Janet Davis
Janet Davis is a banjo and Dobro player, teacher, and author from Houston, Texas. She trained mainly in classical music as a child. In college she played guitar and sang folk and blues in Austin clubs, where she learned from performers including Lightnin' Hopkins and Janis Joplin. She has written a column on banjo backup for Banjo Newsletter since 1976. In 1978 she and her husband, Jim Davis, started Janet Davis Music, selling banjo tablature, bridges, and strings from their home in Texas. They later moved the company to Bentonville, Arkansas, where it grew into a mail-order business and a major distributor of Gibson banjos. The Davises sold the company to the Thompson family in 2012, and it closed in 2017 under the name JD Music Company. She has written almost 100 instruction titles for Mel Bay Publications, including You Can Teach Yourself Banjo, Back-Up Banjo, and Splitting the Licks. She has also taught at banjo camps and workshops in the United States and abroad. She later started Janet Davis Publishing, in Bella Vista, Arkansas, to digitize her collection of tablature and recordings.