Davis Rogan is a native New Orleanian whose music education began in the McDonough #15 Elementary school band under the direction of Walter Payton. This band, which included Walter’s son Nicholas and Preservation Hall’s current proprietor, Ben Jaffe, opened the Jazz Fest in 1978.
In the 1990’s Davis came to prominence as a disc jockey for WWOZ. He created the program “The Brass Band Jam” and was later dismissed for introducing Bounce Rap on the New Orleans Music Show.
Davis was also the leader of the sprawling chaotic sousaphone, brass funk monster group All That. All That’s alumni include Threadhead Artists Alex McMurray, Debbie Davis and Matt Perrine.
Davis’ 2005 solo release The Once and Future DJ so impressed HBO writer producer David Simon that Simon based a character on Davis for his series Treme. Davis joined the writing team for Season One of Treme, and was nominated for a Writer’s Guild of America Award. Davis also wrote songs for the series and contributed to the Treme Season One Soundtrack, which was nominated for a Grammy.
In the downtime between Seasons One and Two, Davis wrote and recorded his second solo record The Real Davis featuring special guests Ben Elman from Galactic, Efrem Townes from the Dirty Dozen and
Threadhead stalwarts Craig Klein and John Boutté. Blake Leyh, music supervisor for Treme and The Wire produced the record.
The Real Davis will have a limited local release in March. Davis is joining forces with Threadhead Records to launch a nationwide release of the record. Funding from Threadhead Records will support a subsequent pressing, nationwide publicity and national touring as booked by Piedmont Talent.
