The Complete Early Recordings - Skip James (1931)

Born in Mississippi in 1902, Nehemiah “Skip” James was a blues musician, share cropper, bootlegger and preacher. Recording songs in the late 20’s and into the 30’s, James disappeared from the blues/music scene and drifted in and out of music until he was discovered in a hospital by a group of blues enthusiasts that included Henry Vestine of Canned Heat in 1964. 

James would pick where he left off in the 30’s, recording for the Vanguard label. The blues revival of the 60’s was good for sales and James found a new generation of fans, including Eric Clapton, Dion & Deep Purple amongst others. The song, “Devil Got My Woman” was featured prominently in the 2000 film Ghost World.

Among the earliest and most influential Delta bluesmen to record, Skip James was the best known proponent of the so-called Bentonia school of blues players, a genre strain invested with as much fanciful scholarly "research" as any. Coupling an oddball guitar tuning set against eerie, falsetto vocals, James's early recordings could make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. 

Even more surprising was when blues scholars rediscovered him in the '60s and found his singing and playing skills intact. Influencing everyone from a young Robert Johnson (James' "Devil Got My Woman" became the basis of Johnson's "Hellhound on My Trail") to Eric Clapton (who recorded James's "I'm So Glad" on the first Cream album), Skip James's music, while from a commonly shared regional tradition, remains infused with his own unique personal spirit. 


This collection contains all the Skip James tracks released by Paramount records in 1931 in chronological order.

The Complete Early Recordings by Skip James is one of the most essential of blues albums. With a voice that sounds like wind carving away rock (he sings in a high, quavering falsetto ringed with knowledge and pain), James laid down some of the most chilling acoustic blues ever set to wax.

"Devil Got My Woman," which opens this collection, is a case in point: a snaking siren song that leads down to the root of loss and mortal dread (if that description sounds like an exaggeration, listen to the track). James's deft, fingerpicking is everywhere in evidence, especially on the uncharacteristically ebullient "I'm So Glad." The surface noise of these old 78s is a distraction, but even that can't dilute the unbelievable power of these performances.


Skip James (vocals, guitar, piano).


 "...this haunting collection...has the power to catch you by the throat. Using his high, keening voice and refined modal guitar picking, James infuses `rags' and blues with an inner-directed melancholy that perfectly fits his lyrics on death, desolation, devilry and the Depression..." - Down Beat Magazine (8/95, p.55) 

 "...Enigmatic and fascinating..." - Mojo Magazine  (4/01, p.44)



10-page booklet scanned and included