Paul Davis

Mississippi-born singer and songwriter Paul Davis built a lengthy career spanning multiple styles, yet his reputation rests primarily on several standout singles from the 1970s and 1980s. Foremost among them was “I Go Crazy,” a track that blended country elements with the sound of classic Southern soul. Born Paul Lavon Davis in Meridian, Mississippi, on April 21, 1948, he developed an early passion for music and performed with teenage groups such as the Six Soul Survivors and the Endless Chain. In 1968 his talent for crafting songs secured a staff position at Malaco Records in Mississippi.

By 1970 he achieved a modest regional success with “Revolution in My Soul,” a country-rock song he wrote, sang, and helped produce for White Whale Records under the band name the Reivers. That same year Ilene Burns, widow of the respected songwriter and producer Bert Berns, signed him to her late husband’s Bang Records. His debut single for the label, a version of the Jarmels’ 1961 hit “A Little Bit of Soap,” climbed to number 52 on the Billboard chart. The release prompted his first album, A Little Bit of Paul Davis, also in 1970. Three additional Bang albums followed—Paul Davis in 1972, Ride ’Em Cowboy in 1974, and Southern Tracks & Fantasies in 1976—along with further modest chart entries such as “Ride ’Em Cowboy” in 1974 and both “Thinking of You” and “Superstar” in 1976.

His breakthrough arrived in 1977 with “I Go Crazy,” taken from the album Singer of Songs—Teller of Tales. The single reached number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 and remained on the chart for forty weeks, a longevity record unbroken until 1982. After issuing one final Bang album in 1980, titled Paul Davis and featuring the Top 30 single “Do Right,” he moved to Arista Records. There he recorded his most commercially successful LP, Cool Night, which appeared in 1982, peaked at number 52 on the album chart, and yielded three hits: the title track, “‘65 Love Affair” (his highest placement at number six), and “Love Me or Let Me Be Lonely.”

Although Cool Night marked his final album, Davis resurfaced on the country charts in the mid- and late 1980s for duets with Marie Osmond on 1986’s “You’re Still New to Me” and with Tanya Tucker on 1988’s “I Won’t Take Less Than Your Love.” A shooting during a robbery attempt in Nashville in 1986 prompted him to withdraw from performing and focus instead on writing. In the early 2000s he reportedly renovated his home studio and incorporated synthesizers into new recordings, yet he never released the material; he died of a heart attack on April 22, 2008, one day after his sixtieth birthday.