Craft Recordings' and Acoustic Sounds continue their partnership with the second title in the Bluesville Series reboot, this time featuring Mississippi Delta bluesman Skip James' seminal 1966 Vanguard recording, Today! The LP was pressed by Acoustic Sounds' Quality Record Pressing (QRP) on 180 gram vinyl; Craft and QRP are also collaborating on the Contemporary Jazz reissue series. This is the second LP released in the Bluesville Series, and offers yet another sparsely-instrumented, all-acoustic session in the same vein as the series' debut, John Lee Hooker's Burning Hell (you can read my review of that classic recording HERE). 180 gram LPs, CDs, and 24-bit/192kHz high resolution digital files of Skip James' Today! can be purchased from the Bluesville web store HERE, as well as from a diverse array of online retailers or from your local independent record store. And the high resolution digital files for Today! are making their debut on all major streaming services.
Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James (1902-1969) was an American Delta blues singer, songwriter, guitarist, and pianist; his intricate fingerpicking technique and unusual minor-key guitar tunings, along with an eerily effective falsetto vocal delivery gave him a very distinctive place among Mississippi bluesmen. James was born near Bentonia, Mississippi; his mother was a cook and his father was a local bootlegger who later reformed and became a preacher. James' mother paid $2.50 for his first guitar, and he learned how to play it from local bluesman Henry "Son" Stuckey, who taught him in what has become known as the "Bentonia" style, which featured an unusual open D-minor tuning that became Skip James' stock and trade. James left Bentonia at age 17 and often worked on road crews, which served as the inspiration for some of his earliest compositions. Over the next decade, James dabbled in lawlessness, including bootlegging, pimping, and gambling—his reputation for leading an intensely wild and intemperate lifestyle soon led to premature rumors of his violent death. James returned to Bentonia, where he became a street singer, and he soon came to the attention of Paramount Records in Minneapolis. After cutting a number of 78s, the Great Depression hit full-force, and James' record sales slumped; with no other real recourse, he again returned to Bentonia, where he worked as a musician in his father's church. His Paramount 78's all but vanished into obscurity, and James didn't make another record for 33 years.
Around 1960, there was a renewed interest in Skip James and his music, but a number of prominent blues singers—including Big Joe Williams—were certain that James had been murdered in Mississippi years before. In 1964, legendary 12-string guitarist and producer John Fahey led a group of blues enthusiasts to Mississippi to gather information on James, and amazingly found him alive and in a hospital in Tunica, Mississippi, just south of Memphis, Tennessee. On the same trip, they also encountered legendary blues master Son House, and getting both himself and Skip James onstage at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival and back in the studio quickly became their priorities. Fahey's actions in getting Son House and Skip James back into the public eye have widely been credited with hastening the 1960's "blues revival" in the US and abroad. Skip James ended up recording four studio albums, including Today! prior to his death in 1969, and additional posthumously released albums and compilations have been issued since. His 1960's recordings and his legendary Paramount 78's inspired the likes of Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and countless other musicians.
Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab cut new lacquers for Today! from the original analog master tapes, using an all analog process throughout the mastering chain. The AAA LP was pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Quality Records Pressing, and the Vanguard "Recordings For The Connoisseur" label that was used on the 1966 original was also used here, giving Craft's new reissue a very authentic look. Today! features a near-perfect replica of the original's heavy tip-on outer jacket, with crisp album art sourced from Vanguard's vaults. The LP arrived inserted into a Craft-branded rice paper inner sleeve, which helps free it from static build-up and paper dust accumulation, and also guards against scratching. Bluesville LP releases feature a blue and silver custom OBI strip that touts the Bluesville logo and offers a capsule of recording/remastering information, giving the LP a very distinctive appearance that will enhance its value to collectors.
Skip James, Today! 180 Gram LP, Vanguard Records, $30 MSRP
Once John Fahey and his cohorts established that Skip James wasn't actually dead, they proceeded to expedite their plans to get him on a national stage at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival. And considering his precarious health situation, they especially wanted to get him into a studio in fairly short order. With the hopes of preserving a legacy of his life's work that might have been lost from the nearly non-existent Paramount 78's from many decades ago. They wanted to shine a bright light on Skip James' body of work, but due to contractual issues, the Takoma label recordings made by Fahey weren't released for years.
The sessions for Today! took place at Vanguard Records' West 23rd Street Studios in New York City, on January 9-10, 1966, and the album was produced by Maynard and Seymour Solomon. An intimate affair, the album features only the acoustic guitar and voice of Skip James on most of the album; two tracks, "How Long" and "All Night Long" feature James on piano, and he's accompanied on upright bass on the former by Russ Savakus. Half the tunes that appear on Today! were among those on the 78 sides James originally recorded for Paramount in 1931. Including many of his classics, like "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues," "Special Rider Blues," "Drunken Spree," "Cherryball Blues," and of course, "I'm So Glad," which Eric Clapton and Cream reworked on Fresh Cream later that same year. Their version of the song saturated the airwaves, propelling the album to Gold sales on both sides of the Atlantic, bringing even more attention to Skip James' music.
