Saturday, June 10, 2017

Skip James: A Most Hard Man

"The people are drifting from door to door. Can't find no heaven, I don't care where they go."


-Skip James


With these lyrics from his song "Hard Time KiIlin' Floor Blues," Skip James summed up the arc of his life's journey. From his birth on a Mississippi plantation; his travels as an itinerant musician, gambler, and levee camp worker; his 1931 Paramount recording session; disillusionment with the music industry; and conversion to preacher to his rediscovery in the 1960s, James's life was marked by hard times and opportunities lost or denied. Even when he had a brief career resurgence in the '60s, he had to deal with severe health problems that made it difficult for him to exploit his newfound notoriety. In spite of this, the singular quality of his music shone through. His unusual guitar tuning and eerie falsetto vocals set him apart from other artists of the blues revival like Mississippi John Hurt and Son House. One musician who was inspired by his approach was the late Piedmont blues guitarist John Cephas. A 34-year-old carpenter and amateur musician when he met James in 1964, Cephas says, "I was so enchanted and fascinated with his sound that I practiced and listened to him for hours on end, just trying to figure out what he was doing."


Born in Yazoo City, Mississippi, in 1902, Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James was raised on the Woodbine plantation (owned by the Whitehead family) near the town of Bentonia. An only child, he was tended to mainly by his grandparents and mother, who worked as a cook and house servant for the Whiteheads. His absent father was a minister, guitarist, and bootlegger, occupations that James would eventually take up himself, along with piano player, levee camp worker, and gambler.

James's mother gave him a guitar when he was around eight and he took to it quickly, learning his signature ?-minor tuning (E B E G B E) from a local musician, Henry Stuckey. Stuckey picked up the tuning while in France during World War I, from some soldiers who were said to be from the Bahamas. When he returned from the war he showed it to James and possibly to Jack Owens, another Bentonia musician whose guitar style is similar to James's. James called the tuning "cross note," and he used it on many of the songs he would record at his Paramount recording session in 1931. He also developed a unique piano style that sounded more like his contrapuntal guitar picking than the common left-hand-bass, right-hand-melody technique.

In 1931, James auditioned for furniture store owner and talent scout H.C. Speir, of Jackson, Mississippi. Speir's business included selling phonograph players and records to play on them. He had a disc cutter at his store and was able to make demo recordings and refer musicians to record companies. He eventually became a well-known broker and sent many artists, including Robert Johnson, Son House, Bo Carter, and Charley Patton, off to be recorded by major labels, which kept his store supplied with a steady stream of what were then called "race records" to sell to the African-American community. Speir liked James's music and referred him to one of the prominent race record labels, Paramount. James cut 26 songs at the Paramount Records studio in Grafton, Wisconsin, 18 of which were released.

He accepted a royalty deal rather than a per-song payment for his records, confident that they would sell, but the Great Depression had a bad effect on record sales in general and James's were no exception. Speir wanted him to return to Paramount for another session later that year, but by then James had "gotten religion" and bitterly refused the offer, deciding to follow his father's footsteps into preaching and turn his back on music. He referred to the music business as a "barrel of crabs" and didn't return to the recording studio until the '60s.

James was one of a small group of musicians who were "rediscovered" in the '60s by a handful of blues aficionados, including John Fahey, Bill Barth, Tom Hoskins, and Dick Spottswood. But James's dark, eerie, introspective brand of blues didn't prove as popular as Mississippi John Hurt's sunny, bouncy tunes and, consequently, James had a tougher time getting gigs. He was also ill during these years, and eventually died of cancer in 1969. He did, however, get to make some more recordings and perform at a few high-profile festivals, influencing players like Al Wilson and Henry Vestine, who went on to form Canned Heat, and he had a brief financial windfall with royalties from Cream's version of his song "I'm So Glad," recorded on Fresh Cream.

James's haunting vocals, complex picking style, dark and devil-ridden themes, and unique song forms set him apart as a one-ofa-kind artist who doesn't fit neatly into any of the blues categories that have developed over the years. In this lesson exploring his guitar style, we'll take a look at the tuning that gave most of his guitar songs the singular major/ minor tonality that was his fingerprint, his contrapuntal picking style, and his adventurous harmonic sense.

E-Minor Tuning

The tuning that James learned from Henry Stuckey (E B E G B E) is usually called E minor but James didn't generally use it to play in minor keys. He would usually fret the third string at the first fret to give the song a major tonality and then use the open string (the minor third) in conjunction with slides and pull-offs for bluesy melodic runs.

On his Paramount session, however, he pitched the tuning lower, to D minor. On his 1960s cuts he was closer to F minor.

