A Musical Journey for a Banjo Champ

When Gary Davis was 10, his father Alvin took him to a Friday night bluegrass gathering at a local Masonic Lodge in Red Bank, Tennessee. It was there he first saw and heard the live sounds and the hand actions of musicians playing five-string banjo. He went home in awe.

He started to regularly attend the Friday night shows, where his father introduced him to some of the banjo pickers. His interest inspired his parents to get him a five-string instrument, and his life’s musical journey began.

It’s interesting how people can be drawn to certain musical instruments. For some, the combination of “hot licks” and the rhythm of the acoustic or electric guitar can capture their spirits, while for others, the range and complexities of keyboards, or the percussive power of a drum kit, ignite their musical passions. For Davis, the sharp, driving, metallic twang of the bluegrass banjo made an immediate and indelible impression.

It changed his life forever.

Davis went on to spend many years as the banjo picker and background vocalist for Dolly Parton’s personal band. He is the only five-time National Bluegrass Banjo champion, an honor earned annually at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas. He’s been inducted into the American Banjo Museum’s Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, joining national and international icons of the instrument such as Earl Scruggs, Don Reno, Bela Fleck, Jens Kruger, and Tony Trischka, to name just a few.

Sleeping with his banjo

Since his first exposure in Red Bank, Davis had a banjo in his hand most of his waking hours, “totally committed to learning to play the instrument early on.”

He said he wore his picks on his right hand underneath his desk at school, secretly practicing finger rolls by hitting his right leg with the picks, roughly mimicking the striking of banjo strings. He would rush home after school to practice the forward rolls that a local banjo player named Freddy Sullivan showed him. Later, another picker named Johnny Wooten introduced him to the three-finger style picking popularized by Earl Scruggs.

He said he would prop himself up in bed at night and practice. His mother Clara “would regularly slip into my room and gently place my banjo next to me after I fell asleep,” he said.

Davis remembers the first time he walked onstage for his first truly public musical performance as part of a real band. He was about 11 years old. He’d played in front of family, close friends and at school functions, but now he was in front of an audience of real strangers.

His dedication to the instrument led him to play in local bands in the Chattanooga area. He says he learned early-on to just concentrate on playing. That became his mantra.

Davis’ good nature began to shine as he matured musically. He not only awed audiences with his fiery leads, but also grew into a confident on-stage personality, ultimately telling stories and jokes in his down-home East Tennessee voice. However, he said he always stuck to the philosophy of just being a good picker. “My mission in life as a banjo player has always been to play good music and make others sound great.” 

Intense practice lead the youngster to win the Alabama, Kentucky, and Tennessee state banjo championships. When he was 13, he came to the attention of a music promoter who recruited him to play at a Smithsonian folklore festival in Washington D.C. during the bicentennial celebration. He said he remembers flying alone on a plane to Washington for the week, lodging by himself in a Georgetown University dorm. He played with a group of Texas fiddlers on multiple days, culminating in an appearance on the National Mall on July 4th. The performance was broadcast internationally. “For a kid who had barely played banjo outside Tennessee, it was one of the highlights of my career,” he said.

‘An amazingly talented musician’

At age 16, Davis won his first National Banjo Championship in 1979 after a four-man playoff elimination, clinching victory with his rendition of “Alabama Jubilee.” He says that first national award was special because his mother and father were there to watch.

He hadn’t even entered the competition; his parents were driving a guitarist friend to the championship and Gary was riding along. Only when they arrived did he decide to sign up in competition.

He won the title again in 1988, 1996, 2012, and 2021.

Davis moved to Pigeon Forge, where he was employed at Dollywood, working in the Kin Folks and Smoky Mountain Jubilee music shows. He worked his way up to become picker in Dollywood’s Bluegrass Band, and then his energetic playing and onstage presence led to a position on banjo in Dolly’s personal band.

He worked in her band for 20-some years as the lead picker, along with providing supporting vocals. The band toured all over the world, and he often served as band leader while performing on five of her studio albums, several of which he produced.

“Biscuit is an amazingly talented musician,” Parton said. “He has added a great sound to many of my songs. He is fun to work with, and I love him!” 

Davis said Dolly regularly commended his playing onstage. “Gary has a beautiful voice, but he just tears it up trying to get it out,” she’d say.

While paying his dues, Davis also earned his nickname. After moving to Pigeon Forge, “like a lot of young musicians, I didn’t make much money at first, but I found a local restaurant where I could get ‘all-you-can-eat’ biscuits and gravy for breakfast at a good price. I ate so many every morning that the servers there started calling me ‘Biscuit.’ My fellow band members picked up on that and started calling me Biscuit, and it stuck.”

Channeling the spirit of Django Reinhardt

Davis recently gave a one-man show at a resort in East Tennessee, displaying a fine regard for and knowledge of a wide range of musical genres beyond bluegrass. He started out with well-known standards such as the Flatt and Scruggs theme song for “The Beverly Hillbillies,” and “Rocky Top.” He scorched Dolly’s “9 to 5” monster hit, and even fulfilled an audience request to play “Dueling Banjos,” though he smiled and said with his single instrument he’d probably have to call it just “Dueling Banjo.”

He reeled off a number of popular tunes in the silky-smooth style of master guitarist Chet Atkins, such as “That’s What I Like About the South” and “Wildwood Flower.” Deep into his performance he launched into a knowledgeable discussion of the technical acoustic jazz of Belgian-born guitarist Django Reinhardt and French violinist Stephane Grappelli. He then picked up his vintage banjo and played a super rendition of Reinhardt’s jazzy “Minor Swing,” and then regaled the audience with the classic Beatles  character piece “Eleanor Rigby.”

Biscuit also peppered the show with ubiquitous jokes about banjo playing.

“How can you tell one banjo tune from another? That’s easy—they all have different names.”

“What’s the difference between a banjo picker and a large pizza? A large pizza can actually feed a family of four.”

“What’s the difference between a banjo picker and a mutual fund? A mutual fund will finally mature and earn money.”

“Even with all the banjo awards I’ve won, I still have to pay full price at Burger King.”

Down home goodness

Over the years, Davis has shown that he is not only a world-class musician but also a dedicated family man, combining his musical craft with holding down a steady home base.  He’s also a very generous man.

A popular cowboy band from out west once arrived in Tennessee for a festival, but their instruments were still in transit to the Knoxville airport. Scheduled to play early that evening, a quick call to Biscuit brought his offer to share the use of any of his instruments for their performances.

Where I come from, that’s just down-home goodness.

From his days in Red Bank, his years playing at Dollywood and with Dolly’s band, to his frequent performances and teaching, Davis continues a productive life in music and entertainment. He lives in the Knoxville area with his wife Jenny, the daughter of Herby Wallace, a member of the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame. She is a darn good singer in her own right, and she and Gary have a son, Connor. He’s a chip off the old block, earning a music scholarship to play banjo in a local college bluegrass band. Music runs deep in the Davis clan.

Over five decades, Gary “Biscuit” Davis has established himself—with his outstanding musicianship and likable personality—as an icon in bluegrass and Americana music. He has established a true legacy and is still a hard-working musician, giving lessons and playing gigs most every day.

For a music man, it doesn’t get any better than that.