Program #242 (April 30 at 8:00pm and May 1 at 3:00pm)
Nehemiah Curtis “Skip” James possessed one of the most hauntingly distinctive styles in the blues, and, according to some who knew him, one of the most disturbed and complex personalities as well.
His vocals, guitar work, and song constructions raise the blues to a level of high art and rare beauty, yet his subject matter and presentation were of such a heavy, cheerless nature that Mississippi bluesman Johnnie Temple, a contemporary of Skip’s, told an interviewer that James’ music was so sad that people would pay him not to perform. Listeners can be entranced and fascinated by Skip James’ music, but they are not likely to find in it the entertainment value and uplifting power to soothe a troubled mind that is characteristic of other blues greats.
By: Associated Press
AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis
Bluesman Jimmy Duck Holmes plays a quick ditty at the Blue Front Cafe in Bentonia, Miss., Jan. 21, 2021. Holmes
With callused hands, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes plucks an old acoustic guitar at the juke joint his parents started more than 70 years ago. He checks the cafe’s inventory: jars of pickled eggs, beef jerky, pork hocks. He tends to the wood-burning stove, made from an oil-field pipe. And every morning, he eventually settles in on a stool behind the counter, waiting hoping that someone who wants to hear him play will drop in.
Holmes, 73, is the last Bentonia bluesman, the carrier of a dying musical and oral storytelling tradition born in this Mississippi town of less than 500 people. And now, he’s a Grammy-nominated artist, with a recent nod in the Best Traditional Blues Album category for Cypress Grove, a record he hopes will help preserve the Bentonia blues long after he�
BENTONIA, Miss. (AP) — With callused hands, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes plucks an old acoustic guitar at the juke joint his parents started more than 70 years ago. He checks the
In Mississippi, small-town bluesman keeps aging music alive southbendtribune.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from southbendtribune.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
With callused hands, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes plucks an old acoustic guitar at the juke joint his parents started more than 70 years ago. He checks the cafe’s inventory: jars of pickled eggs, beef jerky, pork hocks. He tends to the wood-burning stove, made from an oil-field pipe. And every morning, he eventually settles in on…