Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James (June
9, 1902 – October 3, 1969) was an American Delta blues singer,
guitarist, pianist and songwriter.
Biography
Early
years James was born near Bentonia, Mississippi. His father was a
converted bootlegger turned preacher. As a youth, James heard local
musicians such as Henry Stuckey and brothers Charlie and Jesse Sims and
began playing the organ in his teens. He worked on road construction and
levee-building crews in his native Mississippi in the early 1920s, and
wrote what is perhaps his earliest song, "Illinois Blues", about his
experiences as a laborer. Later in the '20s he sharecropped and made
bootleg whiskey in the Bentonia area. He began playing guitar in open
D-minor tuning and developed a three-finger picking technique that he
would use to great effect on his recordings. In addition, he began to
practice piano-playing, drawing inspiration from the Mississippi blues
pianist Little Brother Montgomery.
1920s and '30s In early 1931, James auditioned for Jackson, Mississippi record
shop owner and talent scout H. C. Speir, who placed blues performers
with a variety of record labels including Paramount Records. On the
strength of this audition, Skip James traveled to Grafton, Wisconsin to
record for Paramount. James's 1931 work is considered idiosyncratic
among pre-war blues recordings, and forms the basis of his reputation as
a musician.
As is typical of his era, James recorded a variety of material —
blues and 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 by Art Sizemore and George A.
Little entitled "So Tired", which had been recorded in 1928 by both Gene
Austin and Lonnie Johnson (the latter under the title "I'm So Tired of
Livin' All Alone"). James changed the song's lyrics, transforming it
with his virtuoso technique, moaning delivery, and keen sense of tone.
Biographer Stephen Calt, echoing the opinion of several critics,
considered the finished product totally original, "one of the most
extraordinary examples of fingerpicking found in guitar music."
Several of the Grafton recordings, such as "Hard Time Killing Floor
Blues", "Devil Got My Woman", "Jesus Is A Mighty Good Leader", and
"22-20 Blues" (the basis for Robert Johnson's better-known "32-20
Blues"), have proven similarly influential. Very few original copies of
James's Paramount 78s have survived.
The Great Depression struck just as James' recordings were hitting
the market. Sales were poor as a result, and James gave up performing
the blues to become the choir director in his father's church. Skip
James himself was later ordained as a minister in both the Baptist and
Methodist denominations, but his involvement in religious activities was
sketchy.
Disappearance, rediscovery, and legacy For the next thirty years, James recorded nothing and drifted
in and out of music. He was virtually unknown to listeners until about
1960. In 1964 blues enthusiasts John Fahey, Bill Barth and Henry Vestine
found him in a hospital in Tunica, Mississippi. According to Calt, the
"rediscovery" of both Skip James and of Son House at virtually the same
moment was the start of the "blues revival" in America. In July 1964
James, along with other rediscovered performers, appeared at the Newport
Folk Festival. Several photographs by Dick Waterman captured this first
performance in over 30 years. Throughout the remainder of the decade, he
recorded for the Takoma, Melodeon, and Vanguard labels and played
various engagements until his death in 1969.
Although James was not initially covered as frequently as other
rediscovered musicians, British rock band Cream recorded two versions of
"I'm So Glad" (a studio version and a live version), providing James the
only windfall of his career. Despite the band's well-known musicianship,
Cream based their version on James's simplified '60s recording, instead
of the faster, more intricate 1931 original. Deep Purple covered "I'm So
Glad" on their first record, Shades of Deep Purple. Singer Dion DiMucci
released an album in November 2007 entitled Son of Skip James.
Since his death, James's music has become more available and
prevalent than during his lifetime — his 1931 recordings, along with
several rediscovery recordings and concerts, have found their way on to
numerous compact discs, drifting in and out of print. His influence is
still felt among contemporary bluesmen. James also left a mark on
21st-century Hollywood, as well, with Chris Thomas King's cover of "Hard
Time Killing Floor Blues" on O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the 1931
"Devil Got My Woman" featured prominently in the plot and soundtrack of
Ghost World. In recent times, British post-rock band Hope of the States
released a song partially focused on the life of Skip James entitled
"Nehemiah", which charted at number 30 in the UK charts. "He's a Mighty
Good Leader" was also covered by Beck on his 1994 album One Foot in the
Grave.
Personality Skip James was known to be an aloof and idiosyncratic artist.
He seldom socialized with other bluesmen and fans. Like John Fahey,
James loathed the so-called "folkie" scene of the 1960s. He held a high
regard for his own work and was reluctant to share musical ideas with
other performers. James epitomized the complicated personality typical
of many bluesmen, living a hard and sometimes reckless life while
holding austere religious beliefs. Though the lyrical content of some of
his songs led to the characterization of James as a misogynist, he
remained with his wife Lorenzo (niece of Mississippi John Hurt) until
his death. He is buried with his wife at a private cemetery ("Merion
Memorial Park") just outside of Philadelphia in Bala Cynwyd,
Pennsylvania.
Musical style Skip James' sound was unique to the blues genre and although he
influenced other blues musicians, such as Robert Johnson, few have been
able to recreate his style. His high pitched voice seems otherworldly
and frail, even in his early recordings. He is said to have had a
'preaching' style of singing and was known to also sing spirituals.
James is regarded as a gifted and distinctive guitarist. He often used
an open D-minor tuning (DADFAD) which gave his instrument a dark and
desolate tone. James reportedly learned this tuning from his musical
mentor, the unrecorded bluesman Henry Stuckey. Stuckey in turn was said
to have acquired it from Bahamanian soldiers during the First World War.
The famed Robert Johnson also recorded in this "Bentonia" tuning (see
Below), his "Hell Hound On My Trail" being based on the James opus
"Devil Got My Woman." James' classically-informed, finger-picking style
was fast and clean, using the entire register of the guitar with heavy,
hypnotic bass lines. James' style of playing had more in common with the
Piedmont blues of the East Coast than with the Delta blues of his native
Mississippi.
Skip James' signature lick in open D-minor involves a fingered slide
of the third string from the second to the fourth fret; a slide on the
same string from the fourth back to the second fret; striking the fourth
string open; then hammering the third string in the first fret. James
used this simple but effective lick in many of his songs, especially
"Devil Got My Woman."
"Bentonia School" Skip James has often been called one of the exponents of the
Bentonia School of blues playing, which was later carried on by
guitarist and singer Jack Owens. Calt, in his 1994 biography of James,
I'd Rather Be the Devil: Skip James and the Blues, maintains that there
was indeed no style of blues that originated in Bentonia, and that this
is simply a notion of later blues writers who overestimated the
provinciality of Mississippi during the early 20th century, when
railways linked small towns, and who failed to see that in the case of
Owens, "the 'tradition' he bore primarily consisted of musical scraps
from James' table." Whatever the truth is regarding the origins of
James' style, or of the "Bentonia School," he certainly stands as one of
the most original of all blues performers.
