Davies overcomes bias on her way to guitar herohood

By: JIM TRAGESER - Staff Writer | Wednesday, January 16, 2008 1:21 PM PST ∞

Ask hardcore blues fans to name their 10 favorite guitarists, and Debbie Davies' name is going to be on an awful lot of those lists. A protege of the late Albert Collins, Davies' incisive leads and imaginative solos are already the stuff of legend.

And if the blues is all about overcoming obstacles in life, then Davies' bona fides are unassailable. When she started out on her path in music, women simply didn't play lead guitar. Or any guitar, for that matter.

Growing up in Los Angeles in the 1960s, Davies (who plays with her trio Wednesday night at Anthology in San Diego) fell in love with the music of the British invasion and, through bands like the Rolling Stones, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and the Yardbirds, the blues. But her interest in exploring this new music as a performer was not one that was supported in any way.

"Back when I wanted to start playing electric guitar, that was not something available to girls," Davies said by phone last week. "Everything was very gender-specific. Boys wore this, girls wore that. These were the careers you could have if you were a girl, and these were the ones you could have if you were a boy.

"Girls did not play in bands and did not play those instruments. There was no support from my family, school, peers or the culture at large for this thing I wanted to do."

Fortunately for fans of the electric guitar, Davies was not easily dissuaded and as a young teen simply forged ahead anyway.

"I got an acoustic, learned your basic listen-and-play kind of skills," she said of her early forays into the guitar.

She'd already mastered the basics of music by the time she picked up her first guitar, she said. Her father was a vocalist and arranger in Hollywood, while her mother was a classical pianist and music teacher in the public schools.

Still, until she picked up the guitar, Davies said her interest in music was only lukewarm.

"My mom did give me piano lessons and then got an actual outside piano teacher for my sister and me. I never really took to the piano. It may have been because both my parents were accomplished, but I think my generation, the music we got into was real guitar-based."

When she left home to go to Sonoma State, Davies said she took the plunge and got her first electric guitar ---- plus her eyes were opened to new possibilities as well.

"I saw Bonnie Raitt perform in the early '70s, and that rocked my world. She was the only woman I'd ever seen play an electric guitar and play the style of music I was interested in, that bluesy style."

At that point, Davies immersed herself in a blues education at night after going to classes all day, she said.

"There happened to be in this town where I lived a blues club. So I had the opportunity to go out as many nights as I could and sit at the feet of all these artists I was starting to try and emulate, Like Albert Collinis, Albert King, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, Gatemouth Brown, Etta James, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. I was able to catch all these acts. I was learning to play, I was watching, I was collecting records ---- anyone who would show me anything, I was there. I was head over heels absorbed with it."

But she was still, except for Raitt, the only woman she knew playing electric guitar.

"Then there were a few other women who started coming on the scene ---- Nancy Wilson with Heart," she said, offering up one example. "Toward 1980, you started seeing some all-girl bands. It was always cool to see when another female picked up the instrument and was doing it in the public eye."

Not having had much support when she was starting out ("My family was really against it"), Davies said she now tries to mentor young women musicians she runs across.

"I do know some younger women around the country, and I try to be a friend and part of their support system ---- something I didn't have.

"From when I started to now, the atmosphere and attitude about what I do has gone 180 degrees.

"If you're a girl and you're in a band and you play guitar or drums, it's totally cool."

Debbie Davies

When: 7:30 p.m. Jan. 23

Where: Anthology, 1337 India St., San Diego

Tickets: $8-$23

Info: (619) 595-0300

Web: www.anthologysd.com

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