Thirteen years ago a freckle-faced 12-year-old girl came onstage at open-mic night at McGuire’s Resort in Cadillac, Michigan, to accompany the master of ceremonies. The young lady was Cadillac native Rachael Davis, and her singing so impressed the MC, guitarist Brett Hartenbach, that Hartenbach became a mentor to the pre-teen chanteuse. They’ve been together ever since, in a singer/guitarist relationship similar to the one enjoyed by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings — to whom Davis and Hartenbach are often compared.
Hartenbach isn’t the only one who’s been dazzled by Davis’ voice. She’s been compared to the great ones in a wide variety of genres — from Alison Krauss to Ella Fitzgerald to Eve Cassidy. Davis, who began performing at age eight, released a CD of originals, Minor League Deities, in 2001. It managed to swing from jazz to mountain music to pop to blues to singer-songwriter folk within a 10-song boundary. Davis’ only other CD, Live in Bremen, Germany, came out in 2005. She and Hartenbach will be in the studio sometime in April to record a follow-up to Deities, something long-awaited by anyone who’s heard this pair sing and pick together.
This article appears in Jan 11-17, 2006.