Pioneering performer and record woman Gail Davies is far better known in Nashville than her classic ‘70s singer-songwriter brother Ron Davies has ever been, and not only because she shattered the glass ceiling in country record production. Ron spent the more successful part of his career in L.A., logging pop and rock cuts with Three Dog Night, Helen Reddy, Maria Muldaur and Dobie Gray. And his song “It Ain’t Easy” happens to be the one and only cover David Bowie included on The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars.
After Ron died a decade ago, Gail was determined to put her cachet with country music vets to work producing a tribute to him. All these years later, the album’s finally done — it’s called Unsung Hero: A Tribute to the Music of Ron Davies, and it’s packed with his romantic pop balladry, wry blues-rock complaints and dozens of other emotionally eloquent, melodically sophisticated shades of songwriting, performed by the likes of Shelby Lynne, John Prine, BR-549 (of which her son, Chris Scruggs, was a member), Alison Krauss and John Anderson. For a lot of the singers, the recording process served as an introduction to Ron and his work. But that wasn’t the case with his old pal Kevin Welch, or Jeff Hanna, who recorded one of his songs with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, or Dolly Parton, who met him by accident — literally. While pressure-washing Parton’s windows, Ron fell from a ladder and broke his hip. Says Gail, “Ronnie used to say, ‘A lot of guys have fallen for Dolly Parton, but not like me. Not the way I did.’ He was very funny.”
The release show for Unsung Hero is tomorrow night, March 29, at 3rd & Lindsley, and Gail Davies took the time to fill us in on who’s in the lineup, why both the album and the show proceeds are going to the W.O. Smith School, what getting to know Joni Mitchell did for her and how that Bowie cover figured into her brother’s songwriting career.
