Born in Helena, Arkansas, during 1927, CeDell Davis contracted polio at ten and lost the use of his right hand. He adapted by playing guitar left-handed in a bottleneck technique that employed a knife, yielding a singular atonal tone. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s he performed in local venues alongside Robert Nighthawk, Big Joe Williams, and Charlie Jordan. A 1957 tavern stampede in St. Louis left him with additional injuries that confined him to a wheelchair, yet he kept performing. Following scattered compilation tracks and several New York live appearances, Fat Possum Records offered him a contract. Robert Palmer oversaw his first album, Feel like Doin' Something Wrong, issued in 1994. The Best of CeDell Davis appeared the next year, supported by Col. Bruce Hampton & the Aquarium Rescue Unit. The Horror of It All came out in 1998. Davis then stepped back from recording for four years, concentrating instead on writing and live work. Upon returning to the studio he enlisted R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and the Screaming Trees’ Barrett Martin. The sessions produced When Lightnin’ Struck the Pine, released in summer 2002. A stroke three years afterward ended his guitar playing, but he continued singing and released Last Man Standing in 2015 followed by Even the Devil Gets the Blues in 2016. After a heart attack in September 2017 he entered the hospital and died on the 27th at age 91.
