Introduction
David Evans (born January 22, 1944) is an ethnomusicologist and director of the Ethnomusicology/Regional Studies program at the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music in the University of Memphis, where he has worked since 1978.
He was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He studied at UCLA, and began making trips to the southern states in the 1960s to research and record blues musicians. He recorded singer Jack Owens in 1970, and later produced Jessie Mae Hemphill and other blues musicians.
As head of the University of Memphis's High Water Recording Company, he made numerous recordings of performers in the Memphis area, some of whom were not previously documented. He has written or edited a number of books on the blues, alongside music releases' liner notes and booklets. He won a Grammy in 2003 for "Best Album Notes" for the CD Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues: The Worlds of Charley Patton.
Evans has also been performing in the US and elsewhere, both solo and with the Last Chance Jug Band. His discography includes Match Box Blues (Inside Sounds, 2002); I Didn't Know About You (Heavywood, 2005); Needy Times (Inside Sounds, 2007) and Shake That Thing! (Inside Sounds: 2006).
Published work
- Tommy Johnson (London: Studio Vista, 1971)
- Big Road Blues: Tradition and Creativity in the Folk Blues (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982)
- The NPR Curious Listener's Guide to the Blues (New York: Perigee, 2005)