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________________
The Biography
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Music International as “one of
the most important and influential female singer/songwriters to have come along
in the past 20 years.” She was the first woman to produce her own albums and is
cited by current, country divas as their role model, the person who kicked open
so many of the locked doors on Music Row. No Depression magazine described her as
"one of Nashville's most iconoclastic performers, making thoughtful country-folk
music that clearly influenced the likes of Mary Chapin-Carpenter and others.”
During
her long and illustrious career, Gail has produced 22 albums and numerous Top 10
singles. She received an Americana
nomination in 2002, for her production of Caught in the Webb (a tribute to
the legendary Webb Pierce) featuring
Dwight Yoakam, Crystal Gayle, George Jones, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Pam Tillis, Charlie Pride and many others (for a
complete list see www.webbpierce.net.
She
has appeared on The Today Show and
Good Morning America, as a guest of
the CBS special, The Women of
Country, the TBS documentary, America's Music and the BBC series, Lost Highways.
She
has been featured in Newsweek, People, Rolling Stone and USA Today and cited as the role model
for an entire generation of women, “an artist of uncompromising
integrity.”
Though
often best known for her production work, Gail's voice (described by renowned
Jazz critic, Nat Hentoff as
"brilliantly evocative") has earned her nominations from the CMA and ACMA, as well as the award for Best Female Vocalist from the DJs of America. She was nominated for a
Grammy in 2001 and won an IBMA Award for her duet with bluegrass
patriarch, Ralph Stanley, in 2002.
As a
writer, Gail’s credits include such songs as Hometown Gossip for The Whites, Tell Me Why for Jann Browne, Bucket to the South for Lynn Anderson and I Need My Baby Back for Wild Rose as well as her own hit
singles, Someone is Looking For Someone Like You (a song that has since been
translated into seven languages) and Grandma’s Song. Her compositions are some of today's radio
standards and have been recorded around the world by internationally known
artists like Nana Mouskouri, Susan McCann, George Hamilton IV, Iona & Andy, Mari Nagatomi and The Country
Gentlemen.
Born Patricia Gail Dickerson in Broken
Bow, Oklahoma, daughter of country singer, Tex Dickerson (a performer on the Louisiana Hayride), Gail grew up in
Washington state, where her mother remarried. After graduating high school, she
moved to Los Angeles, where she met and married a jazz musician. She attempted a
brief career in jazz but quit soon after they divorced and began working as a
session singer at A&M studios, recording with artists like Neil Young, Hoyt Axton and Tom Pacheco. Her interest in record
production was sparked when she was befriended by songwriter, Joni Mitchell, and recording engineer,
Henry Lewy, who spent hours in the
studio teaching her how to produce her own music. She was also invited to sit in
on a recording session with John
Lennon, produced by Phil Spector,
and cites sitting at the board with the two of them as one of the highlights of
her A&M days. During that time, Frank
Zappa saw her singing at The
Troubadour and told her she was the “ballsiest chick he’d ever seen on
stage.” He asked her to join his band for a European tour but Gail accepted an
offer to sing with Roger Miller
instead, making her television debut as his duet partner on The Merv Griffin
Show.
Surrounded
by great songwriters, including her older brother Ron Davies (the writer of It Ain't Easy for David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust album), Gail bought a
guitar in a pawnshop and began writing songs. She signed with Beechwood/EMI
Publishing in 1975, then moved to Nashville where she immediately scored as the
writer of Ava Barber’s hit, Bucket to the South (also recorded by
Lynn Anderson and featured in Mitzi Gaynor’s Broadway show). The exposure led to a recording
contract with CBS/Lifesong in 1978 and the release of her own album simply
titled Gail Davies. Her debut
single, No Love Have I, quickly
climbed to No.26 in Billboard but the follow up, Someone is Looking for Someone Like
You, one her original compositions, soared to No.11 and stayed on the
National charts for 18 weeks.
