Cover photo © 2024 Tom Foley

While you may not be familiar with his name, unless you have seen one of the many videos featuring him on Facebook, there is no doubt that Harrell “Young Rell” Davenport is another member of an impressive group of young African-American blues artists who have a deep respect for the music. Davenport, along with Jontavious Willis, Stephen Hull, Sean “Mac” MacDonald, Dylan Triplett, Mathias Lattin, Jerron, “Blind Boy” Paxton, Buffalo Nichols, and others are bringing a new wave of enthusiasm and creativity to the music.

Davenport was drawn to music at a young age, especially once he went down the rabbit hole with the help of the Internet.

“It was everything from the history and the culture that it comes from to the way that the music sounded and how the old guys dressed and carried themselves. You know, the blues comes from not only the cotton fields, but the also the joy and the pain of the African Americans before myself. The rhythm comes from Africa, Europe, and the Native Americans. All of those things, but especially slavery and the chain gangs, all of that drew me to the music. I’ve never been on a chain gang. I hope to never have to be on one.

“My musical tastes go far beyond the boundaries of the blues world. I love everything. I write and arrange almost everything, although I’m still learning jazz, so I don’t do that yet. But I enjoy everything from blues to country to R& B to 60s soul. I love it all. For soul singers, Otis Redding is a favorite, plus a guy named Mickey Murray, who wasn’t very popular. Then there’s artists like Sam and Dave, Carla Thomas, her father Rufus Thomas, lot of those old Stax Records artists, even Little Milton, who had quite a few soul records. For blues harmonica, my favorite album is the 1972 Alligator Records release, Big Walter Horton With Carey Bell. There are a lot of harmonica players that I like, but I can attest to that record being very valuable in a sense to me.

“At first I wasn’t so attracted to the harmonica. One day I was watching a James Brown video on YouTube, and the suggested video under it was Jimmy Reed doing “You Don’t Have To Go.” I had heard some of guitarist Eddie Taylor’s stuff before, but I didn’t know that he and Jimmy Reed were connected. So I click on the video and I’m like, this is horrible.

“So I cut it off and then found another video, which is the same version, but a different up-loader. And I’m like, oh, wow, this is amazing. I just wanted a harp from hearing that video, so I went out and bought a one from the Dollar Store. I was six years old. I didn’t know it wasn’t a real harmonica. That’s where it starts, with me just listening. I didn’t know all of the stuff I know now, you know, like phrasing and timing. I just knew to listen, and that’s what I did. I learned everything by ear, which is still primarily how I learn, listening to records and sometimes watching videos, but more of listening to records.”

Initially, Davenport dug into the records that his mother and grandfather had. There was enough to keep the fire burning.

“Eventually I started to go to pawn shops and I’d ask my mom to buy some records for me. That’s how my record collecting got started. Then we bought a little turntable. Now I have about 500-600 records. It’s not the biggest collection in the world, but it’s decent size. Some of my favorite artists are Carl Weathersby, Charlie Christian, T-Bone Walker, both Sonny Boy Williamson’s, Sonny Terry, Phil Wiggins, and of course Jimmy Reed and Eddie Taylor.”

Looking for help in improving his skill set on harmonica, Davenport decided to reach out through social media in an attempt to contact one of Chicago’s finest blues harmonica players.

“I first met Billy Branch through Facebook. I had watched him a lot growing up, learning how to play. And so I messaged him on Facebook one day. I’m told him I was a kid, asking, can you teach me how to play some more stuff, or walk me through what I’m doing wrong. I felt like, in some cases, I was doing something wrong.

“Billy responded saying, I’ll send you my number and you can give me a text. I waited a few months, no number or anything, so I messaged him back and he sends his number. I was all ready a lesson but all I got was his phone number. So I texted back, where’s the lesson? Then he sent me a voice message of him playing this lick and said, learn this. And I’m like, how do you expect me to learn this? I mean, I learned by ear. Billy told me to listen and learn it. So I learned the lick after a few months of struggling because I didn’t know in which context to put it in. But I learned the lick and it started from there.

“It was a turnaround lick. You know, Billy has this lick that he uses pretty often. There’s a 1, 4, 5, blues, and on the 5, he’ll use that lick sometimes. I didn’t know if it was supposed to go in the beginning of the song or, or if it was supposed to go on the five. I didn’t know where to place it. I didn’t know anything much about phrasing at that point. I was 14 years old then and I just knew how to play, blow a few boogies and shuffles on the harp, but that was it at that time. I needed to learn where to put that lick in the context of a song.”

