Research

Below are links to a number of my research papers, either published or presented at conferences.

Click on a link below to download. For more information, questions or comments, please contact me by using the form below, through Twitter (@ldaviesmusic), or by email at lawrence.davies@kcl.ac.uk.

Publications
‘British Blues’, in Prato, Paolo, and David Horn (eds.), The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World (London: Bloomsbury, in press).

Book Reviews
Black British Jazz: Routes, Ownership and Performance, edited by Jason Toynbee, Catherine Tackley, and Mark Doffman, Journal of World Popular Music 3/1 (June 2016).

In Tune: Charley Patton, Jimmie Rodgers, and the Roots of American Music, by Ben Wynne, Notes 72/3 (March 2016), 517-519.

Roots of the Revival: American & British Folk Music in the 1950s, by Ronald D. Cohen and Rachel Clare Donaldson, Notes 72/2 (December 2015).

When Music Migrates: Crossing British and European Racial Faultlines, 1945-2010, by John Stratton, the world of music (new series) 4/2 (December 2015), 143-145.

Staging the Blues: From Tent Shows to Tourism, by Paige A. McGinley, Studies in Theatre and Performance (August 20, 2015). DOI: 10.1080/14682761.2015.1077052

Conference Papers
‘Journey to the Land of the Blues: Encounters and Exchange in British and European Visits to Chicago, 1957-60’, paper presented at the 82nd Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society, Vancouver, November 3-6, 2016.

‘The Ballad Broadcaster: Alan Lomax and the Construction of African American Music as Transnational Culture on BBC Radio, 1951-53’, paper presented at Radio and Ethnomusicology: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, University of Edinburgh and the Museum of Communication, Burntisland, Scotland, October 22, 2016.

‘”Screaming Guitar and Howling Piano”: understanding Muddy Waters’s 1958 UK tour in the context of British blues and jazz before 1960’, paper presented at Continental Drift: Fifty Years of Jazz from Europe, Edinburgh Napier University and Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival, July 16-17, 2016.

‘Peckham Pandemonium? George Webb’s “Dixieland Band” and the British traditional jazz revival c.1943-48’, paper presented at New Directions in Jazz Studies Symposium, Senate House, University of London, June 5, 2015.

‘Images and visual ephemera in online blues fan communities’, paper presented at Sight and Sound: KCL/UNC-CH Joint Graduate Music Student Conference, King’s College London, 28-30 May, 2015.

‘The role of Britain’s “traditional” jazz revival in the formation of British blues before 1962’, paper presented at Postmodernity’s Musical Pasts: Rediscoveries and Revivals after 1945, City University of New York, 26-27 March 2015.

‘”A New Departure”: The Influence of Parlophone and His Master’s Voice “Hot Rhythm” Record Series on British Jazz and Blues Reception, 1929-1957’, paper presented at One Century of Record Labels: Mapping Places, Stories and Communities of Sound, International Centre for Music Studies, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 6-7 November 2014.

‘Improvisation, Imitation and Authenticity in British “Traditional” Jazz, c.1945-60‘, paper presented at Perspectives on Musical Improvisation II, University of Oxford, 12 September 2014.

‘”These people know more about me than I do”: Robert Lockwood’s Histories of the Blues‘, paper presented at Rhythm Changes III: Jazz Beyond Borders, Conservatorium van Amsterdam, 7 September 2014.

“Norman’s Blues”: Record Collectors, Collecting, and British Blues Appreciation before 1960 ‘, paper presented at On Collecting: Music, Materiality and Ownership, National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, 11 July 2014.

‘“New Orleans, London, Memphis, Manchester”: Blues, transnationalism, and Britain’s “jazz public” before 1960′, paper presented at Technology in Music: Production, Preservation, and Dissemination, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 23 May 2014.

‘”Long Distance Call”: Hearing Muddy Waters in Britain‘, paper presented at Rhythm Changes II: Rethinking Jazz Cultures, University of Salford, Manchester, 14 April 2013.

Magazine Articles

‘1930s “Hot Rhythm” Series and the Birth of “Traditional” Jazz in Britain’, The Discographer Magazine Vol. 1 No. 6 (June 2014), 11-18.