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| The Complete Early Recordings of Skip James | 
 enlarge | List Price: $17.98
Buy New: $11.24
You Save: $6.74 (37%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 32 reviews)
Sales Rank: 14119
Category: Music
Artist: Skip James
Publisher: Yazoo
Studio: Yazoo
Manufacturer: Yazoo
Label: Yazoo
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 5 x 0.4
MPN: 2009
UPC: 016351200921
EAN: 0016351200921
ASIN: B000000G8L
Release Date: September 15, 1994
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Devil Got My Woman | | • | Cypress Grove Blues | | • | Little Cow and Calf Is Gonna Die Blues | | • | Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues | | • | Drunken Spree | | • | Cherry Ball Blues | | • | Jesus Is a Mighty Good Leader - Skip James, Traditional | | • | Illinois Blues | | • | How Long Blues - Skip James, Carr, Leroy | | • | 4 O'Clock Blues - Skip James, Durham | | • | 22-20 Blues | | • | Hard Luck Child | | • | If You Haven't Any Hay Get on Down the Road | | • | Be Ready When He Comes | | • | Yola My Blues Away | | • | I'm So Glad | | • | What Am I to Do Blues | | • | Special Rider Blues |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
With an unmistakable falsetto delivery, Skip James created some of history's eeriest blues records. His blues sounds dark and mysterious, using odd tunings, structures, and rhythms, and exploring gloomy lyrical themes. Unlike other bluesmen of the day, James's music was personal and bleak, played for his own emotional release and not for purposes of entertainment. "Devil Got My Woman," "Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues," "Hard Luck Child," and "Special Rider Blues" convey sorrow and misery like few others can. Uptempo numbers such as the classic "I'm So Glad" and "Drunken Spree," which resembles the hillbilly traditional "Late Last Night," showcase his forceful guitar picking while rags "Little Cow and Calf" and the jumpy "How Long 'Buck'" feature his unique piano work. --Marc Greilsamer
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| Customer Reviews: Read 27 more reviews...
 "I'd Rather Be The Devil Than Be That Woman's Man"- Again November 23, 2008
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 "Devil Got My Woman" that got me into political trouble (this is the most fervent rendition of several that I have heard on various CD compilations). 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.
The most haunting music I know May 20, 2008
The 1931 recordings of Skip James are simply among the strangest and most chilling music in recorded history. I first heard some of them as a teenager in the 1980s, after I had already listened to James' younger contemporary Robert Johnson; Johnson's music is equally spooked in terms of lyrical content, but his music at any rate always has a solid rhythmic pulse. James' music was less celebrated (perhaps because, unlike Johnson, he had lived long enough to be rediscovered in the 1960s), but in retrospect it was far more scary. Less earthy and worldly than Johnson's, it seems to float in the air, an eerie keening sound emphasised by James' unorthodox approach to rhythm and blurry falsetto voice. (Johnson, by contrast, could sound positively lewd; James doesn't sound entirely human.)
The stories about James that have circulated since his death do not paint a picture of a lovable old master of the blues. He was no genial B.B. King or avuncular Muddy Waters. In old age he seems to have been a touchy, somewhat paranoid, arrogant man, contemptuous of the white blues fans who celebrated him but equally disdainful of those of his peers who were still playing. Although he was an ordained minister who had spent thirty years leading the choir in his brother's church, he carried a gun and had used it at least once.
As time goes by and the early blues recordings are assessed and re-assessed by successive generations, the map of the Delta blues is continually redrawn. Charley Patton assumes a more central position than was previously thought. Masters such as Son House, Tommy Johnson and Ishmon Bracey are given the respect that they deserved all along. Robert Johnson's legacy has been rethought and de-sentimentalised, and he appears as more of an all-round musical genius, a brilliant consolidator, as much of a vaudeville entertainer as a man facing his own demons. Skip James, however, still remains the chilliest and most enigmatic of all the Delta blues musicians of that classic period. These recordings loom out of the past with their weird intensity intact. His later 1960s recordings do nothing to clear up the mystery. James never sounded like he was trying to make people happy with his music. The story goes that when he was a street musician during the Depression, people used to actually pay him to stop playing, because they felt bad enough as it was without him and his songs making them feel worse.
Listen to these recordings and you'll believe it.
Real Gritty Blues March 17, 2008
If you're looking for genuine heartful music, go with the early recordings. He's just not the same with the clean, crisp sound of a remastered CD. Blues is one of those types of music that sounds better with sand between its teeth. And really, if you have a record player, you're better off getting a record from him to play the music how it was supposed to be played.
Mp3s are not 250 kbps October 18, 2007
I am dissappointed that the mp3s in this album were advertised as 250 kbps but they are not, they average 150 kbps. I am hesitant to buy mp3s from Amazon anymore. Althou the album is magnificient.
awesome! October 19, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
skip james is one of those true masters. there is so much to say about him, the way he sang, his funny tunings, the lyrics he wrote. he was an absolute genius. stay away from early recordings if you have a problem with lo-fi sound, but if you do you're cheating yourself. Amazing!!!
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