Rachael Davis made her professional singing debut when she was nearly three years old. She has been charming audiences ever since.
The multitalented singer, musician, and songwriter will be sharing her mixture of folk, blues, country, and pop sounds when she performs at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 17 at Hey Nonny in Arlington Heights.
That first performance was a surprise to Davis’s parents, who were performing as a musical duo called Lake Effect until then.
“They would travel all over Michigan, where I’m from, playing festivals,” Davis said. “When my parents would perform, they would bring me onstage with them and I would sit in the back of the stage and play with puzzles and color in coloring books. One time, they were singing a song I knew. There were some extra microphones off to the side of the stage that weren’t being used. The sound person saw I was singing in one and turned it on.”
After that number, the sound engineer brought a microphone stand out for Davis and put it right next to her mother. Davis knew all the words to their songs so she sang along for the rest of the show.
“From that moment on I was always invited to perform with them,” Davis said.
Davis continues to have strong family connections. She will be playing guitar, banjo, ukulele, and tenor guitar, and singing at Hey Nonny, accompanied by her husband, bassist Dominic John Davis. There’s a chance that her two children, 7-year-old daughter Lela Mae, who sings, and her 15-year-old son Virgil, who is a drummer, will join their parents.
“It depends on how they’re feeling that day,” Davis joked. Davis always feels like performing.
Since she was 12, she has ended the Wheatland Music Festival’s Sunday morning gospel set each year by singing “Amazing Grace” a cappella.
She composed and recorded her debut album, “Minor League Deities” in 2000 when she was 20. Davis has since recorded five other albums, the most recent in 2020 was “The Dream That Holds This Child,” as part of a group called The Sweet Water Warblers with Lindsay Lou and May Erlewine.
Davis describes her diverse range of musical styles as Americana. “We do old time banjo tunes, I sing some blues, I can sing some swing tunes and jazz,” she said. “I’ll do some gospel tunes. About half original versus half traditional songs.”
Some of the original songs that Davis will perform at Hey Nonny are on her 2008 album, “Antebellum Queens.” Traditional songs will include selections from the Nat King Cole trio and Fats Waller. “I also like to do some traditional banjo-fiddle tunes — but without the fiddle,” Davis laughed.
In addition to singing and playing, Davis will share stories about her family. “Sometimes I need to be reminded to sing a song and quit telling silly stories,” she joked.
This will be the second time that Davis has performed at Hey Nonny. “It’s really cool,” she said of the venue. “It’s a really great listening room. It’s got a laid-back atmosphere. The sound is wonderful in there. The staff is so friendly.”
It’s especially fun for family-friendly Davis because a lot of her relatives live in the area, including uncles, aunts, and cousins.
“They all come to this show and it’s like a special event,” she said.
Rachael Davis
When: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 17
Where: Hey Nonny, 10 S. Vail Ave., Arlington Heights
Tickets: $17.55-$35.25
Information: 224-202-0750; heynonny.com/shows/rachael-davis-2
Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
