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Update: February 16, 2005. Dates and Cities announced for Rejoice Dear Hearts stage play!
Update: December 17, 2003. Hello Brother Dave Fans! Just popped on today to correct a few typos and such. Thank you all for continuing to visit and signing the guest book.
Update: March 5, 2003. Although I haven't made any changes to this site for quite a while, I just wanted all of you to know that I'm still maintaining it and will continue to add new bits to it as I am able to obtain them. Thanks for continuing to visit!
New Images of 45 rpms and sheet music added 5/14/00! Check them out!
Sad News:
Brother Dave Gardner's son, David M.
Gardner II, musician, foundation director.
Born Denver, Colorado, July 7, 1953; Died Hot Springs, Arkansas,
September 4, 1999.
Obituary courtesy of Lou McElroy
(Jackson, Tennessee, October 22, 1999)
After a youth spent in a luxurious Los Angeles mansion, Gardner went on
the road with his performer father and business manager mother in his late
teens to direct publicity efforts and later managed Brother Dave's road
operations into his 1980's comeback. Having learned to play the Delta
blues around Clarksdale, Missisippi, Dave later performed throughout the
Delta and the mid-south region as L D Blues, preferring to capture his own
musical audience without reference to the Gardner family name. He was also
happy to provide backup guitar for tours by Arlo Guthrie and Ramblin' Jack
Elliott, among others. Guthrie named Dave "Wandering Dave" for
his sensitivity to the siren call of the road and playing for people
across the country and abroad.
As for the Hollywood mansion, it was eventually boarded up after a
dispute with the IRS, a dispute that eventually drove a disgusted,
dispirited Brother Dave from the performance stage. David Gardner II took
as his duty the resolution of the tax snag, and though it took decades and
occurred after Brother Dave's 1983 death, he eventually succeeded in
having the tax lien withdrawn.
In 1980, David had convinced Brother Dave to let him create the
Brother Dave Gardner Foundation for the Performing Arts, a nonprofit
foundation to share with the public the lives and accomplishments of
performing artists through the ages, and to explore cultural development
and enlightenment through the interaction between performer and audience.
Plans for the Foundation, owner of the rights to Brother Dave's works,
include the establishment of a multimedia research library where both
scholars and the public can learn of the lives of performing artists in a
cross-cultural, multilingual environment. Gardner also envisioned a
performing arts center, a museum of entertainment with a research library,
and a banking institution to finance movies, recordings, dance and the
like.
In 1999, Dave became more active in his foundation
activities,expanding its advisory board and working with Colorado writer
Lou McElroy toward a biography of Brother Dave. The two also planned the
creation of a website for the foundation and an annual festival in Brother
Dave's honor. He was having transcripts made of some Brother Dave tapes,
and digitizing several master tapes, many of which never heard by the
public, at Sun Studios in Memphis.
He was also served as a vice president of the Hispanic American Law
Institute, a public interest law organization in Dallas.
Gardner is survived by many "dearly beloved," to use a
Brother Dave term, including his companion Bettye Padgett of Hot Springs;
son Justin Swinford, Hot Springs; stepson Todd Graham, Hot Springs; and a
sister Candace Hare, of Cleveland, Ohio.
Website News:
Many new images and bits of information are courtesy of Perry Amberson and Gary Arnold. Both have contributed album cover images and special liner notes from Brother Dave's recordings. Thank you fellow fans!
Please visit the recordings section and enjoy new album cover images and reviews. Don't forget to sign our guestbook!
News For Collectors:
Perry Amberson reports: "I have actually seen and laid my hands on (though, sadly, not bought because it wasn't for sale) the rumored 7-inch 33 and 1/3 RPM disc of "The Motorcycle Story" on Tonka. If memory serves, the full "Out Front" album version of the story is spread over the two sides of the disc."