[2] Both "Blue Monday" (1963) and "Your Turn to Cry" (1964) were lauded critically,[4] but none of his releases with Duke were commercially successful outside the Deep South.
[2] In 1988,[3] Davis was located in Houma, Louisiana, by Hammond Scott, a co-founder of Black Top Records.
This reawakening led Davis to record his debut album, Check Out Time, in 1989,[2] containing cover versions of songs originally recorded by Bobby Bland, James Carr, and Wynonie Harris, plus a number of Davis's own compositions, some dating back to the 1960s.
[6][7] The collection had a stellar backing band, including the guitarists Anson Funderburgh and Clarence Hollimon and the saxophonist Grady Gaines, who were named on the record sleeve as the Black Top All-Stars.
[8] In January 1992, two months before he was to record his second album, Davis collapsed and died of a heart attack on stage, halfway through a set at the Blues Saloon in Saint Paul, Minnesota.