Skip James

After a long absence from the public eye, James was rediscovered in 1964 by blues enthusiasts including John Fahey, helping further the blues and folk music revival of the 1950s and early 1960s. During this period, James appeared at folk and blues festivals, gave concerts around the country, and recorded several albums for various record labels. His songs have influenced generations of musicians and have been adapted by numerous artists. He has been hailed as "one of the seminal figures of the blues".

• Name — Skip James • Birth Name — Nehemiah Curtis James • Born — 9 June 1902 • Birthplace — Bentonia, Mississippi, U.S. • Died — 3 October 1969 • Place of death — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. • Genre — Delta blues, country blues, gospel blues • Occupation — * Musician • songwriter • preacher • Instrument — * Vocals • guitar • piano • Years Active — 1931, 1964–1969 • Label — * Paramount • Storyville • Vanguard

Nehemiah Curtis James was born on June 9, 1902, in a segregated hospital near Bentonia, Mississippi. His mother Phyllis worked as a cook and babysitter on the Woodbine Plantation, which was 15 miles south of Yazoo City. His father Eddie James, a bootlegger who was described as a "local lowlife" by Stephen Calt, left the family around 1907. He later reformed and became a preacher. As a youth, James heard local musicians, such as Henry Stuckey, from whom he learned to play the guitar, and the brothers Charlie and Jesse Sims. His mother bought him a $2.50 guitar, which was his first instrument. James later began playing the organ in his teens. He left Bentonia in 1919, and began working on road construction and levee-building crews in Mississippi in the early 1920s, and wrote what is perhaps his earliest song, "Illinois Blues", about his experiences as a laborer. He began playing the guitar in open D-minor tuning.

For most of the 1920s, James worked a series of illicit jobs, such as bootlegging, gambling, and procuring. His lifestyle was reportedly so "unbridled", that when he returned to Bentonia from Dallas, Texas, in 1929, he was met with local reports of his supposed "violent death". He was met with the same reports five years earlier when he returned from Arkansas. That same year, in 1929, he met a local musician Johnny Temple, who became his first protégé. The 23 year old Temple learned how to play in cross-note tuning, which was then unknown to musicians who were from the Jackson area, and also attempted to copy James' high falsetto voice, until he advised Temple to sing in his natural voice. James also operated a music school for would-be blues musicians in Jackson, giving lessons on guitar, piano, and even violin. James continued working locally as a street singer. In early 1931, James auditioned for the record shop owner and talent scout H. C. Speir in Jackson, Mississippi. Speir placed blues performers with various record labels, including Paramount Records. On the strength of this audition, James traveled to Grafton, Wisconsin, to record for Paramount. His 1931 records are considered idiosyncratic among prewar blues recordings and formed the basis of his reputation as a musician. As was typical of his era, James recorded various styles of music – blues, spirituals, cover versions, and original compositions – frequently blurring the lines between genres and sources. For example, "I'm So Glad" was derived from a 1927 song, "So Tired", by Art Sizemore and George A. Little, recorded in 1928 by Gene Austin and by Lonnie Johnson (Johnson's version was entitled "I'm So Tired of Livin' All Alone"). James's biographer Stephen Calt, echoing the opinion of several music critics, considered the finished product totally original, "one of the most extraordinary examples of fingerpicking found in guitar music". Several other recordings from the Grafton session, such as "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues", "Devil Got My Woman", "Jesus Is a Mighty Good Leader", and "22-20 Blues" (the basis of Robert Johnson's better-known "32-20 Blues"), have been similarly influential. Very few original copies of James's Paramount 78 rpm records have survived. The Great Depression struck just as James's recordings were hitting the market. Sales were poor as a result, and he gave up performing the blues to become the choir director in his father's church. James was later an ordained minister in Baptist and Methodist churches, but the extent of his involvement in religious activities is unknown.

James was described as aloof and moody. The musicologist Dick Spottswood commented, "Skip James, you never knew. Skip could be sunshine, or thunder and lightning depending on his whim of the moment".

The guitar that James played in his 1931 sessions is now generally accepted to have been a 12-string Stella guitar restrung as a six-string. When he was rediscovered in the 1960s, he typically played a Gibson J-185, Gibson J-45, Martin D-18, and a Martin D-28.

James often played guitar with an open D-minor tuning (D–A–D–F–A–D), resulting in the "deep" sound of the 1931 recordings. He reportedly learned this tuning from his musical mentor, the unrecorded bluesman Henry Stuckey, who in turn was said to have acquired it from Bahamian soldiers during the First World War, despite the fact that his service card shows he did not serve overseas. Robert Johnson also recorded in this tuning, his "Hell Hound on My Trail" being based on James's "Devil Got My Woman." James's classically informed fingerpicking style was fast and clean, using the entire register of the guitar, with heavy, hypnotic bass lines. His style of playing had more in common with the Piedmont blues of the East Coast than with the Delta blues of his native Mississippi.

• A-side — B-side • | "Cherry Ball Blues" — |"Hard Time Killing Floor Blues" • | "22-20 Blues" — | "If You Haven't Any Hay Get on Down the Road" • | "Illinois Blues" — | "Yola My Blues Away" • | "How Long 'Buck'" — | "Little Cow and Calf Is Gonna Die Blues" • | "Devil Got My Woman" — | "Cypress Grove Blues" • | "I'm So Glad" — | "Special Rider Blues" • | "Four O'Clock Blues" — | "Hard Luck Child" • | "Jesus Is a Mighty Good Leader" — | "Be Ready When He Comes" • | "Drunken Spree" — | "What Am I to Do" Much like his later recordings, these initial records have been repeatedly reissued and are scattered among many compilations released by small labels. Consequently, many of these releases are of varying quality. There are at least two releases that have been digitally remastered, listed below. • Complete 1931 Recordings In Chronological Order (Document DOCD-5005, 1990) remastered by Hans Klement • The Complete Early Recordings of Skip James - 1930 (Yazoo 2009, 1994) remastered by Rich Nevins, Joe Tarantino, and Scott Levitin