This page contains Skip James songs, albums and video links. Music profile for Skip James with events, tracks, videos, pictures, lyrics and band information.
Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James (June 21, 1902 – October 3, 1969) was an United States|American Delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter.
Biography
Early years
James was born near Bentonia, Mississippi|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 sharecropping system|sharecropped and made moonshine|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|Grafton, Wisconsin to record for Paramount. ... read all
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Black Cat Blues
