(Photo by Greg Campbell)
- The Jackson native played with some of the biggest stars of country and rock and roll, including Johnny Cash and Little Richard.
It’s no secret that Mississippi has been home to many of the marquee musicians who created blues, country and rock and roll, not to mention every subgenre they spawned. But the number of Mississippi-bred artists who have become secret weapons in songwriting, music direction and recording sessions is truly legion.
On October 17, WellsFest CARES, a non-profit whose mission is helping musicians in need, will honor one of those artists, the late Chalmers Davis, with a “memorial jam” at Hal & Mal’s to celebrate his life and work. The event will kick off at 6 p.m.
Davis, who passed away on September 14 at age 73, took his love of music from his native Jackson to the world’s most notable stages and studios as a keyboardist for a who’s-who of stars — names like George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Johnny Cash, Aretha Franklin and Emmylou Harris only scratch the surface of Davis’s extensive oeuvre. Most famously, he served as keyboardist for rock and roll legend Little Richard for 24 years.
“This thing is gonna be a celebration,” says Raphael Semmes, a longtime friend of Davis’s who is helping organize the event. “You’re gonna hear some country music, some Little Richard, and everything else Chalmers was known for.”
A piano player since age five, Davis began playing in local bands in his teens before graduating to playing recording sessions at Malaco Studios in Jackson. He also played in the band Natural High, among others, before migrating up to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where he continued his recording career while attending the University of North Alabama. In the mid-1980s, he was a founding member of The Shooters, a country band that released two successful albums and charted several singles on the Billboard charts.
By the time he joined Little Richard’s band in the early 1990s, Davis had reached the top echelons of the music business. Semmes, who knew and played music with Davis for many years, remembers him as a consummate professional who treated others with respect, no matter if they were a world-famous artist or a local Jackson musician.
“He was such a humble and down-to-earth guy, that on every level, musically and personally, you could absolutely relate to him,” he says.
Keith Ferguson with WellsFest CARES, an offshoot of the long-running WellsFest organized by Wells Methodist Church in Jackson, says donations began streaming in as word of Davis’s multiple illnesses, including congestive heart failure and liver cancer, spread among members of the local music community. “That gave him a whole lot of peace, knowing that he wasn’t gonna be fighting that cancer all by himself and wasn’t gonna be struggling about his money,” Ferguson says.
“The people were all-in,” Semmes says, “because Chalmers was all-in for everybody that he knew.”
The same enthusiasm is behind the Chalmers Davis Memorial Jam. Scott Albert Johnson, a harmonica player who performed in a duo with Davis until his illnesses sidelined him this summer, will be among those on hand to honor his friend.
“I’m just there to pay tribute to Chalmers and have some fellowship with the brothers and sisters from the musical community in Jackson, both players and fans, who love the guy so much,” says Johnson. “I’m looking forward to making it a celebration of an amazing guy.”
One song Johnson is sure he’ll perform is “Fragments,” a tune he wrote with Chalmers. Since he has a recording of Chalmers playing his piano parts solo without the vocal or harmonica, Johnson will jam along to the track live. “I get to play with him one more time,” he says.
Beginning in 2012, Chalmers was also a member of the worship band at Broadmoor Baptist Church in Madison.
“Chalmers was a man of faith, and he wasn’t kidding around,” says Semmes. “He loved the Lord, and his faith was in the forefront of his life.”
Semmes, himself a lifelong musician who has been an integral part of the Jackson scene for decades, wants to make sure that Davis is remembered for his exceptional work on the keys — as one of the state’s all-time elite music makers.
“Everybody talks about what a great guy he was, but I think his legacy is going to be musically and as a keyboardist,” says Semmes. “There’s a lot of keyboard players out here, but he’s sort of the platinum edition, you know what I mean?”
