Every so often a truly explosive blues-steeped star comes slamming down the pike. The ‘60s were filled with acts from Buddy Guy and Eric Clapton to Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page and each generation since has added to the legacy. Think of Bonnie Raitt, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robert Cray, Warren Haynes, Susan Tedeschi, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. Now think of Davy Knowles. Think long and hard and toast a bright future.

Fronting his band Back Door Slam, the 22-year-old British phenomenon with an intuitive feel for and encyclopedic knowledge of blues-rock draws on influences from Robert Johnson to Rory Gallagher, but injects his music with youthful originality along the way. In the process, he’s taken on the American blues-rock fraternity at their own game and scored a home run, climbing ever-nearer to the top of Billboard’s Top Blues Albums chart, reaching #2, kept off only by the soundtrack to Cadillac Records, and mixing in exalted company there, from Buddy Guy to Joe Bonamassa. Not bad for a kid from the Isle of Man.

As a songwriter, Davy puts the muscle back into the blues but also offers a progressive, folk slant on the brilliant new album, “Coming Up for Air.” And it doesn’t hurt that the Grammy-winning Peter Frampton produced it.

“This music gives you a freedom to express yourself,’’ says Davy, who grew up on the Isle of Man immersing himself in the British blues-rock heritage of such forebears as Knopfler, Mayall, Clapton, Gallagher and Green. “With blues and with roots-based music as a whole, and with folk music, too, you can bend it any way you like,” he enthuses. “You can call B.B. King ‘blues’ but a lot of people will also call John Mayer ‘blues.’ It’s just the way you express it.’’

“Davy is very young but he’s already got a recognizable style,” says Frampton, himself a giant of guitar-based rock and a multi-platinum musician who’s travelled far since he was the British chart scene’s “Face of ’68” and then “came alive” as a solo star in the mid-1970s. “He’s definitely the gunslinger guitarist of the 21st century,” Frampton continues. “What a thrill it was to work with him. I feel rejuvenated. He’s a phenomenal talent. He knows just what he’s doing and where he wants to go and what he wants to sound like. I just guided him and gave him ideas and shared my experience, but he brought it all to life.’’

Davy, in turn, was humbled to work with an artist like Frampton, after Nashville-based musician Jamie Rounds made the introductions. Frampton performs some guitar and bass on a couple of tracks on the album. “Peter was very generous with his time and effort,’’ Davy notes. “He said to me, ‘A lot of people will tell you a lot of things in the music industry. But one thing you should do is trust your intuition.’”

Davy emerged in 2007 with his debut album “Roll Away,” a collection of his own material, as well as a cover of Blind Joe Reynold’s “Outside Woman Blues”. Davy’s live show has also featured Jimi Hendrix’s “Red House” and a not-so-obvious cover of David Crosby’s “Almost Cut My Hair.” That prompted an email from Crosby himself, who said he absolutely loved their version of his song. “I’m never deleting that email!” Davy says gleefully.

Davy’s confidence in his own abilities pays dividends on the new disc. His sensually raw voice is influenced by some of his favourites, like Joe Cocker (“the Woodstock-era Cocker,’’ Davy says), John Mayall and Paul Rodgers (“when he was with Free more than Bad Company’’). His guitar work merges the bar room blast of Warren Haynes with the lightning-quick filigree of Eric Clapton.

Davy first got bitten by music when, at age 11, his dad put on Dire Straits’ “Sultans of Swing.” “That made me want to play,” he recalls. By plundering his dad’s records, along with an older sister’s blues collection of magazines which came with cassette tapes, Davy was able to hear everyone from Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters onwards. He soon grew to love Cocker (“my mum grew up in the same town of Sheffield and she’d bump into Joe’s mum all the time’’) and, especially Rory Gallagher, who blew Davy away. “Just the energy that man had was unbelievable,” he says. “What I loved was that he came from a Celtic background like I did and I could hear it. He could express his roots in the music and I never realised I could do that, too, until I heard him.”

Another fateful turn came when Davy’s dad took him to see Robert Cray at age 16. “I loved it and thought, ‘I want to be doing this. Why aren’t I on stage?’’’More recently, Davy realised a dream by playing a benefit in San Francisco with Cray’s bassist and drummer. “Five, six years ago I was watching those people, and now I’m on stage with them,” he beams. The name Back Door Slam even comes from a Cray song title. He has had various incarnations of the group since he was 16.

Davy caught the attention of Isle of Man-based management company Running Media, who also manage Corinne Bailey Rae. After seeing his potential at the early age of 17 supporting Chris Difford, they snapped him up. Through Running Media’s in-house label Davy released two EPs and a concert DVD. Then came the SXSW Festival in Austin in 2007, where he began to turn heads in press, encouraging Davy and the band to begin touring extensively all across the US. Through touring and word of mouth, Bill Straw, president of indie label Blix Street Records (home of the late Eva Cassidy) signed Back Door Slam and their debut album “Roll Away” was released in 2007. “I like it that I’m not on a blues-only label,” says Davy. “That limits you.”

Davy has been touring the US over the last two years, playing an astounding four hundred shows around the country. In such a short space of time he has achieved what most musicians can only wish for in a lifetime; appearing on national TV shows such as Jimmy Kimmell and CBS, as well as opening for musical legends such as The Who and Buddy Guy, and playing some of the world’s most prestigious festivals such as Montreal Jazz Festival, SXSW, Bonnaroo and New Orleans.

He may be cooking up a blues storm, but Davy can’t be pigeonholed, and the new, Frampton-produced material proves the point. Davy was in between bandmates, so Frampton plugged the gap by suggesting drummer Fritz Lewak and bassist Kevin McCormick for the studio. “I was in a coffee shop and got a call from Peter, who said, “I think I found some guys. They’re in Jackson Browne’s band”. I nearly dropped my coffee. They were amazing, we really hit it off. We knocked out eight songs in four days.”

Says Frampton: “I wanted Davy to walk into a situation with a ready-made rhythm section that had played together before. I didn’t want them to sound like a session band.’’ The producer then added Benmont Tench, the longtime keyboard mainstay from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, for authentic, bluesy-psychedelic organ riffs. “When I suggested Benmont, I think Davy dropped his coffee again,’’ says Frampton. “But Benmont worked on seven tracks in three and a half hours and his playing on every one was fresh. I’ve always been a huge fan of his.’’

Clearly, “Coming Up For Air” shows Davy experimenting with styles that borrow from the greats, but let’s not get bogged down with the history, because he doesn’t. “I want to do this until the day I die. You’ve got to progress and keep moving on,” says Davy. “I see a long career for him,” adds Frampton. An ever-growing army of Davy Knowles fans obviously agree.

www.davyknowles.com