One of the first memories bluesman Billy Davis has about
music is as a child, sitting in the back of a cab in Memphis
with his mother Mae Belle Davis and going to see one of
his aunts. He can still remember the radio in the cab and
the song it wasplaying,the rollicking beat as Arthur "Big
Boy" Crudup sang "That's Alright, Mama," Mississippi-born
Davis counts it as his earliest musical influence, not to
mention other influences including Muddy Waters who he
was listening to as early as 4 years old, as well as B.B.
King and John Lee Hooker later on. "That melody just stuck in my head," Davis
said about Crudup's song, adding that his mother told him that in his earliest
years, she would put his crib next to the radio to calm him down. And so it
seemed as if Davis, now 66 and living in Southfield, was born to follow a
musical career.