Skip James – Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order: 1931 / Document CD-5005

Description

Document Records Compact Disc Docd-5005

1931
01 – Devil got my woman
02 – Cypress grove blues
03 – Cherry ball blues
04 – Illinois blues
05 – Four o`clock blues
06 – Hard-luck child
07 – Hard time killin` floor blues
08 – Yola my blues away
09 – Jesus is a mighty good leader
10 – Be ready when he comes
11 – Drunken spree
12 – I`m so glad
13 – Special rider blues
14 – How long buck
15 – Little cow and calf is gonna die blues
16 – What am I to do blues
17 – 22-20 blues
18 – If you haven`t any hay get on down the road
Skip James; vocal, guitar, piano.
Mississippi blues, Miississippi blues guitar, country blues guitar.

Informative booklet notes by Chris Smith.

[Review by Steve Leggett]
With his high, eerie falsetto and haunting guitar tunings, Skip James sounds like no other country blues player. Although his lyrics were generally drawn from the floating bag of clichés that showed up in countless blues songs, his atmospheric recordings, done in 1931 for Paramount, gave James’ songs the appearance of poignancy, and his sad, lonely vocal style made them all seem heartfelt. When he was rediscovered in the mid-’60s, his skills were still intact, and he made several solid recordings for Vanguard and other labels, but his reputation really rests on the 18 tracks from the 1930s presented here. Devil Got My Woman, Cypress Grove Blues, and Hard Time Killin’ Floor Blues are all one of a kind classics, as are I’m So Glad (later covered by The Cream) and Illinois Blues, both of which contain kinetic acoustic guitar breaks that simply explode out of the verses. James was also a pretty interesting piano player, and his playing on If You Haven’t Any Hay Get on Down the Road sounds again like no other country blues pianist. This collection duplicates what is found on both the Document and Yazoo releases, and it matters little which one you pick up. All three come from the same sources, and all have the same amount of snaps, cracks, and hailstone hiss in all the same places. Don’t let that stop you, though, because these are beautiful and maverick performances, and essential for a good blues collection.