Despite James' age and physical condition, his dynamic fingerpicking style and the nearly spooky quality of his falsetto vocals seemingly hadn't suffered at all; his performances on Today! are a clear testament to his importance in the canon of legendary Mississippi Delta bluesmen. And on the pair of tunes where James performs at the piano, he does a credible job with his barrelhouse, boogie n' blues approach, which is perfectly in tune with the album's vibe. Today! isn't only a great-sounding album, it's an album filled with authentic blues that are steeped in the classic Delta tradition, delivered in Skip James' inimitable performance style.
Skip James at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival, courtesy of David Gahr and Wiki Commons.
Today! Captures a Legendary Bluesman at His Peak!
Clicking my name in the header allows you to see the full complement of components in my dual audio systems. I used my all-analog setup to evaluate Craft and QRP's 180 gram LP of Skip James' Today! The analog system features a pair of Vanguard Scout standmount compact monitor loudspeakers; they're in the same vein as classic British monitor designs like the LS3/5As, and run in tandem with a Caldera 10 subwoofer. That setup also incorporates the excellent PS Audio Stellar phono preamp, and everything is powered by my recently upgraded PrimaLuna EVO 300 tube integrated amplifier, which now features a matched quad of premium Sovtek 6550 power tubes and a matched pair of vintage NOS Brimar 12AU7 input tubes. LP playback was handled by my ProJect Classic EVO turntable that's mounted with an Ortofon Quintet Bronze MC cartridge. It's a vintage-styled, all-analog system that hearkens to the analog glory days of yore, but provides a sound that's modern and powerful with unrestrained dynamics. And was perfect for this very intimate, all-acoustic session that mostly features Skip James accompanied by his guitar and piano.
Today! is another superb release in the Bluesville label reboot. The analog master tapes were obviously still in excellent condition, and the pressing from QRP is immaculate, with beautifully glossy surfaces and perfectly pristine record grooves. The Craft/QRP reissue of Today! came from Vanguard's stereo release, and because the album essentially only featured Skip James and his acoustic guitar (Russ Savakus played acoustic bass on one track), the stereo image is mostly focused in the center of the soundstage. That said, you still get a lot of ambience from the recording studio that spreads far beyond the loudspeakers during playback—it's a huge soundstage, and an especially superb sounding LP, considering it dates from nearly sixty years ago! For whatever reason, I wasn't really expecting either of Craft's new Bluesville reissues to offer audiophile-grade sonics, but both surprisingly have, and I'm totally delighted!
Craft also supplied me with the 24-bit/192kHz high resolution digital files for Today!, and I listened to those using my digital source system. Which includes streaming equipment from Euphony Audio, a new Topping DAC, with my PS Audio preamplifier sending the signal to my Naiu Labs Ella amplifier. A pair of new production KLH Model Five loudspeakers and dual Vanguard Caldera 10 subs provided the sound transmission. With a new software upgrade to the Euphony streamer and the DSD-direct capability of the Topping DAC, I transcoded the high resolution PCM files to DSD, and the sound was astonishingly good, presenting a palpable illusion of Skip James live in my listening room. DSD offers a more analog-like sound quality that was very close to that of the excellent 180 gram LP on the all-analog system, and the digital files absolutely sparkled during playback. As the line between analog and good digital gets increasingly blurred, even if LPs aren't your thing, the high-resolution digital downloads will give you everything you need to experience the Bluesville Records series reboot in all its glory.
Final Thoughts
The influence of Skip James on generations of blues players can't be overstated, even though his handful of Paramount 78s had early on virtually disappeared from the public's collective consciousness. Even Robert Johnson—yes, that Robert Johnson—reworked some of Skip James' originals for his own albums—now that's the definition of respect! At the point of Skip James' rediscovery, he was definitely in less than ideal health, but you'd never know it by listening to his practically perfect performances on Today! Which sound as though Skip James might have stepped out of the 1930s, still in his prime, to record them on modern equipment. James was obviously still at the height of his powers, and perhaps was experiencing his second wind with a reinvigorated career and the sudden renewal of interest in his music. Adding icing to an already good situation, he received $10,000 in royalties from Cream's use of his tune "I'm So Glad" on Fresh Cream, which probably helped shore up his personal finances significantly.
Today! was only reissued once by Vanguard; that happened in 1968, following the LP's original release in 1966 in both mono and stereo formats. Other than that, it's only been reissued once in 2011 as a limited edition Record Store Day mono LP. No original Vanguard LPs for Today!—mono or stereo—are currently listed on Discogs, with only copies of the 1968 repress that are in VG or VG+ condition going for around $100. That makes this new Craft/Acoustic Sounds Bluesville reissue a tremendous bargain at only $30, and I'd wager it sounds soooo much better than the lot of them. Craft's reissue of Today! is a nearly perfect LP, and even with Skip James in the twilight of his career, he gives astonishing performances of many of his classic tunes. Many thanks to Jacob Mask at Craft Recordings for his assistance and for the opportunity; Skip James' Today! comes very highly recommended!
Craft Recordings
All images courtesy of Craft Recordings and Wiki Commons.
