Maxwell Street Jimmy Davis born 2 March 1925

Charles W. Thompson (March 2, 1925 – December 28, 1995), known as Maxwell Street Jimmy Davis, was an American electric blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter. He played with John Lee Hooker, recorded an album for Elektra Records in the mid-1960s, and remained a regular street musician on Maxwell Street, in Chicago, for over 40 years. He is best remembered for his songs "Cold Hands" and "4th and Broad". 

Davis was born Charles W. Thompson, in Tippo, Mississippi. By chance, none other than future blues giant John Lee Hooker happened to be keeping company with one of Davis’s aunts, and it was this connection that led him to begin learning the rudiments of the guitar while a teenage youngster, as Hooker took it upon himself to help the fledgling musician with the instrument’s basics.  One can certainly hear that Hooker style in Davis’s blues through his use of droning one-chord attacks and frameworks.  Hooker’s influence is undeniable. 

But early on, Davis did not only confine his musical and entertaining energies to his burgeoning blues guitar interests.  While a teen, he took it upon himself to find employment and outlets for his artistic creativity by enlisting himself into the traveling world of the minstrel shows, working with both the Silas Green From New Orleans outfit and the Rabbit Foot Minstrels.  In these shows, he showcased his dexterity as a dancer by doing the buck dance, an improvisational form of solo step dancing, along with other unique innovative skills that captivated audiences.  He even went to the extreme and employed a walking on glass routine in his fervent desire to drive spectators to heights of entertainment pleasure. 

It is generally believed that Davis made the decision at age 21 to move north out of Mississippi to Detroit in 1946 to reunite with his mentor John Lee Hooker.  Together, the pair worked together on the city’s bustling blues scene pretty much through the 1940s, following Davis's relocation there in 1946. Here is where research gets somewhat murky, as some accounts have Davis relocating once again for a brief period to Cincinnati, Ohio, before he decided to again move, this time 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 Chess Records and Bullet Records but were not released. And, it is acknowledged that for some time Davis performed on Mississippi radio broadcasts in the 1957 timeframe. In 1958, Davis again decided to make the move northward, this time during the blues’ surging heyday.  And like many arriving bluesmen in Chicago, he was savvy enough to realize that the best way to get himself noticed was to play his blues on the Maxwell Street open-air market for both tips and the aforementioned valuable awareness of his talents.  

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. They appeared on the 1965 Testament compilation album Modern Chicago Blues. His songs were "Crying Won't Make Me Stay" and "Hanging Around My Door". The album also included a track from another Chicago street performer, John Lee Granderson, and more established artists, such as Robert Nighthawk, Big Walter Horton, and Johnny "Man" Young. The music journalist Tony Russell wrote that it was "music of great charm and honesty". 

In 1966, Davis recorded a self-titled album for Elektra Records, which Jason Ankeny, writing for Allmusic, 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. And, during a period in the 1980s, Davis renounced blues music fully and became a minister, but that pursuit didn’t last long, and he returned to what he knew and loved; performing blues. 

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. The collection included Lester Davenport on harmonica and Kansas City Red playing the drums. 

Davis died of a heart attack on 28th December 1995, in his adopted hometown of Chicago. He was 70 years old. He was another of the vital connections between the blues’ rural roots in the Southern U.S. and how it adapted to the metropolitan swirl of the Northern U.S.’s major municipalities. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & Curt’s Blues)