TULSA, Okla. (Sept. 17, 2024) — Jesse Ed Davis: Natural Anthem, a career-spanning exhibition celebrating the life and legacy of the legendary rock ‘n’ roll musician and member of the Native American Music Hall of Fame, opens to the public at the Bob Dylan Center on Friday, Nov. 15. An exclusive member opening is slated for the previous evening, and a tribute concert featuring past collaborators Jackson Browne, Taj Mahal, Joy Harjo and the Grafitti Band is set for Feb. 6, 2025, also in Tulsa.
Like Dylan, Davis was a fearless and uncompromising artist, steadfastly dedicated to his craft and thriving as a collaborator with fellow musicians such as Jackson Browne, Taj Mahal, John Lennon, Leon Russell, Eric Clapton, Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond, Leonard Cohen, Rod Stewart and Dylan himself. Unlike Dylan, however, Davis’ significance as a musician, songwriter and, notably, Native American artist has been unjustly neglected since his passing in 1988, an oversight the Natural Anthem exhibition aims to correct.
Ticket information and other details about the Feb. 6 tribute concert will be announced in the coming weeks.
Exhibit co-curators Joy Harjo and Doug Miller delve into Davis’ origin story and family background and chart his ascendance as a songwriter and go-to guitarist for a who’s-who of 1970s musical icons. The exhibit also considers his embodiment of the Kiowa Nation’s “warrior” archetype and celebrates his enduring legacy as an influential guitarist and cultural figure.
As curators, Harjo and Miller have assembled a trove of previously unheard recordings and unseen images; Davis’ instruments and personal mementos; striking photographs of Davis and fellow musicians such as Dylan, George Harrison and Rod Stewart; and items on loan from Davis’ relatives exclusively for the exhibit.
“I knew Jesse as a fellow musician and always appreciated his artistry, his innovation and vision in a time of cultural shift for Native people and this country,” says Harjo, the three-time U.S. Poet Laureate who serves as the Bob Dylan Center’s inaugural Artist-in-Residence. “I am thrilled to bring his work to wider attention through this exhibit at the Bob Dylan Center, where my work as Artist-in-Residence is centered around artistry of all sorts and the specifics of the Native experience—especially that of gifted spirits like Jesse.”
“I’ve spent the past five years learning everything I could about Jesse’s life and music for my biography on him. His story surprised me at every turn and my admiration for his work has only deepened,” says Miller, author of the forthcoming Davis biography Washita Love Child: The Rise of Indigenous Rock Star Jesse Ed Davis. “To now expand on my book through co-curating the Dylan Center exhibition with Joy is a thrill. I can’t wait for visitors to discover or rediscover Jesse’s amazing music and enthralling story.”
“Working with Joy and Doug on this project has been an honor for all of us,” says Steven Jenkins, director of the Bob Dylan Center. “This is exactly the sort of exhibit that enlivens our exploration of the creative process as exemplified by Dylan and here emphasized through Davis’ music and enduring impact.”
The members-only opening event on Thursday, Nov. 14 will feature comments from co-curators Harjo and Miller and a performance by indie-rock musician Scott McCaughey (R.E.M., The Baseball Project, Young Fresh Fellows, The Minus 5, The No Ones), who cites Davis as an influence and inspiration. McCaughey’s brief set will include an original song written about Davis as well as songs by Davis and Dylan.
On Friday, Nov. 15 at 6 p.m., Miller will take part in a public discussion and book signing at the Bob Dylan Center, an event co-presented with Magic City Books.
Jesse Ed Davis: Natural Anthem is generously supported by presenting sponsor Joe Donnelly.
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About Jesse Ed Davis
Jesse Ed Davis (September 21, 1944–June 22, 1988) was a Native American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer and in-demand session musician who played on dozens of classic recordings throughout the late 1960s and ‘70s. His list of collaborators includes Bob Dylan (on the Leon Russell–produced “Watching the River Flow” and “When I Paint My Masterpiece”), Joy Harjo, Taj Mahal, John Lennon and George Harrison (with whom he performed at the Concert for Bangladesh). In 1985, Davis formed the Grafitti Band, which coupled his music with the poetry of Native American activist John Trudell. Their album “AKA Grafitti Man” was one of Dylan’s personal favorites. Davis has been referred to as “the guitar hero’s guitar hero,” and self-effacingly claimed of his own virtuosity, “I just play the notes that sound good.”
Born in Norman, Okla., and raised in Oklahoma City, Jesse’s first major gig saw him backing Conway Twitty while attending the University of Oklahoma. Davis’s background as an enrolled citizen of the Kiowa Nation, as well as a proud Comanche, Cheyenne, Muscogee and Seminole provided strength in his music and career. Struggling with addiction in his later years, Davis served as a drug and alcohol counselor at the American Indian Free Clinic in Long Beach, Calif., but died from a lethal drug injection in 1988. Davis was posthumously inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame in 2002 and the Native American Music Hall of Fame in 2018.
About Joy Harjo
Bob Dylan Center Artist in Residence Joy Harjo is only the second poet to be appointed a third term as U.S. Poet Laureate. Born in Tulsa, Okla., Harjo is a member of Muskogee Nation and active in Native empowerment movements.
Harjo is the author of a dozen volumes of poetry as well as memoirs, plays, children’s books and other works. As a singer, songwriter and saxophonist, Harjo has released many recordings and performed internationally. Harjo’s awards include the 2024 Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America, Yale’s 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry, a Lifetime Achievement Award from Americans for the Arts, a Ruth Lily Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, the Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens Award, a PEN USA Literary Award, the Poets & Writers Jackson Poetry Prize, two NEA fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, among others.
Harjo is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and served as a founding board member and Chair of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Philosophical Society, the National Native American Hall of Fame and the National Woman’s Hall of Fame.
About Doug Miller
Douglas Miller is a musician and associate professor of history at Oklahoma State University. His forthcoming biography “Washita Love Child: The Rise of Indigenous Rock Star Jesse Ed Davis” is the first ever book on Davis’s life and legacy. Miller is also the co-producer of a forthcoming archival album set of unissued Jesse Ed Davis music titled “Tomorrow May Not Be Your Day.”
About the Bob Dylan Center
The Bob Dylan Center inspires and celebrates fearless creativity by exploring the music and artistry of the Nobel Prize–winning singer-songwriter as a catalyst for personal expression and cultural change.
As the primary public venue for the Bob Dylan Archive® collection, the center curates and exhibits a priceless collection of more than 100,000 items spanning Dylan’s career, including handwritten manuscripts, notebooks and correspondence; films, videos, photographs and artwork; memorabilia and ephemera; personal documents and effects; unreleased studio and concert recordings; musical instruments and many other elements. The center presents a full roster of public programs including concerts, film screenings and author talks. Since opening in May 2022, the Bob Dylan Center has welcomed visitors from all 50 states and nearly 40 countries. The center has garnered numerous design awards and accolades from publications including the New York Times, Vanity Fair, Variety, Uncut and Mojo.