Branch isn’t the only veteran Chicago harmonica player who is providing Davenport with plenty of hard-earned wisdom and knowledge about playing harmonica in addition to schooling the youthful musician on how to conduct business in a responsible manner.

“I also met Matthew Skoller on Facebook as well. Actually, I didn’t know who he was other than being a harp player. I sent him this message just saying, would love to meet you to introduce myself some day. Then I forget all about it. Earlier this year, in January, Matthew contacted me. He explained that he was the Program Director for the Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago. Matthew said he was putting together an evening of blues music with Billy Branch plus guitarists Carlos Johnson and Stephen Hull. Then he told me, I want you to open for them.

“Of course, I was excited. I asked him to call my manager. Matthew talked with my manager, and we found out some stuff . So Matthew is now my manager. He really saved me from my old manager.

“That event at the Logan Center really catapulted my career. Before then, I had only had three gigs in the span of four years. It was to the point where I wondered, what am I gonna do? I love doing this, yet I was at the verge of ending the whole thing before it started.

“While the Logan Center event was happening, Billy Branch’s wife, Ms. Rosa, she recorded my set live, and the video went viral. I started getting all of these calls, and I didn’t know what to do. I booked a few gigs myself, but couldn’t handle the pressure. I quickly realized that we need to find somebody. That’s where Matthew came in. Now I am booked for the King Biscuit Blues Festival, a solo gig at the Maxwell Street Market in Chicago, the Blues Heaven Festival in Denmark, plus the Lucerne Blues Festival in Switzerland in November.”

More than just a harmonica player, Davenport has been working on developing his talents as a vocalist and on guitar, an instrument he has been playing almost as long as the harp.

“Since I play guitar as well, the challenge is what can I do to make the rhythm on my harp as good as the rhythm I’m playing on guitar. I had to overcome the timing, first of all, getting the timing right, then the rhythm and the swing. You have to learn the song, but I’ve always been one to not like learning other people’s songs note for note. I’d rather turn it into my own interpretation, which means figuring out how to do that while at the same time doing the song a service instead of a disservice. I had to go back and learn that shuffle on “You Don’t Have To Go”. I wanted to be just like Jimmy Reed, able to do both instruments at the same time.

“I may not be the best singer, but I’ve always loved to sing. I enjoy trying to figure out other singers, how they do things with their voice. As a harmonica player, knowing how to control my wind, it’s helped tremendously with the singing. Being consistent is a big part of anything in the music business, especially learning to play and sing.

“Lately I’ve been learning more and more on piano, been playing it for three years. It can be tough to master three instruments, and I’m always writing and arranging songs. Working on all of that always gets in the way, but I love it. I strive to be very disciplined, study each instrument as much as I can. But yeah, it’s definitely hard to do. I used to practice eight hours a day for guitar and harmonica. But I recently had to stop practicing here in our apartment because of a neighbor’s complaints about the noise, which led to calls to the police. So, no practice for me currently, but when I get back to it, it’ll be 8 hours a day for guitar and harmonica. And I’ll study piano when I get the time in between.”

As a songwriter, Davenport looks for inspiration throughout his daily life.

“I try to take ideas from phone conversations as well as things as they happen to me. TV shows are another source of ideas. I could be sitting down, watching a show and one of the characters might say something that appeals to me. I’ll pause the show, go write it down and start working on a song. It’s as easy as that. I try to arrange stuff first, then write the song.

“I might have a melody in my head already. I’ll work out the chords on piano and play them. Then I’ll figure out the guitar parts. Once that’s done, I’ll go through some of the stuff that I’ve written down, searching for phrases that fit the music. I have a song called “The World Don’t Deserve Your Smile.” I got that from Matthew. We were on the phone and he was saying something about something. When he made that statement, I wrote it down. Later on, I had a melody in my head from something else. I found Matthew’s words in my notes and it just fit. It all depends on what comes first because sometimes it’ll only just be like eight bars of a song that’ll come to me, so I’ll just have to wait until the melody pops up.”

Young Rell has been hard at work on a recording project, with Skoller helping to guide things along. Some of the recent issues in his personal life could have set him back, but Davenport has already developed a resilient nature that should serve him well as his musical career unfolds.

