Rod Davis (musician)

Davis was born in Woolton, Liverpool. Davis played in a jazz trio whilst at school with Gerald Greenwood (piano) and Les Brough (drums).^[1] Rod was attending Quarry Bank High School, when he was asked to join The Quarrymen in 1957, along with Colin Hanton, as their banjo player:^[1]

I lived in Woolton and first met John Lennon, Pete Shotton, Nigel Walley, Ivan Vaughan and Geoff Rhind at St. Peter's Sunday School when we were very small boys. I lived near Colin Hanton and we used to play street football together. I met Eric Griffiths when we both started at Quarry Bank School, and Len Garry when he became the Quarrymen's tea-chest bass player. Eric invited me to join the Quarrymen in early 1956 just after I bought a banjo.

The group, consisting of John Lennon, Eric Griffiths, Pete Shotton, Len Garry, Colin Hanton, and Davis, formed the first stable line-up of the group. Davis' tenure with the group was short, and he and Pete Shotton, left in August 1957, feeling that the group was moving away from skiffle and towards rock, leaving their instruments superfluous.^[2]

Davis would make a record in 1961 as part of a band called the Trad Grads, by which time he played mandolin, fiddle, banjo, guitar, concertina, and melodeon. In a 1997 issue of Record Collector, he said that when he told Lennon about this in early 1962, Lennon "said, 'You don't play the drums, do you? We need a drummer to take back to Hamburg.'" Whether that's true or not, Davis, who had gone on to attend Cambridge University, did not go to Hamburg with the Beatles.^[3]

In 1997, Davis reunited with the then-surviving members of The Quarrymen to perform a concert, to commemorate 40 years since the group's formation.^[4] Shortly after, they embarked on a tour which took place in the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, and Japan, among many others. Davis has participated on all Quarrymen releases since; including their three albums; Get Back – Together (1997), Songs We Remember (2004), and Grey Album (2012). Their recent material primarily consists of rock and roll and skiffle songs from the 1950s.

Davis was portrayed by actor James Jack Bentham in the 2009 biopic Nowhere Boy.^[5]

The Quarrymen performed in New York City, for what would have been Lennon's 70th birthday in 2010.^[4]

As of 2016, Davis still tours with founding member Colin Hanton and Len Garry.

In the 1960s, Davis played the mandolin and fiddle in numerous Bluegrass bands.^[1] In 1964, he played with "The Bluegrass Ramblers". They would later appear on an episode of Opportunity Knocks.^[1] Davis taught French and Spanish until 1968, when he took up a job as an expedition driver for a company called Minitrek Expeditions, taking trips to Russia, Turkey and across the Sahara desert.^[1]

Davis married his wife in 1970, before filing for divorce in 1982.^[1] They settled in Hertfordshire, where both of their children were eventually born.^[1] Rod worked for numerous different jobs in the travelling industry during his life, whilst also playing in a handful of different folk and bluegrass groups. Davis met his current partner, Janet, in the 1980s.^[1] Around that time, he started lecturing in Tourism at Uxbridge College.^[1] In 1996, he became a part-time lecturer at Brunel University.^[1] He retired in 2006.