“Maxwell Street” Jimmy Davis was not only a fixture musically on Maxwell Street he owned the Knotty Pine Grill restaurant there.
Born Charles W. Thompson, in Tippo, Mississippi, in his teens, he learned to play the guitar from John Lee Hooker, and the two of them played concerts together in Detroit in the 1940s, following Davis’s relocation there in 1946 Prior to his move to Detroit, he had worked in traveling minstrel shows, settling for a brief time in Cincinnati before he moved to Chicago in 1953. He started performing regularly in the marketplace area of Maxwell Street, playing a traditional and electrified style of Mississippi blues.
In 1952, he recorded two songs, “Cold Hands” and “4th and Broad”, under his real name, for Sun Records. They were offered to the Chess and Bullet labels but were not released.
It is uncertain when he took the name Jimmy Davis but in 1964, under that pseudonym, he recorded a couple of tracks for Testament Records. “Crying Won’t Make Me Stay” and “Hanging Around My Door” appeared on the 1965 Testament compilation album Modern Chicago Blues.
In 1966, Davis recorded a self-titled album for Elektra Records, which Jason Ankeny, writing for Allmusic.com, called “a fine showcase for his powerful guitar skills and provocative vocals”. He recorded several tracks for various labels over the years, without commercial success.
Davis owned a small restaurant on Maxwell Street, the Knotty Pine Grill, and performed outside the premises in the summer. He continued to play alfresco on Chicago’s West Side for decades. In July 1994, Wolf Records released the album Chicago Blues Session, Vol. 11, the tracks of which Davis had recorded in 1988 and 1989.
In 2008, the Fat Possum label unearthed a couple of rare sides and released a single.
Davis died of a heart attack in December 1995, in his adopted hometown of Chicago. He was 70 years old.Check out his complete discography at www.wirz.de/music/damsjfrm.htm