Daryl Davis

Davis has played with such artists as Elvis Presley’s Jordanaires, The Platters, The Drifters, The Coasters, Bo Diddley, Percy Sledge, and Sam Moore (of Sam & Dave).

"Davis’ piano work impresses with his winning combination of technique and abandon, and his vocals are strong and assured," wrote a reviewer in Living Blues Magazine. "Black rock’n’roll lives!"

Davis has acted on stage, film and television. He played a minor character in HBO's television series The Wire. He appeared on stage in William Saroyan’s The Time of Your Life with Marcia Gay Harden, Brigid Cleary, and Richard Bauer, and in Elvis Mania at an off-Broadway theater in New York City. He received positive reviews for his role in Zora Neal Hurston’s Polk County.

Davis claims to be responsible for helping to dismantle the KKK in Maryland because things "fell apart" after he began making inroads with its members there. However, since then the KKK was rebuilt in Maryland under Richard Preston, leader of the Confederate White Knights who was arrested for firing his gun at counter-protesters at the 2017 Unite the Right rally. Daryl Davis offered to post Preston's bail. He later took Preston to the National Museum of African American History. Shortly thereafter he was asked to give away the bride at Preston's wedding.

In 2016, the documentary film, Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America debuted on the PBS TV series Independent Lens. The film, directed and produced by Matt Ornstein, showed Davis interacting with KKK members and white Aryans, and provided contrasting views of his activities from members of the Southern Poverty Law Center and Black Lives Matter. The film was shown on PBS on February 13, 2017, and reran thereafter. Frank Ancona, the Klansman depicted at the opening and close of the documentary film Accidental Courtesy, was found shot dead in Missouri on February 11, 2017, two days before the airing of the film. Ancona's wife and step-son were both charged for the murder.

He is the subject of the 2016 documentary Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America.

Klan members have often invited Davis to meetings and they have given him their robes and hoods. Among the "Knights of the Ku Klux Klan" he interviewed were Grand Klaliff Chester Doles, Grand Giant Tony LaRicci, and Grand Giant Bob White, according to The Washington Post. One Klan member gave Davis a medallion stamped with the words "KKK – Member in good standing."

Davis was awarded "Best Traditional Blues/R&B Instrumentalist" at the 2009 Washington Area Music Awards. For several years, Davis served as Artistic Director of the Centrum (arts organization) Acoustic Blues Festival.

Davis eventually went on to befriend over 20 members of the KKK, and claims to have been directly responsible for between 40 and 60, and indirectly over 200 people leaving the Klan. He found that the Klansmen had many misconceptions about blacks, which stem mostly from intense brainwashing in their youth. When they got to know him, Davis claims, it was more difficult to maintain their prejudices. Davis recounted his experiences in his 1998 book, Klan-destine Relationships: A Black Man's Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan.

Davis has worked to improve race relations by seeking out, engaging in dialogue with, and befriending members of the Ku Klux Klan. In 1983, he was playing country western music in a "white" bar in Frederick, Maryland when a patron came up to him and said it was the first time he had "heard a black man play as well as Jerry Lee Lewis". Davis explained to the man that "Jerry Lee learned to play from black blues and boogie woogie piano players and he's a friend of mine." The white patron was skeptical and over a drink admitted he was a member of the KKK. The two became friends and eventually, the man gave Davis contact information on KKK leaders.

Davis absorbed the style of blues musicians from the Mississippi Delta who had migrated north. In 1980, Davis earned a bachelor of music degree from Howard University, where he was a member of the Howard University Choir and Jazz Vocal Ensemble. Davis "was mentored by legendary pianists Pinetop Perkins and Johnnie Johnson who both claimed him as their godson and praised his ability to master a piano style that was popular long before he was born," according to his Kennedy Center profile.

Daryl Davis (born March 26, 1958) is an American R&B and blues musician, activist, author, actor and bandleader. Known for his energetic style of boogie-woogie piano, Davis has played with such musicians as Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, B. B. King, and Bruce Hornsby. His efforts to improve race relations, in which as an African-American he engaged with members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), have been reported on by media such as CNN, NPR, and The Washington Post.