Blind blues guitarist Reverend Gary Davis is one of the most influential bluesmen in terms of the evolution of folk and rock fingerpicking. A key member of the Piedmont blues movement of the 1920s and '30s, Davis put his own upbeat yet simplistic spin on the rural picking style that marked that scene's sound. Davis moved to New York City in the 1940s where he recorded for the famed Folkways label, eventually becoming a darling of the folk revival that would explode in the coming decades. Everyone from Bob Dylan and Dave Van Ronk to Taj Mahal, Jackson Browne, and Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead cite Davis as an influence.