Customer Reviews

Heroes of the Blues: The Very Best of Skip James

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Shout Factory continues its excellent "Heroes of the Blues" series with one of the most haunting voices in music - that of Bentonia, Mississippi's Skip James. The collection concentrates mainly on his reimergence in the mid-1960s, with the exception of the two opening tracks taken from his 1931 Paramount recording session. The bulk of the release is made up of recordings James made for Biograph in 1964, which were recorded just shortly after his rediscovery earlier that year. Equally impressive and distinctive on piano as he was on guitar, the set also highlights his unique piano style as demonstrated on "22-20 Blues" and "How Long Blues." Although not listed, those looking for a recording of his most popular piece, "The Devil Got My Woman," can find a stirring six-minute 1964 version on track 6, listed mistakenly as "How Long Blues," (which actually appears as track 5 but titled "61 Highway.") With an interest in Skip James at an all-time high thanks in part to James' high-profile inclusion in the Martin Scorsese PBS blues series, and to a lesser extent, the strong role his music played in the 2001 film "Ghost World," this set happily brings some of his fine postwar recordings to a whole new generation just discovering his genius.

I think I first heard the name Skip James associated with John Martyn's "I'd Rather Be the Devil". Then I saw that he'd penned an old Cream hit "I'm so Glad". I finally got around to picking up some of Skip's stuff. Man, this is something else. Nevermind Robert Johnson's Hellhound... Me thinks the Hellhound actually caught up with Skip James. The guitar playing is superb and that voice... downright spooky at times!

There are many great tunes here, I think I like Cherry Ball blues the best. The only complaint I have is that the 5 piano pieces are all "front-loaded" onto the disk. Make no mistake, those tracks are very good (remind me of Thelonius Monk's playing) but the real fun starts at track 6 and runs all the way to track 16.

Also note the cover artwork by R. Crumb famous for his Mr Natural comic series in the 60's.

Shout has put together a great package here, the sound is great, the bio is informative, and the artwork is memorable.

If you want to hear a great, original sounding Delta bluesman then this is definitely a disc you want to buy. Start clicking!

You can learn a bit more about skip right here:

http://www.thebluehighway.com/skip.html

The last time that I used this above-titled headline was in a commentary related to Senator Hillary Clinton's late presidential campaign and I caught hell from my feminist friends for it. So I add here blues singer/songwriter Rory Block's translation on her cover version for "political correctness". Okay? "I'd Rather Be The Devil Than Be A Woman To That Man." I would add that one is dealing with the blues we are not talking about any kind of sense of political correctness but the primordial longings unvarnished by the political niceties of that day or this. But enough of that. Let's talk about the legendary Skip James' work.

For those who saw Martin Scorsese six part blues series on PBS you know that one of the segments was directed by Wim Wender's who chose the work of Skip James as a subject for presentation. There Skip's very short recording career (as it turns out early recording career) was highlighted. As others have mentioned Skip James was a Baptist preacher, not a professional musician, so aside from the incredible recording he made for Paramount Records in 1931, he wasn't widely sought after as a performer until the blues revival of the late '50s and early '60s. At that time he came front and center with fellow "discovered" artists like Mississippi John Hurt, Bukka White and Son House. That is the company he properly belongs in and should be compared to.

The contents of this CD only confirm that. His great falsetto voice accompanied by guitar or piano (as a nice change up) hold forth here. Interestingly, the CD features newer arrangements of several songs from James' 1931 Paramount recording, like the well-known title track "61 Highway" (this is the most fervent rendition of several that I have heard on various CD compilations. By the way Mississippi Fred McDowell does a tanked up version of this one, as well). There are also some moodier songs for piano here like the "22-20 Blues" and "Illinois Blues". Also featured here is the classic "I'm So Glad" that Cream turned into a rock classic. The killer on this one though is the haunting "Cherry Ball Blues". Here is the "skinny" though on James. Like a number of blues artists you have to be in the mood and be patience. Then you don't want to turn the damn thing off. That is the case here.

WHAT TO ME WAS DISAPPOINTING ABOUT THIS CD IS THE FACT THAT THESE ARE NOT THE ORIGINAL SKIP JAMES RECORDINGS MADE IN THE 1920'S AND 1930'S WITH THE EXCEPTION OF A COUPLE OF SONGS. HAVING SAID THAT, I AM GLAD THAT I HAVE THESE RECORDINGS. AND I LOVE THE COVER ART BY R. CRUMB. SKIP JAMES WAS NOT YOUR AVERAGE SOUNDING DELTA BLUESMAN, HE HAD A SOUND ALL HIS OWN.

Beautifully cleaned up tracks. On the copy I got the back cover doesn't list "Devil Got My Woman" . Instead a different track 5 called "61 Highway". Luckly the actual cd does have the playlist listed here with "Devil got My woman".