Greatest of the Delta Blues Singers is an album by American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 blues singer Skip James

Skip James

Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James was an American Delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter, born in Bentonia, Mississippi, died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....

, released in 1965. It was his first album released after his rediscovery in 1964.

History

James had recorded for various labels in the 1930s without success. He was "rediscovered" in 1964 by blues enthusiasts John Fahey

John Fahey (musician)

John Fahey was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who pioneered the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as the foundation of American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the...

, Bill Barth

Bill Barth

William Henry "Bill" Barth was an American blues guitarist who, along with John Fahey and Henry Vestine, located 1930s blues great Skip James in a hospital in Tunica, Mississippi in 1964.-Memphis Country Blues Society:Barth co-founded the Memphis Country Blues Society, a non-profit organization...

 and Henry Vestine

Henry Vestine

Henry Charles Vestine a.k.a. "The Sunflower", was an American guitar player known mainly as a member of the band Canned Heat. He was with the group from its start in 1966 to July 1969...

 who found him in a hospital in Tunica, Mississippi

Tunica, Mississippi

Tunica is a town in Tunica County, Mississippi, United States, located near the Mississippi River. Until the early 1990s the town was one of the most impoverished places in the United States, semi-famous for the particularly deprived neighbourhood known as "Sugar Ditch Alley", named for the open...

.

Fahey and his partner in Takoma Records

Takoma Records

Takoma Records was a small but influential record label founded by John Fahey in the late 1950s.. It was named after Fahey's hometown, the Washington, D.C. suburb of Takoma Park, Maryland.-History:...

, ED Denson

ED Denson

Eugene "ED" Denson is an American music group manager, producer, record label owner, and - later - lawyer, who has made notable contributions to folk, blues, and early San Francisco rock.-Biography:Denson was born in Washington D.C. in 1940...

, signed James to a recording contract and he recorded at Gene Rosethal's basement studio in Silver Spring, Maryland. Due to legal issues concerning the rights to the songs, the recording was not released by Takoma. It was eventually released as She Lyin'

She Lyin'

She Lyin' is an album by American blues singer Skip James, recorded in 1964 and released in 1993. It was originally recorded for Takoma Records and was James' first recording since his rediscovery in 1964.-History:...

.

The material for Greatest of the Delta Blues Singers was recorded in the home of musicologist and author Richard K. Spottswood

Richard K. Spottswood

Richard K. "Dick" Spottswood is a musicologist and author from Maryland who has catalogued and been responsible for the reissue of many thousands of recordings of vernacular music in the United States. He earned his B.A. from the University of Maryland in 1960, and his Master's degree in Library...

 in December 1964 and completed in July 1965. It was released on Spottswood's Melodeon Records

Melodeon Records

Melodeon Records is a record label set up in 1964 by Richard K. Spottswood.Melodeon Records issued - among others - the first recordings after his 'rediscovery' of Skip James and the 1940 Library Of Congress Sessions of Blind Willie McTell. In 1970 the label was acquired by Arnold S. Caplin's...

 which was later sold to Biograph Records

Biograph Records

Biograph Records is a record label founded in 1967 by Arnold S. Caplin. It specialized in early American ragtime, jazz, and blues music. Biograph was the first label to issue records made from piano rolls created by Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton and George Gershwin.In 2002, Biograph Records was...

. Biograph reissued the material under the same title adding "Motherless & Fatherless", "Skip's Worried Blues", "Catfish Blues" and "Cypress Grove Blues". They also reissued the recordings with a different track order as A Tribute to Skip James and two other tracks from the 1964 sessions were included on King of the Delta Blues Singers. Biograph also released the material on CD as Hard Time Killing Floor Blues in 2003.

Reception

In his review for Allmusic, Jason Ankeny wrote: "Although his guitar skills have lost a step in the intervening years, the passage of time has only made James' vocals that much more expressive; his new material is especially devastating, in particular "Sick Bed Blues" and "Washington D.C. Hospital Center Blues," both detailing the fight with cancer that eventually led to his death."

Track listing

Personnel

• Skip James
  Skip James
  Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James was an American Delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter, born in Bentonia, Mississippi, died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....
  
   – vocals, guitar, piano

Production notes:

• Richard K. Spottswood
  Richard K. Spottswood
  Richard K. "Dick" Spottswood is a musicologist and author from Maryland who has catalogued and been responsible for the reissue of many thousands of recordings of vernacular music in the United States. He earned his B.A. from the University of Maryland in 1960, and his Master's degree in Library...
  
  – producer
• Louisa Spottswood – producer
• Pete Kuykendall – engineer
• Bob O'Connell – cover drawing
• Bob Turner – cover design
• Ed Morris – liner notes

External links

• Skip James Illustrated discography