RSVP (free tickets) now for Jason’s talk at the DPL at 6 PM on 9/16 at DJCH.xyz/dickdavydpl
I spent almost eleven years as host of the Comedy on Vinyl podcast, speaking with everyone from Weird Al to Rachel Bloom. In 2018, spurred on by historian Kliph Nesteroff, I found myself obsessed with the true identity and life story of a comedian and civil rights activist known only as Dick Davy.
His Arkansas twang and aww-shucks naivete about race relations kept him working as a comic for over a decade, before a massive show and album (You’re a Long Way from Home, Whitey) recorded at The Apollo and produced by the legendary John Hammond, and a second album (Stronger Than Dirt) a year later.
After the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Davy’s comedy career dissipated; he did his last (and biggest) interview in Phil Berger’s landmark book The Last Laugh, the definitive history of early US stand-up comedy.
I chronicled my journey trying to find Dick and his true identity on the Comedy on Vinyl podcast (below), failing in the first and succeeding in the second. When two demo acetates and a lost TV appearance were eventually discovered, Stand Up! Records stepped in to turn it into his first record in six decades, with 6,500 words of liner notes from yours truly. It releases September 5, and I couldn’t be prouder to be helping to keep his legacy alive, and for this to be the first vinyl comedy album I get to produce.