“We’re doing a GoFundMe campaign to help finance the album, and to allow my mother and I to find a better living space where I can practice daily. We’ve got to finish the mixing, mastering and some editing for the album. The big cost is studio time. We’ve got just about everything recorded. There might be some stuff that I might have to go back and redo. I think it’s coming along just fine.

“It’s a solo project. It’s just me on harp, guitar and vocals. We did have Kenny Smith come by and put some percussion on a song or two. He’s a genius. On one song, we were trying to find a certain sound. We explained it to Kenny, then he used his car keys and a rocks glass to get the exact sound we were looking for. We recorded six originals that I wrote and, there will be four covers. One tune is “Have A Good Time” from the Big Walter – Carey Bell album.

“At first, I didn’t know what to do. We recorded five songs in Chicago the first time, and we thought that was good, When I went back up a few weeks ago and recorded, Matthew said, okay, we’re going to scrap all that stuff that’s in the can. It might get used later. But this stuff you’re singing now has so much more depth, and it’s only been six months.

“We’re not sure yet if I am going to release the album myself or, with Matthew’s help, I may shop it around to some of the blues record labels. We’re still figuring that out. I’m open to any possibilities. I don’t know how many companies would be interested because I’m very big on owning my work. I’ve had my own publishing company since I was 13 years old. It may be that most record labels will shy away from picking up a record from a young guy like me without getting anything in return, like the rights to publishing of my original songs.”

(For more information on Harrell Davenport’s GoFundMe campaign, please go here:    https://www.gofundme.com/f/Youngrellblues )

For those who wonder if it is possible for a teenager to have enough life experiences to have a deep connection to the blues, Davenport has a ready response.

“We were living in Leland, Mississippi, which is where I started playing. We had moved from Vicksburg. When I got to the public school there, I started getting bullied the first day in. I’m the new kid, nobody knows me. I walk into the classroom, wearing a pair of shoes from Walmart, and this kid blurts that out in front of the whole class. From there I guess I was fresh meat, and the one they were going pick on.

“One day I brought a 78 RPM record,” High and Lonesome” by Jimmy Reed, for show and tell. We did the show and tell thingy, and then it was time to go to lunch. I put the 78 back in my backpack, and when we came back from lunch, the record was on the floor, broken into pieces. That particular record was the only memory I had of my grandfather. He had just passed before we moved. So that was really hurtful. Then other stuff started happening. I switched classes, and these kids in the new class were supposed to be in like the 6th grade, but were in the 3rd grade. They were bigger than me and I would get jumped every other day, which was traumatizing.

“My teacher had been telling me, you should bring your grades up. They were up at first, and then the whole jumping stuff started happening. She insisted that I try to bring my grades up. So I did that. A few weeks later, I was talking to her in class about my grades. She was saying that she was proud of me. And this other teacher, who wasn’t our teacher, came into the classroom, telling everybody to shut up and sit down.

“But she wasn’t my teacher, so I wasn’t paying her any attention. My teacher had called me up to her desk, so I stayed up there. This other teacher said, everybody shut up and sit down. I’m still talking to my teacher. My teacher didn’t tell me to sit down. So, you know, I didn’t sit. The other teacher comes up to me yelling, are you deaf or are you dumb? Or are you both?

“I do have a hearing problem, so I kind of got offended by that. But I continued to talk to my teacher. Then the other teacher grabs some duct tape and wraps it around my mouth and my nose. You know, the gray duct tape. The class is laughing at me and she’s pushing and shoving me. This was right before Christmas, before they let out for the break. I didn’t tell anybody. I went to the bathroom and took the tape off. Then I took a puff of my inhaler and washed off the gray stuff that was still on my face.

“Some time later. my mom went to go get her hair done, and it just so happens that the lady who was doing my mom’s hair was the mother of the janitor who worked for the school. She told my mom what had happened to me. Once my mom found out, she went to the school and took me out. That was when I started being home-schooled while jumping in-between a few different private schools. Those experiences were how my PTSD thing started. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. I make it sound good in how I just told you the story, but it was horrible.”

“The thing with the blues is it’s not about your age. I’ve been through stuff just like a person who is 60 years old. I don’t claim to know it all, and I haven’t seen everything that the world has to offer. At the same time, there’s a lot of stuff that people don’t know about what’s happened to me. That all ties into why I do it, how I do it, and the way I do it. It feels really good because I know that other young teenagers see what I’m doing, and what other young blues musicians out here are doing. Hopefully it can draw some more young people to the blues.”

Visit Darrell’s website to see where he is playing next: https://youngrell.com/