Davis was born in Laurens, South Carolina, in the Piedmont region. Of the eight children his mother bore, he was the only one who survived to adulthood. He became blind as an infant. He recalled being poorly treated by his mother and that his father placed him in the care of his paternal grandmother. Davis reported that when he was 10 years old his father was killed in Birmingham, Alabama; he later said that he had been told that his father was shot by the Birmingham sheriff.
He sangs for the first time at Gray Court's Baptist church in South Carolina.
He took to the guitar and assumed a unique multivoice style produced solely with his thumb and index finger, playing gospel, ragtime, and blues tunes along with traditional and original tunes in four-part harmony.
In the mid-1920s, Davis migrated to Durham, North Carolina, a major center of black culture at the time. There he taught Blind Boy Fuller and collaborated with a number of other artists in the Piedmont blues scene, including Bull City Red. In 1935, J. B. Long, a store manager with a reputation for supporting local artists, introduced Davis, Fuller, and Red to the American Record Company. The subsequent recording sessions (available on his Complete Early Recordings) marked the real beginning of Davis's career. During his time in Durham, he became a Christian. In 1933, Davis was ordained as a Baptist minister in Washington, North Carolina. Following his conversion and especially his ordination, Davis began to prefer inspirational gospel music.
The folk revival of the 1960s invigorated Davis's career. He performed at the Newport Folk Festival. Peter, Paul and Mary recorded his version of "Samson and Delilah", also known as "If I Had My Way", a song by Blind Willie Johnson, which Davis had popularized. "Samson and Delilah" was also covered and credited to Davis by the Grateful Dead on the album Terrapin Station. The Dead also covered Davis' "Death Don't Have No Mercy". Eric Von Schmidt credited Davis with three-quarters of Schmidt's "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down", covered by Bob Dylan on his debut album for Columbia Records. The Blues Hall of Fame singer and harmonica player Darrell Mansfield has recorded several of Davis's songs.
