Skip James
Blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter from Mississippi
Today on Ecléctico you're listening to Skip James, a blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist from Yazoo County, Mississippi. James recorded this song and other now-classic blues songs for Paramount Records in 1931 and then drifted in and mostly out of music for over thirty years. He was found in a hospital in 1964 by some blues music enthusiasts, and subsequently "rediscovered" as part of the blues and folk revival of the early sixties. His popularity and stature grew throughout the decade, recording and performing until his passing in 1969.
Listen, then stick around and click through to read the essay by David Yaffe linked below. You'll dig it.
"Devil Got My Woman" by Skip James
1931 | Blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter from Mississippi
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- Not available on Bandcamp
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Go deeper with this excerpt from and a link to an essay by David Yaffe on his newsletter, Trouble Man: Musings of David Yaffe:
Guy has girl, loses girl, Satan is somehow involved, but then when is he not? We have heard this story a million times, but this is the one. It’s not even about the girl or the devil, but that place in between. It is in the melisma, the quavers and moans and riffs that sound as close to the other side as a voice and guitar could possibly be. A mind gets to ramblin’ like a wild geese.