Gail began producing her own albums from
1979 on, beginning with The
Game on Warner Brothers Records. She sang, wrote and produced a series
of successful LPs and hit singles during the 80s, which included a successful
attempt to revive bluegrass music on country radio with Blue Heartache, one of her first Top 10
hits. She delivered a series of brilliantly produced remakes of classic,
hillbilly, oldies like Are You Teasing
Me, Poison Love and Singing the Blues and scored two more Top 10 Billboard hits
with I’ll Be There and It’s a Lovely, Lovely World (a duet with Emmylou Harris).
In his book, Finding Her Own Voice, author, Robert Oermann, fondly referred to
Gail’s 1982 album, Giving Herself
Away, as a “feminist oriented collection." Produced by Gail, this album
presented country radio with a new, female perspective and Round The Clock Lovin' (a song that
launched the career of it's writer, K.T.
Oslin) hit Billboard’s Top 10 followed by You Turn Me On I'm a Radio.
In
the winter of 1982, Gail took a short hiatus from her music when her only child,
Chris Scruggs (the son of songwriter
Gary Scruggs), was born. By early
spring, she was back in the studio producing her fourth and final album for
Warner Brothers, What Can I
Say. But with the new demands of motherhood and limited time for
touring, this LP provided only two Top 20 hits, with Boys Like You (a Davies original
co-written with Walker Igleheart) and
You're a Hard Dog to Keep Under the
Porch, written by Harlan Howard
and Suzanna Clark. (See the Kieran Kane interview in No Depression /
January, 2003).
In
1984, Gail signed with RCA Records to produce Where is a Woman to Go with
longtime friend and bass player, Leland
Sklar. Three singles were released from this album; Break Away (which was featured in a
movie and made No. 15 on the Billboard charts), Jagged Edge of a Broken Heart and Unwed Fathers (a duet with Dolly Parton), written by John Prine and Bobby Braddock.
The
following year, Gail traveled to England to perform at The Wembley Festival. Inspired by
British singer, Hank Wangford, she
returned to Nashville to form a country/rock band called Wild Choir. Considered by many
to be the forerunner of today's Americana movement, they released one
self-titled album, produced by Gail and guitarist Pete Pendras. With a sound far ahead of
it’s time and originals by Davies, John
Hiatt, Wendy Waldman and Kennedy/Rose, the album found praise
among music critics but was lost at country radio. Ten years later, the band’s
single, Safe in the Arms of Love,
became a No.1 single for RCA recording artist, Martina McBride (see “Sounds Familiar” under album
reviews).
Conscious of the need for greater recognition of
women songwriters, Gail organized the first female “Writers in the Round” on Austin City Limits in 1986. The
catalyst for much of today's strong female presence in the music industry, this
national telecast featured Gail Davies,
Emmylou Harris, Lacy J. Dalton,
Rosanne Cash, Pam Rose and Maryann
Kennedy. For additional information about this show, refer to the
publication, “25 Years of American
Music/Austin City Limits.”
In
1988, Gail returned to a solo career and signed with MCA Records to produce Pretty Words with label head, Jimmy Bowen. She moved on to Capitol/EMI
in 1989 and produced The Other Side
Of Love and The Best Of Gail
Davies, then accepted a position at Liberty Records as Nashville’s first
female staff producer. After three years of producing talented, new artists like
Daryl Dodd and Mandy Barnett, Gail left Liberty and
formed her own, independent record label, Little Chickadee Productions.
She
married British Jazz musician, Rob
Price, in 1995, for whom she wrote and produced Eclectic (chosen by Tower Pulse magazine as one of the 10 Best Albums of the year). Other
releases include: Gail Davies
Greatest Hits, Love Ain't
Easy, Live at the Station
Inn and The Songwriter
Sessions.
A
veteran performer, Gail Davies is one of the few artists to have ever received a
standing ovation at the Grand Ole
Opry. She has played venues from Britain's Royal Concert Hall with John Prine to the Ryman Auditorium with The Del McCoury Band and has toured with a
who’s who of artists such as George
Jones, Neil Young, Willie Nelson, Carl Perkins, George Strait, Waylon Jennings and many others.
For
the complete Gail Davies discography or additional information, you can visit
our website at:
www.gaildavies.com |
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