"Paulette knew that in the blues, you can't give 99 and a half percent," said Portland blues guitarist Jesse Samsel. "She knew you have to give 110 percent, and she always did."
From the Oregonian, Feb. 2, 1998
By John Foyston
of The Oregonian staff
Death could, of course, and did early Saturday morning. Davis, 46, died instantly about 1:50 a.m. after her car plowed head-on into a tractor-trailer rig in the tunnel where westbound I-84 0eets southbound 205. Davis was driving northbound in the southbound tunnel.
Her sister, Kimberly A. Trotter, 33, was also in the car. She remains in serious condition at Legacy Emanuel Hospital with multiple fractures.
The truck driver, Gerald C. Kinman, 35, of St. Helens was not injured, and no citations were issued. Police are investigating.
Blues fans meanwhile are wondering what it'll be like without that voice and the vivid, generous spirit that impelled it. It was the voice that announced the presence of a strong new talent when Davis sang at the Portland Music Association's first Crystal Awards ceremony in 1990. A year later, Davis picked up her own Crystal for best new artist of the year, and her band--Paulette 'N' Power--won the award for best new band.
Davis' voice preceded her: She often began her shows by singing from a cordless microphone as she sashayed toward the stage where guitarist Sonny Hess and the band already were cranking out the blues. It was the voice of a woman who knew about life and loving and losing and giving just as much as you could.
"She had a voice, man," said blues guitarist Norman Sylvester, "and she had a heart every bit as big as that voice."
Giving it all, and more
"Paulette knew that in the blues, you can't give 99 and a half percent," said
Portland blues guitarist Jesse
Samsel. "She knew you have to give 110 percent, and she always did."
The last song Davis sang in public was with Samsel's band at the M&M Lounge in Gresham. As Friday night edged into Saturday morning, Davis belted out 20 or 25 minutes' worth of "Every Day I Have the Blues."
"It was incredible," Samsel said. "When she was done, the crowd was so thunderous that we were asking ourselves what planet we were on. Even though there were 10 minutes left in the set, we couldn't figure any way to follow Paulette, so we took a break."
It was that amazing Etta James-like voice that prompted Sonny Hess to take a chance on an unknown singer almost a decade ago. "I quit the band I was in and formed a new one around Paulette," Hess said. "No one in my life has ever inspired me more. She was such an enthusiastic, up person--there was no one like her. No one sang like her, no one had her stage presence or her ability to read a crowd and bring it along with her. She was a consummate artist."
Sylvester remembered how, years before he or Davis played regularly, Davis could draw a crowd in Northeast Portland nightclubs by lip-synching to Aretha Franklin cuts on a boom box.
In an interview several years ago, Davis talked about her early years. Her mother, Blondene Lockhart, was a blues fanatic, and Davis grew up listening to blues 78s and singing in front of a mirror, using the chrome spindle from a toilet-tissue holder as a microphone.
She got a real mike soon enough and began to sing in church, talent shows and clubs.
"I've been singing for 20 years at least," she said, "but before 1991, it was all with R&B bands in small North and Northeast Portland clubs like Geneva's and the Royal Esquire Club. I always played with house bands. I could never get a band of my own together to play what I wanted to sing. Oh, they'd learn the show, but then we played that for six months straight--I could never progress as a singer."
Big-time changes
With Hess as her guitarist and bandleader, Davis entered the most musically fruitful
period of her life, and in 1995 released an album, "It's About Damn Time." She
and the band played dozens of high-profile gigs, including The Bite of Portland, the Waterfront Blues Festival,
the Inner City Blues Festival and the Monterey Blues Festival in California, where
Paulette 'N' Power was one of the few bands without a national record contract to get a
mainstage gig.
But the bold, brassy, sassy blues woman was just part of Davis' personality.
"She was right there for the community," said Rick Hall, president of the Cascade Blues Association. "She loved the music, and she was always giving back. She made a lot of contributions to our blues scene."
Davis made contributions to the community, too. She spent a quarter-century working with drug-addicted and abused kids in the state Office for Service to Children and Families. As she said in that interview, a lot of the night's fervor came from the grim realities of the day.
"Music is my healing," she said. "It's a release for me. After seeing something that hurts my heart, I can release that through a song with as much power and emotion as I felt earlier in the day when I was taking a child with a broken arm to the emergency room."
Hess, Sylvester, pianist Janice Scroggins and other friends are planning a benefit for Davis' family at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 15. The concert and jam will take place at the Cascade Tavern, 15000 S.E. Mill Plain Blvd., Vancouver, WA.