This past week I was watching on TV a two-hour program on vaudeville entertainment, and about a half-hour into the show American boogie woogie and blues piano player Cow Cow Davenport was briefly featured.  His inclusion in the special made sense in that Davenport certainly had a place in vaudeville history.  Afterwards, I pulled the fine Document Records collection entitled Cow Cow Davenport Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order Volume 1 – 1 October 1925 – 1 May 1929 (DOCD-5141).  That 24-track collection is a great place to start one’s understanding of Davenport’s music, and since I haven’t provided a brief overview of his life and music before, the motivation to do so is now here.

Charles Edward Davenport came into the world in late April, 1894 in Anniston, Alabama, a town in the northeast portion of the state in Calhoun County, an area situated at the southernmost point of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Davenport was one of eight family children.  Though his earliest introductions to music, and specifically piano, likely trace to his family’s devout background, with Brimingham, Alabama being roughly 60 miles to the west of Anniston, a city known for a prodigious number of blues and other genres of piano talent including Jabo Williams, Fred Longshaw, Pine Top Smith, Avery Parrish, Mack Rhinehart, George Tremer, Walter Roland, Robert McCoy, and even the great jazzman Jelly Roll Morton, it is reasonable to suppose that in addition to church services where piano and organ were a large part of Sunday services (his father was a preacher and his mother was the congregation’s organist), many other musical impetuses, especially those nearby, also  framed Davenport’s interest in piano.

When in his early double-digit years Davenport showed an interest in music, his father, in particular, vehemently opposed his desires, packing him up and sending him to a religious academy.  In spite of this, Davenport was summarily ousted from the seminary for insisting on playing ragtime piano music while there.  It was in his blood, and no amount of religious immersion was going to drain it from his soul.

In the 1920s, Davenport made the decision to strike out on his own to pursue his musical career in one of the Theatre Owners Booking Association (TOBA) tent shows with the Barhoot’s Traveling Carnival, a medicine show extravaganza where he was able to play his ragtime variety of music.  This was not the last TOBA circuit company that Davenport would perform with over the years into the 1930s, though this early exposure and frequency of playing professionally certainly assisted in shaping his career arc.

The year 1925 was an important one for Davenport.  He had met Dora Carr, a vocalist, back in 1922 and aligned with her as the “Davenport & Company” act on the TOBA circuit, also becoming a couple in the meantime.  As Carr’s accompanist, Davenport was first featured on a recording via the 78rpm release on the Okeh imprint (under Carr’s name solely) entitled “Cow Cow Blues” / I’m Gonna Steal Somebody’s Man,’’ with Davenport, though, indicated on the record as the author of both tunes. 

“Cow Cow Blues” was inspired, it is said, by the device used on the front of a train to deflect objects off the tracks.  And, it is the song that forever gave Davenport his stage name.

In March, 1926, the duo saw “Fifth Street Blues” / “Black Girl Gets There Just The Same” Okeh label record come out under the names of Davenport & Carr, though once again Davenport got credit for writing the songs.

While continuing to perform on the tent show/vaudeville circuit, Davenport recorded “New Cow Cow Blues” / “Stealin’ Blues’ for the Chicago, Illinois-based SD label with B. T. Wingfield on coronet and L.  Pickett on violin, respectively.

Davenport also affiliated himself with another female vocalist, Ivy Smith, performing together under the Chicago Steppers stage act name.  The two saw releases on the Vocalion label in 1928 and 1929.  The 1928 record included “Cow Cow Blues,” a song attributed to Davenport alone (unlike the first iteration with Carr where he was solely credited with authoring the song), with side two of the release credited to both Davenport and Smith.

Also in 1929, a 78rpm was released solely under Davenport’s name on the Paramount label.

As Davenport’s notoriety grew, so did the desire for him to work with others, one notable example being Chicago hokum and blues great Tampa Red, though Red was widely known to record with Georgia Tom Dorsey on piano.

Also in the late 1920s, Davenport recorded numerous records on the Vocalion label, some under his own name, and one with singer Sam Thread.  Also, Davenport went on to become a talent scout for the label.

Unfortunately, in 1938 Davenport suffered a stroke that limited the use of his hands.  However, he had solo releases on the Brunswick and Decca imprints in 1938 and 1939, and one in 1939 on Decca with singer Blue Lu Barker With Danny Barker’s Fly Cats.  Despite the stroke’s initial limiting factors, primarily in Davenport’s right hand, the songs were recorded in the years of their releases.

Davenport was able to move forward as a singer, now having diminished keyboard skills, and he decided on a move to New York City where he eventually, despite his immense musical success, had to take employment as a dish washer in the Onyx Club.  There, however, he was surprisingly discovered by none other than jazz piano giant Art Hodes.  Hodes made it his mission to assist Davenport in recovery and recuperation from his stroke’s effects, and also expended his energies in seeking new recording contracts for Davenport.

Indeed, Davenport went on to again record, seeing six sides released in 1945 for the Comet Records label, with two additional records coming out on the AFCDJ and Supertone labels, with the Supertone release finding him accompanying Ivy Smith yet again.

Without a doubt, Davenport was an astonishing boogie woogie piano style player, though his blues were extraordinary.  His music is infectious, and his influence is vast.  It is inferred that Davenport’s “Cow Cow Blues” was the inspiration for Ray Charles” “Mess Around,” a song written for him by Atlantic Records’ co-founder Ahmet Ertegun.  There are allusions that exist to this day that Davenport wrote “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead (You Rascal You),” the song that was a huge hit for Louis Armstrong, and that Davenport sold the rights to the song to others, something that Davenport vehemently denied.  On a number of fronts in the business of music, he felt he had been cheated.

Eventually, Davenport established a home in Cleveland, Ohio, where in early December, 1955 he passed away form hardening of the arteries.

Davenport’s musical masterpieces continue to be in print and available, and remain some of the most consistently influential and enjoyable blues and boogie woogie style songs around.  Piano enthusiasts of both genres should rejoice in that fact.  Documents Records’ catalog is the first place to check should your interest be high.