the submersible dirigible

Some critics and historians have stated that Skip James’ sound emerged from a “Bentonia school” of blues performers noted for falsetto vocal delivery, elaborate finger picking on the guitar, and dark lyrical thematics, creating what David Evans described as “…some of the eeriest, loneliest, and deepest blues sounds ever recorded” (13). James’ musical development was indeed influenced by the presence of blues artists in and around his hometown, and the styles of other Bentonia musicians, notably Jack Owens, are quite similar to that of James in terms of vocal delivery and instrumental technique. However, the idea of region as a overriding force in the creation of blues musical styles, while doubtlessly accountable for certain instrumental and musical consistencies within individual areas of the country, can nonetheless be at least partially discounted by the reality of the early twentieth-century bluesman’s lifestyle. As Stephen Calt describes him, the bluesman of the period was often only a semi-professional performer, playing for a few extra dollars (or sometimes just a hot meal) at juke joints and plantation parties after long days as a sharecropper, timber cutter, or levee worker. Steady jobs were scarce in the South at this time, and men were often forced to travel to wherever work was available, their music accompanying them on their journeys. Therefore, even an isolated “plantation town” like Bentonia was sometimes host to performers from all across the South, and this mobility allowed different blues styles to travel to and influence musicians throughout the region (14). This puts the idea of a wholly unique “Bentonia sound” within the domain of reasonable doubt, and thus the “Bentonian” elements within the music of Owens and others from the region can be regarded not as the manifestation of a regional stylistic phenomenon, but as a conscious emulation of the music of Skip James, which is the only music from the “Bentonia tradition” that has truly endured and which was itself influenced both by the work of migratory musicians like Henry Stuckey and Rich Griffin, and by the influential recordings of performers like Leroy Carr (James himself recorded a memorable version of Carr’s “How Long Blues”). It was James’ unique utilization of the stylistic properties of blues music, rather than the influences of a particular regional style, which gave his work its unparalleled formal distinction, and which made it unmistakably his own. — Can’t Find No Heaven: The Mysteries Of Skip James by Matt R. Lohr