Level: 3
Tuning: Standard

Next to Samson, Twelve Gates is Rev. Davis’ most powerful and popular song. It’s a vision of the celestial city, Holy Jerusalem, straight out of Revelations, 21:21. (“And the twelve gates were twelve pearls: every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass”). This image is a mandala employing the number four, compounded four times, bringing an archetypal sense of wholeness to the soul. Rev. Davis’ playing in the key of A, beautifully structured, enables this fourfold architecture to reverberate. He uses this style of playing in A in both blues and sacred songs. It is unique to him and can be heard fully formed from his earliest recordings, with Twelve Gates itself and I’m Throwin’ Up My Hand. When we hear Blind Boy Fuller and Brownie McGee play in this style, with more simplicity, we can be sure that they learned it from the master. The style is build around the A chord, first position and A chord, second position, G form. This enables him to best use the open strings on the fleet chromatic runs that roll through the song. Besides that he uses the D form A on the ninth fret to imitate the voice singing the verse.