A Short History of the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund


A Short History of the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Slim Harpo Keeps a Delta Dancing Tradition Hot on Christmas

Dancing to the Blues on Christmas Eve
in the Rosedale Courthouse - A Delta Tradition

In 1889, Rosedale started a tradition of dancing in its dignified Hall of Justice on Christmas Eve. The festive dancing helped to open the new brick courthouse it s initial year and continued in the same building until 1923, when Florence Sillers Ogden and her husband Harry led the Grand March. Ezelle Watson's Orchestra also performed to open the second brick courthouse. She recalled how her mother and father waltzed to the strains of "Over the Waves" and whooped it up to "Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight," by Beauregarde's Orchestra out of Memphis back in 1889.

Handy's Band out of Memphis furnished the music when Ogden was young, and he performed such tunes as "Memphis Blues," "Alexander's Rag Time Band," and "Clover Blossoms." And his trumpet was golden, she recalled. As I have said before, dancing in the Courthouse is an old Delta custom. Time was when Greenville, Cleveland, Friar's Point, Clarksdale, Tunica and Rosedale danced in their courthouses. In 1961, only Rosedale clung to the tradition. And they still hired blues musicians to perform at the dance. 

"Inside it is Christmassy and all cozy with the fire burning briskly on the hearth, the holly on the mantelpiece catching its glow. But alas! No mistletoe for me. But soon the clock points to the hour. It is time to put on my silver slippers and go dancing. It is time for the Christmas dance at the Courthouse, when all the young Delta will assemble to rock and roll, do the "twist" and the "cha-cha" and the "bop" to the hot music of Slim Harpo out of Baton Rouge, to such tunes as "Ya-Ya", "Blue Hawaii," and "The Twist." Unseemly conduct, Grandma would call it."

Click here for a complete discography of Slim Harpo's Music


Monday, June 5, 2017

Papa Don McMinn - Pale Prince of Beale

Walls Man, Touched by Blues' Magic, 
Finds Music runs in Family 
By Judith Z. Marrs - Clarion Ledger - Sep 6, 1998

The Clarksdale Press Register, Nov 6, 1989.
WALLS — When Don McMinn was 5 years old, he sat on the front porch of the home of the formerly enslaved Washington Peeples in Lindon Isle, Arkansas, and listened to the blues for the first time. 

The magic of the music must have inspired McMinn. Throughout the rest of his life, he has been singing and playing the blues himself. 

"The blues is about life. It's about sadness and happy times boogie woogie. It's real," said McMinn. 

"From the age of five I had a feel for my instrument. My Uncle Robert McMinn taught me a few chords, and I went on from there," he said. 

At neighborhood gatherings, McMinn listened to the strumming of guitars and lots of singing. Music grew on him like kudzu grows in the Delta. The blues rooted itself in the heart and soul of McMinn and then it spread to his own children: Lori-na sings, Doug plays drums and Rome plays bass.

Clarksdale Press 
Register, Dec 1996.
.
"My daughter, Tina, who will graduate from the University of Memphis next month, specializes in business and finance so she will help us with the business end of our profession if the big bucks ever come," he said. "Nicole is a sophomore at Horn Lake High School, but has got on-sight geography lessons when she toured with us in Europe."

When McMinn was in high school at Hutchinson, Kan., he formed his first band and traveled the carnival circuit. In 1963 he relocated to Memphis where he cut a record at Hi Records. Recording artists such as Ace Cannon and Gene Simmons contributed to his music and it was released on the M.O.C. record label. 

McMinn then went on the road with his band, The Jukes, playing bars through the 1960s.

"Then I got a real job as a welder. It was time to get off the road," he said. "It became old and boring and I was ready for a real life. I never gave up my music, though. It stays in your blood. When you're on the road so much you pray you can get yourself a clone. You love playing but you miss your family. My family is number one with me."

McMinn missed playing and after getting to know people at Stacks, he resumed his music career. In 1973 he began playing at Bad Bob's in Memphis where Jerry Lee Lewis found him.

In 1985, McMinn was playing a club, The Memphis Restaurant, in Little Rock, Ark., where Beale 
Street redeveloper John Elkington decided to eat dinner one night. Fate became reality and Elkington told McMinn to call him on Monday about an idea he had about putting a restaurant together. 

McMinn said, "I told him 'OK' but thought this was just more talk like I had heard from many others. My attitude was 'yeah right'."

McMinn went on and called on Monday and was told to meet Elkington the next day at a meeting with Preston Lamb, Cynthia Hamm, and Davis Tillman who were all part of a team for refurbishing Beale Street.

They came up with the name Rum Boogie Cafe, named after an old Three Stooges episode where they had an adventure on Rum Boogie Island — and the rest is history. 

"Since then I have played Europe again and will be going to Belgium with my sons, Doug and Rome, for the More Blues Festival in August," said McMinn.

For an interview with Papa Don McMinn,. click HERE

May the Pale Prince of Beale Street forever rest in peace!