(1) Records to be searched
Skip James’s career is divided into two parts, the 1930s and the 1960s. Dick Waterman tells the story of seeing James perform at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964. 1930 in 1964 attacked. his first recordings recording of the Paramount Label in 1931, he followed the same trajectory that many Mississippi Blues followed in the early 1930s. . He heard of H.C. Speir in Jackson, Mississippi. Speir was a white businessman and a record store owner who made demo records and used the demos a lot for electronic land. There were labels of information that were in generally concerned with making records. James was signed to a record deal with the king on the strength of the popular records. Registrations made in Grafton, Wisconsin. The Paramount album included all of James’ classic songs such as Devil My Woman, Cypress Blues and Hard Time Killin’ Floor. James revisited these songs during his discovery of the 1960s folk and blues revival. Skip James was never paid for his letters in 1931, the Depression soon followed, and James abandoned his music career for the next thirty years.
(2) Bentonia Style‘s speech
James’ guitar playing is very idiosyncratic and sets him apart from other Delta Bluesmen. James’ style of playing is called Bentonia-style. James is from Bentonia, Mississippi and Bentonia is called his guitar players Jimmie Duck Holmes is a current Mississippi Blue player who still plays the Bentonian style. James has little in common with Robert JohnsonorSon of the House in timing, rhythm, finger style and his own gap. i>. There is a certain similarity with Mississippi’s John Hurt with their sophisticated technical techniques. John Hurt and Son House’s 1960s recordings lack the finesse and detail of the original recordings from the 1930s (Hurt) and ’40s (House) but compare the original 1931 recordings with recordings from the 1960s shoes with which James’ style of guitar remained perfectly suited. The first step in picking up on James’ unique guitar style is to carefully and diligently listen to the records. There are also some films of live shows, including the Newport festival, available on youtube.com. I sat down to the right.
(3) James Guitar Tuning
One of the characteristics that distinguished James from other Mississippi Blues players was his choice of tuning. Open tunings, such as open E and open G, are commonly used by Johnson and Son House and many others, but James prefers minor tuning rather than tuning. He turned his guitar to D minor to open DADFAD. The effect is darker and more melancholic than the larger gap. James also sang in a high falsetto voice which added to the ethereal and otherworldly sounds of the music. Another notable difference between James and his contemporaries was the way he used the opener. The opening tunings are primarily used to facilitate slide guitar but James does not play slide plays. It is used in open D minor to play your own version of pretend guitar. It produced a droning-like effect unlike some types of African and even Middle-Eastern styles of music. James’ origins are not certain but one story is that he learned from a local guitar player named Henry Stuckey. Stuckey claims that he was recruited by soldiers from the Bahamas in World War-ii”>I
(4) James’s art of strings and fingers
James was gifted with the keyboard as well as the guitar and certainly influenced his guitar playing technique. Add the thumb, index, middle, and ring strings of the right hand. His technique is more in line with classical guitar technique than with the technique of blues contemporaries. Another interesting feature of James’ sound is that he tended to syat from the 4th string and relied mainly on the 1st and 5th strings. This added a more primitive sound, such as a typical 12-bar blues that cycles the chords I, IV, V. James also uniquely used his chord shapes that work well in the open D minor tuning. He used as many open chords as possible to play with the chords. Since all his songs were in D minor, he can have the root of the 1st chord on the 6th chord or the 4th chord on the 6th chord and the root of the 5th chord on the 5th chord. He moves up and down the fretboard playing different chord inversions in combination with the open chords.
Report:
- paramountshome.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=114:-intervie: Interview With Skip James Cousin li>
- www.bentoniablues.com/
