Guy Davis learned fingerpicking on a train from Boston to New York by watching the hands of a stranger with nine fingers. This episode explores how the only son of Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, born in 1952 in the New York City area, absorbed the rural South through his grandmother's speech and family stories, learned five-string banjo at a Vermont camp run by John Seeger, and refused formal lessons in favor of the oral, hand-to-hand tradition that originally carried the blues. We look at his 1980s acting career, including the film Beat Street and the role of Dr. Josh Hall on One Life to Live, and argue that soap opera discipline sharpened the stage presence he later brought to the blues.

The turning point came with a 1991 Broadway debut in Mulebone, with music by Taj Mahal, and a 1993 off-Broadway portrayal of Robert Johnson that earned him th ...