Friday, July 19, 2024

Hot Wax: Skip James’ Today! (1966/2024)

Skip James' Today!
Born in 1902 in Bentonia, Mississippi – on the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta region – Nehemiah “Skip” James was a contemporary of bluesmen like Charley Patton, Son House, and Mississippi John Hurt, and a major influence on a young Robert Johnson, although he’s seldom spoken of with the same reverence afforded those legends. But James’ spine-chilling falsetto vocals and his unusual open D-minor guitar tuning created a sound unlike any other bluesman treading the boards of the Southern U.S. in the early 1920s, creating what is now arguably known as the “Bentonia School” style of blues.

James is said to have become enamored of the blues as a child after seeing local musician Henry Stuckey perform (sadly, no recordings of Stuckey have ever surfaced). His mother bought him a guitar for $2.50 and he picked up some technique from Stuckey and a little more from the brothers Charlie and Jesse Sims. John Hurt was also a major influence on the young musician as he worked to develop his own unique style. James was a natural musician, and he also took piano lessons – his only formal musical training – quitting after two sessions at $1.50 each, feeling that the fee was too much for the family budget.

Skip James’ Paramount Recordings


As a teenager, James worked in sawmills and on local levee and road construction crews, and he began travelling in the 1920s, picking up jobs as a laborer where he could, supplementing his income via less-reputable vocations as gambling and bootlegging. Returning to Bentonia in 1929, he became a street singer, and opened a school for aspiring blues musicians, offering guitar and piano lessons. In 1931, James auditioned for record store owner and Paramount Records talent scout H.C. Speir in Jackson, Mississippi. James’ performance earned him a two-year contract with the label.

James travelled to Grafton, Wisconsin to record for Paramount, cutting at least 18 sides for the label (James is said to have remembered recording 26 songs in two days), including such now-classic blues standards as “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues,” “Devil Got My Woman,” “22-20 Blues” (the inspiration for Robert Johnson’s “32-20 Blues”), and “I’m So Glad.” Paramount released nine 78RPM records by James, which sold poorly due to the effects of the Great Depression. Today, James is considered one of the most significant pre-war blues artists and those 78s are scarcer than hen’s teeth, with only 15 records known to have survived.

Skip James Rediscovered


That was it for Skip James for better than three decades, the artist sinking into obscurity, seldom performing, and with no recordings known of from this period. James became the choir director for his father’s church, subsequently becoming an ordained Baptist minister. On a quest to rediscover the blues idols of their record collections, guitarists John Fahey, Bill Barth (The Insect Trust), and Henry Vestine (Canned Heat) tracked James down in 1964 to a hospital in Tunica, Mississippi. Finding that his skills were intact, they convinced the reticent bluesman to return to his craft. Along with the parallel “rediscovery” of James’ contemporary Son House, the two men helped fuel the folk-blues revival of the 1960s.

James performed at the Newport Folk Festival in July 1964, his first moment onstage in over 30 years. Coaxed into the studio, James subsequently recorded albums for Fahey’s Takoma Records label, musicologist Richard K. Spottswood’s Melodeon Records, and for the legendary folk label, Vanguard Records. It was James’ two Vanguard albums, 1966’s Today! and 1968’s Devil Got My Woman, that provided many modern blues fans with their first hearing of the idiosyncratic bluesman. Along with his 1931 recordings for Paramount – reissued in the 1970s and ‘80s by labels like Spokane Records, Yazoo, and Biograph – these Vanguard releases represent James’ blues legacy.    

Skip James’ Today!


Recently-reissued with re-mastered sound and an all-around sonic upgrade, James’ Today! is the place to start for curious newcomers to what is one of the most original artists of the Delta blues era. Unlike its many cover versions, James’ contemporary reading of “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues” (one of his earlier, Paramount sides) is slowed-down, deliberate, and absolutely menacing, the singer’s chilling vocals riding uneasily above filigree, finger-picked acoustic guitar. The newer “Washington D.C. Hospital Center Blues,” inspired no doubt by James’ health issues at the time, is just as bracing as his earlier material, with high-lonesome vocals and gentle, yet intricate guitar picking. “Drunken Spree” is one of the jauntier revisitations of James’ early songs, the 1966 recording capturing his complex finger-picking and lower-register vocals.

By contrast, “Cherry Ball Blues” puts James’ falsetto vocals front and center, his haltering performance accompanied by delicate guitar licks. James’ cover of Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell’s 1928 single “How Long” (a/k/a “How Long Blues”) showcases James’ not-inconsiderable piano skills with a jazzy mid-tempo arrangement that is both winsome and engaging, including a brief barrelhouse-styled solo. James’ piano-pounding on “All Night Long” hints at a New Orleans influence while “Cypress Grove” provides undeniable proof of the guitarist’s immense six-string skills. James’ “I’m So Glad” is an inspired spiritual whose origins likely pre-date the blues. The artist’s best-known song – due to an upbeat cover on Eric Clapton and Cream’s 1966 debut album, Fresh Cream – James’ short, sharp reading of the song is provided one of his most uplifting and spry vocal deliveries, accompanied by a simply mesmerizing and rapid-paced guitar strum.  

The Reverend’s Bottom Line


Skip James’ Today! offers the best of both worlds – James’ early Paramount sides re-recorded by the artist and preserved with modern 1960s recording technology – as well as a scattering of new songs performed in James’ unyielding, undeniable personal style. James’ performances are sung with intensity and passion, attracting mid-‘60s folk-blues audiences like catnip. James followed up Today! with Devil Got My Woman, a similar collection of both old school and new material that would be James’ last recording before his death in 1969 from cancer.

Still, James’ legacy has only grown larger since his passing, with numerous repackaged albums released with often alarming frequency. Those prolific last five years of James’ life resulted in dozens of recordings and outtakes that have been sliced ‘n’ diced over the years to create numerous new titles (buyer beware!), while his various live performances from the 1960s have been similarly pillaged for profit. Today! stands as one of the crown jewels of James’ relatively sparse catalog of originals, serving as a stepping stone to the artist’s earlier recordings. Today! – along with Devil Got My Woman and Yazoo’s The Complete 1931 Session – are the basis for James’ reputation, and are essential additions to the collection of any avid blues fan.

Buy the album from Amazon: Skip James’ Today! 

No comments: