Throughout this period he concentrated on his songwriting improving all the time and at last the hits began to appear. While working with this label from 1964 to late 1967 he came into contact with many interesting session people like Sniffy Garrett and Leon Russell who were both producing for the label, Willie Nelson who was influential from the songwriting standpoint and James Burton who was a successful session guitarist. Because of Mac’s success in the past as a promotion man he landed a successful job with Liberty Records, which in the early 1960s was the most successful independent label in America.
Mac davis music in my life mac#
Felton Jarvis was the producer in Atlanta who had the golden touch and he handled the production of most of Roe’s big hits and Mac Davis was one of the many people in the background who played on some really successful sessions and also had his songs recorded by name artists like Roe and Channel. He renewed his friendship with Tommy Roe who hit the big-time with Sheila, which was cut by Rick Hall in 1962. The other side of this record features one of Mac’s earliest songs, a rock‘n’roll number with a good country backbeat that wouldn’t go amiss if released today.Īround 1961 he became more involved with the musical scene around Atlanta that was just beginning to grow and his songs began appearing as either album tracks or coupling titles on singles. Vee-Jay no longer exists as a label, but Davis did have the chance to record for the label and one single featuring Clyde McPhatter’s Honey Love owes more to soul music than country.
This association with music stuck with Mac, who at the time was better known as Scotty Davis, and he landed himself a job as a promotion man for Vee-Jay records, which was heavily into soul music, but also at the time had the Four Seasons signed and a few years later was the first American label to release the Beatles records Stateside. The name of Mac Davis and country music is hardly ever linked, yet this talented Texan songwriter has a lot of connections with country music, which go back further than his success over the past few years as one of the best songwriters in America.Īlthough Davis was born in Texas he grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and in the late 1950s he formed a rock‘n’roll band and hung around with people like Tommy Roe and Bruce Channel, two pop singers who hit the big time in the early 1960s. First published in Country Music People, December 1973