Reviews
Jeremy Smith - Review of 2022 CD "All They Know"
Stan Davis is as gutsy as he is poignant on his new album.
In this world of information, hashtags, data, junk news, and junk emails, it is easy to feel bombarded with more and more that doesn't sustain our lives or help us to truly be happy.
The collection of songs on Stan's 2022 release, All They Know, accomplishes so much. Without a doubt, life is tricky to understand and even tougher to get through with one's sanity unscathed. Stan knows this and allows us a glimpse of how to approach life with a purpose. His rhythms and songs get to the heart of things, sharing his words of love, laughter, grief, and absurdity.
"An oak is just a nut that's stood its ground," he sings.
Trends come and go, but music, culture, and family are what we need to focus on. We should ask the tough questions and not sit well with easy answers of the day. We need new anthems and a refocusing of shared experience in these lonely times. These things are needed to help us refocus our intentions.
Stan thinks we can keep sight of who we really are as people through community building and sustaining a base of resilience. Jazzy guitar licks and everyday imagery helps to build his songs into stories we can understand and find hope in.
Richard Davis - Review of 2022 CD "All They Know"
Once you listen to the CD “All They Know” by guitarist and singer Stan Davis of Wayne, Maine it becomes clear that not all the great musicians are rich and famous. Davis has been playing guitar and singing for almost as many years as he has been alive and since he has retired from his day job he has put his energy into becoming a more polished and more publicly active musician.
Davis plays at many local venues and he has a web site: www.standavismusic.com to share his music with people in as many ways possible. His recent CD is a compilation of original songs that he said, “…grew out of my careening journey through music and life. Some are rooted in my own history and experience; some come from an overheard sentence or a persistent memory.”
His music is familiar and original and listening to his CD allows you to step into his world for a brief time. It is a world that is easy to engage with and you can hear bits and pieces of the folk and rock world as it has existed over the decades since the middle of the last century."
All They Know- review by Mark Rains
On first listen, Stan’s lyrics are so personal that I want to see pictures of his grandkids on his knee, meet his wife who was such an inspiration, hear more stories of his travels around the world—then the songs start to sink in and continue to resonate with my own experiences and relationships, beyond his. This testament, I presume, to a singer-songwriter’s art uses his personal prism for shining universal light on my own. In a series of songs about day-to-day, decade-to-decade relationships, Stan fills a gap between cold and sizzling with themes of warmth. His mindfulness and wit picks up on nuanced, subtle, or mundane aspects of situations that might be missed and brings them into focus. Several songs end with a little citrus twist that affirms relationships in ways you didn’t see coming. Lyrics are full of phrases that bring a smile to the ear and imagination. Stan weaves his songs across a warp of blues guitar licks that stand on their own for entertainment.
In addition to recording such a well-produced live concert with a COVID era zoom audience, this CD more than passes my “over the road commute test”, sustaining enjoyment across multiple replays.
Yet, if there is one song that stands out as speaking to and/or with a variety of audiences and causes, I think it is “Oak”, an ode to how an acorn that ‘stands its ground’ can crown the forest.
Claire Hersom - Maine poet, review of "All They Know"
Stan Davis' new CD All They Know is a unique musical experience. Davis is a top notch guitarist, talented beyond most, and his funky folk/blues vibe is a delightful combination of witty intelligent lyric, and creative storytelling. Davis is a smooth performer, and easy to listen to.
Lucky Clark - On Music - review of an earlier Stan Davis CD
I must state that I was immediately impressed with not only his songwriting (which has spot-on accuracy that touches the heart), but also with his voice and musical backing.
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