Davy Knowles

MUST BE 21 OR OLDER TO ATTEND

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS TBA

Davy Knowles has known what he wanted to do with his life since the age of 11.
I was in the car with my dad, and he put on a cassette of Dire Straits’ ‘Sultans of Swing,’” explains the 21-year-old guitarist, singer and songwriter. “I just fell in love with the music then and there. That track changed my life, and I realized, ‘I really want to be able to do that.’

Hailing from the Isle of Man, the tiny kingdom in the middle of the Irish Sea, might have posed a challenge to that childhood epiphany for a lesser talent. Instead, Davy just borrowed his father’s acoustic guitar and painstakingly learned to play “Sultans of Swing” by ear.

As a teenager, he mined his father’s record collection to learn all he could about ‘the blues’ and he discovered John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Rory Gallagher, to name a few. Then I began reading guitar player magazines and started seeing who the people I was influenced by had listened to, which is how I learned about Blind Willie Johnson and Robert Johnson Davy explains.

He played in bands throughout his school years - usually as the “kid” among older players - and, ultimately, formed Back Door Slam with his school mates. The band’s debut recording Roll Away, which featured Adam Jones on bass and Ross Doyle on drums, was released by Blix Street Records in June, 2007. Knowles wrote all but one of the tracks on the record, which became a Top 5 staple on Billboard’s Blues chart.

Such acclaim continued as the band played clubs, concerts and festivals and shared billings with George Thorogood, Buddy Guy, Kid Rock & Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Who and the legendary jam band Gov’t Mule. They also appeared on television’s CBS Early Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live as well as on NPR’s World Cafe and Voice of America’s Border Crossings.

He’s begun to call Chicago “home,” but there’s a hint of wistfulness when he speaks about the Isle of Man, a feeling addressed in the title song of Roll Away: “It’s a beautiful place and I feel lucky to have grown up there - but you can’t forget that there’s also a world out there beyond it.”