Levinson heard about Tim Duffy's field recordings, some reminiscent of the work of John and Alan Lomax, and invited Duffy to visit his stereo showroom in New York. Tim Duffy's father, Allen Duffy, a lawyer, had represented and won a case for audio pioneer Mark Levinson, allowing him to continue working in the hi-fi industry.
Duffy thought their culture was slipping away unnoticed by the music industry. They lived in poor conditions and needed regular assistance. Through Gabriel, Tim and Denise Duffy made field recordings of other local blues musicians, such as Captain Luke, Macavine Hayes, Mr. He required almost daily assistance from Duffy, who provided transportation to medical appointments, money, and food for Gabriel and his wife. He had received no royalties and was impoverished. Gabriel had been inactive in the music industry since the 1970 release of his album My South, My Blues (as Nyles Jones) on the Gemini label. Duffy forged a close friendship with Gabriel, and the two began recording and performing under the name Guitar Gabriel & Brothers in the Kitchen, releasing the album Do You Know What it Means to Have a Friend? (also known as Toot Blues) on their own Karibu label in 1991. That evening, Duffy followed the student's directions to a "drink house" in the neighborhood, where he met Gabriel's nephew, Hawkeye, who took him to meet Gabriel. Stephens's health was in decline, and shortly before his death, he advised Duffy to locate a musician named Guitar Gabriel.Īfter his graduation, Duffy began working as a substitute teacher at a middle school in Winston-Salem, hearing an assortment of folkloric tales about Guitar Gabriel from students, until one student volunteered that Gabriel was her neighbor, living in the government housing projects of Winston-Salem. In 1989, while completing his studies for a master's degree in Folklore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Tim Duffy was documenting blues musician James "Guitar Slim" Stephens for the university's Southern Folklife Collection.
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