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Trust 6:400:00/6:40
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Breakin' Down 5:360:00/5:36
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Happy June 4:580:00/4:58
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Expose Your Self 5:220:00/5:22
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Trust 11:100:00/11:10
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My Only Son 4:460:00/4:46
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Sotchiatta 4:310:00/4:31
WORLD BLUES LETTER #2
My Parents
August has had me thinking about my parents.
My mother, Marie Davis — Ma to me — turned 97 on August 13.
My father, Ernest Davis — Pop to me — was born August 29, 1927. This week marks the 99th anniversary of his birth.
So this month's World Blues Letter belongs to both of them.
Ernest & Marie Davis
Before there was Garrick Davis World Blues, there was music in the Davis household.
My father was a drummer. My mother, a singer.
Pop played drums. Ma had a beautiful, distinctive soprano voice. Music wasn't something I had to go looking for later in life. It was already there.
I grew up inside it.
Like most children, though, I didn't spend much time thinking about my parents as people. They were just my parents.
It takes some living of your own before you begin to understand the lives they lived before you, the things they survived, the choices they made, and how much of what they gave you quietly became part of who you are.
I'm still discovering that.
My mother’s story began with loss. Her mother died when she was only six months old. For a time, Marie and her brothers Bert and Benny lived in an orphanage. Their father, my grandfather, Rev. J.O. Minor, worked until he had the resources to come back for his children and bring his family together again.
That part of the story has always stayed with me.
Granpa came back for his children.
Ma went on to build a family of her own.
My parents, my older siblings and I were all born in Casper, Wyoming. My younger sister was the exception, born after the family had moved to Denver.
Then, in 1971, Pop's career with the U.S. Postal Service brought our family to California, changing the trajectory of all of our lives. We eventually settled in Foster City.
But my parents didn't simply build a life for themselves.
They served.
Both became deeply involved in the San Mateo Chapter of the NAACP, pouring their hearts into helping build an organization that represented people who needed someone standing up for them.
Pop served for years as president and later treasurer. Ma would serve many years as president herself.
As their son, I witnessed all of this without necessarily understanding what I was witnessing.
Today I have a word for some of it.
Dignity.
The Drummer and the Singer
The older I get, the more I realize that our parents don't simply disappear into our memories.
They keep showing up.
In our habits.
In our values.
In the way we treat people.
And, in my case, they actually show up in the music.
My mother and I have been making music together for a long time.
She sang on one of my earliest demo sessions, some twenty years before Glass Half Full. About a decade before that album, the roles were reversed: I played guitar on a track for one of her own two album releases.
Music between us has always traveled in both directions.
On my first album, Glass Half Full, she sang with me on “Trust,” a song rooted in the Gospel music of my youngest church days. Through the years, I would bring her onstage when I performed it if she was in attendance.
Mother and son, singing together.
Decades later, at 94 years old, Ma returned to the studio for The Dignity Project and sang on “My Only Son,” the song I wrote out of the grief of losing my son Zach.
My mother singing comfort into a song written by her son about the loss of her grandson.
Three generations inside one piece of music.
And Pop?
Pop played.
There is one recording in my catalog where the percussion you're hearing — lap drumming, sometimes simply Pop tapping rhythm on his thighs — is my father.
I love being able to say that. I love being able to still hear his hands in the music.
Long after a performance ends, long after a particular day or even a particular era of our lives has passed, the recording remains.
The beat is still there.
The voice is still there.
And so are they.
The Music My Parents Made With Me
For this Letter, I've put together a short set list of recordings featuring contributions from my parents.
I don't really think of it as a playlist.
I think of it as a little piece of family history.
Ernest Davis — percussion.
Marie Davis — vocals.
Their second son — somewhere in the middle of it all.
When you listen, you're hearing more than performances from different points in my catalog.
You're hearing a family making music together.
And I treasure that more with every passing year.
What They Gave Me
Pop died on December 13, 2016.
Ma is still here.
Ninety-seven years old.
And as Pop's 99th birthday approaches, I find myself thinking about what my parents passed forward.
Music.
Service.
Responsibility.
Perseverance.
Family.
The idea that when you can help somebody, you do.
And perhaps most of all, dignity.
I'm working on an album and an accompanying book called The Dignity Project. I've spent a lot of time thinking about that word — where dignity comes from, what threatens it, and why maintaining it matters so much.
Maybe part of the answer has been sitting in front of me all along.
I saw it at home.
And I heard it there too.
In a singer.
In a drummer.
In my parents.
Happy 97th birthday, Ma.
And happy birthday, Pop. You would have been 99.
Thank you both.
A Listening Map
These aren't simply guest appearances. My mother and I had already been recording together for decades before Glass Half Full. She sang on one of my earliest demo sessions, some twenty years earlier. And about a decade before Glass Half Full, our roles were reversed: I played guitar on a track for one of her own two album releases.
Music between us has traveled in both directions.
Here are a few moments to listen for in this set:
Trust — Glass Half Full
My mother — vocals. Gospel roots, mother and son singing together.
Breakin' Down — Glass Half Full
My mother — featured vocals on the intro and outro.
Happy June
My father — percussion near the end. Listen for him joining the groove.
Expose Your Self
My mother — atmospheric, multitracked vocals building toward the crescendo: “Expose your self,” “show your self,” “be your self,” “know your self,” “expose your self.”
Trust — A House Full of Friends
My mother — live vocals. A song we continued singing together through the years.
My Only Son — The Dignity Project
My mother — vocals near the end, recorded at age 94. Three generations inside one song.
Sotchiatta
My mother & my father — together with the other voices in the outro chorus: “Sotchiatta gonna make some money.”
Listen: The Music My Parents Made With Me
With love,
Garrick
Groove + Truth + Songs + Human Connection = World Blues
An addendum: On August 27, 2026, my brother, Ernest Oliver Davis Jr., passed away after a debilitating illness. I will write about him in an upcoming Letter.
For now, just know that my big brother, five years older than me, helped shape my life in a powerful way. He was the one who told me I should play guitar when I was 12. Some months later, I began doing just that. He was the one who turned me on to Hendrix and so many others.
Ernie will be missed. But I will carry his inspiration with me until my dying day.
RIP, Ernie.