new label, Clone. He encouraged Evan to submit a cassette of music, which Evan did. His song, âRide, Riderâ from the resultant LP, Bowling Balls from Hell (Clone 1980), was named a âbest cutâ by Billboard Magazine. Evan tried to get a band together to capitalize on the opportunity of the moment, but it didnât work out, and, in 1981, Evan decided to head off to California with his high school buddy, Patrick Benedict, who is now a big producer for the NBC Nightly News in Salt Lake City, Utah. Both very artistic and creative, they shared many dreams and visions. Once in California (a town called Los Banosâ¦no, not âthe bathrooms,â but âthe bathsâ after historic visits by missionaries wherein they bathed in hot springs nearby), he and Patrick painted apartments, one of which Evan stayed in, with roaches at least 4 inches long, and a heat wave that summer of 104. He slept on a pull-down Murphy bed, with no mattress over the springs, and just a sleeping bag. Once, while rolling over, he caught his kneecap in one of the round springs, nearly dislocating it. Somewhere along the way he acquired a 4-track Teak upon which he recorded song after song, throughout and beyond this period. Some of those recordings still exist today. At the end of the summer of 1981, Patrick went back to Ohio to continue his cinematography education at OSU, and Evan decided to stay on in California. For a short time, he stayed for free in a âtank house,â a sort of two story shed which at one time had held a water tower, at âRooney Ranch,â where at the time a high school art teacher, Bob Huddleson, let artistic types stay for free, as long as they produced art. Eventually, however, Evan wanted no one telling him what to do, and got himself a motel room at the Mission De Oro in Santa Nella, just outside of Los Banos, and walked across a bridge over interstate 5 to where he had secured himself a job as "Host" at the Pea Soup Andersenâs Restaurant. Rent at the Mission De Oro at that time was $100 a week, and he made about $210 every two weeks. His idea of a good time back then was a bottle of beer and microwavable burrito from the gift shop once every two weeks. It was a good thing he could eat for free at the restaurant on the days he worked. Often, Evan was so lonely, a pang ran through his being that didnât stop till he got to work at Andersenâs the next day. At least there was cable in his room. It was somewhere right in there that he met Kelly Parker, a a rather,skinny and countrified fellow musician, who eventually became a very good friend and helped him out on many recordings and was a big part in the âSong Factory,â a project where he and Kelly would make up and record songs as they went along. Kelly worked at the front desk at the Mission De Oro. Soon, however, Evanâs childhood Akron neighbor and life-long friend, Gary Herwick, freshly-graduated with a B.S. in Business from the Unversity of Akron and ready to rule the world, declared he wanted to come out and join him, using Evanâs Mission De Oro room as his landing pad. Soon, Gary was managing a nearby 7-11, and Ev had become a waiter at Andersenâs, bringing home what he (and Gary!) considered to be big bucks compared to earlier scenarios. The room, of course, left something to be desired. One fellow slept on the floor one night, then the other slept on the floor the next. Eventually, they rented a house back in Los Banos (still named after âthe bathsâ the missionaries took!) wherein Evan got free egg cartons from a nearby chicken farm and soundproofed a room and then painted it white, wherein he and Kelly could practice and record. Between Kelly and himself, there was an entire bandâs worth of instruments, and Evan learned to play each one fairly well. Kelly had an original mind: he could make up guitar licks to accompany Evan's original music, even as Evan created it. Eventually, in 1983, Gary Moved to San Francisco to manage a hotel, and, in 1988, Ev followed him there, where Gary returned the favor, letting Ev stay for free for a goodly amount of time until he got on his feet. The goal was to find independent record labels, now called âindies,â to accept his sings, but he wasnât all that successful at it. There are a few rejection letters from that time. He did, however, secure a job as Open Mic Emcee at the Mad Dog in the Fog, an English pub at Haight and Fillmore, wherein he booked the entertainment and also was the Saturday night door man/bouncer, but most notably hosted the Open Mic every Tuesday night for over 2 years. There he met lots of talent, while performing his own songs whenever the opportunity presented itself. He met and got to know many people who would eventually make a name for themselves, including the egotistical Chris Von Schneidern, the existential Michael OâMeara, the charismatic Stephanie Mechura, the talented Hal Marcus, the particularly noble and loyal Rudy Chalard, and the perhaps most notably Linda Perry (later of 4-Non Blondes). In 1993, Evan decided to go back to Ohio, where his Dadâs home, (the same house where heâd grown up) had empty rooms awaiting him. Evan needed to pause and regroup. He got a job at The Old Harbor Inn in Portage Lakes, and soon met a girl bartending at a neighboring establishment, Paulâs Pub. They began going out, and eventually got married, in 1996. The emptiness aforementioned in Evan's spirit diminished. When their daughter was born in 1997, Evan began thinking about recording songs again, this time primarily to make his daughter proud of him some day. Edithâs Mystery is the eventual outcome of that intention; an 11-song CD, eclectic in that it is filled with Evanâs favorite songs, each one unique, each one glowing as if a jewel. The Album title is from a line from a short story by an early American author (Evan received a B.A. in English from the University of Akron in 2004), but instead of just spelling it out to you, Ev would rather wait and see how many know just who it is, what it is, what it is about, and what significance it has to his music,which means not just googling "edith's mystery." A chance to meet Evan and discuss music and literature (any time youâre in Tampa, Florida) awaits anyone who can fully unravel this âmysteryâ of Edithâs Mystery, the new CD by Evan Davis.