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Skip James |
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©ÒÄݮɴÁ¡GThe 20th Century -- First Half ¤G¤Q¥@¬ö -- «e¥b |
¸ê®Æ´£¨ÑªÌ¡GPhoto credit - English Department of FJU |
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Skip James
1902-1969 |
By some Skip James is considered to be a
musical genius. Skip mastered both piano and guitar early in life and
recorded 17 selections for Paramount in 1931. All of his surviving work
from this period displays a superlative and unique style on both
instruments. Skip's falsetto singing set against his rythmic and
erratic instrumentals can only be called haunting. The Depression was
responsible for lack of sales and Skip drifted back into obscurity
until blues collector, John Fahey, found him in 1964 and brought him to
the Newport Folk Festival.
--It is from King Biscuit
Time Blues Page
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[Skip James] was a solitary, secretive
person who never had his own family, regarded women with suspicious
contempt, and was seemingly wary of the entire human race, several
members of which he had coolly eliminated in shoot-outs. He
was mistrustful of merriment: once he passed a caravan of cars
departing from a wedding. When he heard the honking, he said, with no
attempt at humor: "Bet you won't hear that when they get
divorced." His bleak outlook made blues songs a natural
outlet for him.
--It is from an interview done by
the Skip James's
biographer Stephen Calt
at Xoom.com.
There is a very brief review of
Calt's biography at the Quarterly
Black Review.
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Blues has always had a reputation as the
music that expresses the darker side of the soul: sad music, downer
music, etc. Anyone who actually listens to much blues soon
realizes that the music runs the entire spectrum of feeling. And an
awful lot of it [especially the most popular blues] is "up" music: jump
blues, fun blues, party blues, etc. But, in most of the compositions of
Skip James, the blues actually is what it's reputed to be. He couldn't
be farther from jump blues; he couldn't do party music if he tried.
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Songs:
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