Open D Minor (Skip James Tuning)

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In honor of our moderator DADFAD


Tips for Playing Guitar like Skip James

Bentonia Blues

(1) Study the Recordings

Skip James's recording career consists of two parts, the 1930s and the 1960s. Dick Waterman tells the story of seeing James perform at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964. In Waterman's words, James seemed to have stepped directly out of the 1930s into 1964. made his first recordings for the Paramount Record Label in 1931. He followed the same trajectory that many Mississippi bluesmen followed in the early 1930s. He auditioned for H.C Speir in Jackson, Mississippi. Speir was a white businessman and record store owner who made demo recordings and used the demos to land a record deal for record labels that were interested in making race records. James was signed to a record deal with Paramount on the strength of the demo recordings. The recordings were made in Grafton Wisconsin. The Paramount recordings included all James's classic songs such as Devil Got My Woman, Cypress Grove Blues and Hard Time Killin' Floor. James would revisit these songs upon his discovery in the 1960s folk and blues revival. Skip James never received payment for the 1931 recordings, the Depression soon followed, and James abandoned his musical career for the next thirty years.

(2)The Bentonia Style

James's guitar style is very idiosyncratic and it set him apart from the other Delta Bluesmen. James style of playing is referred to as the Bentonia-style. James was from Bentonia, Mississippi and Bentonia is credited with its own style of guitar players. Jimmie Duck Holmes is a contemporary Mississippi blues player that still plays the Bentonia style. James timing, rhythm, finger-style technique and his own peculiar tuning have little in common with Robert Johnson or Son House. There is some similarity to Mississippi John Hurt in terms of their sophisticated fingerpicking techniques. John Hurt and Son House's 1960s recordings lack the subtly and finesse of their original recordings from the 1930s (Hurt) and '40s (House) but Comparing the original 1931 recordings with the recordings from the 1960s shoes that James's guitar style remained remarkably consistent. The first step in getting a grip on James's unique guitar style is to listening carefully and painstakingly the recordings. There are also several videos of live performances, including the Newport festival, available on youtube.com. Pay special attention to his right hand.

(3) James's Guitar Tuning

One of the characteristics that distinguished James from the other Mississippi blues players was his choice of tuning. Open tunings, such as open E and open G, were commonly by used by Johnson and Son House as well as many others but James used a minor tuning rather than a major tuning. He turned his guitar to open D minor, DADFAD. The result is a darker and more melancholy sound than the major opening tunings produce. James also sang in a high falsetto voice that added to the ethereal and other worldly sound of his music. Another significant difference between James and his contemporaries was how he used the open tunings. Opening tunings were primarily used in order to facilitate slide guitar but James didn't play slide guitar. He used to the open D minor tuning to play his own version of finger-style guitar. The result was a droning-like effect that dissimilar to some styles of African and even Middle-east style forms of music. The origins of James's tuning is not certain but one story is that he learned from an local guitar player named Henry Stuckey. Stuckey claims he picked up the tuning from soldiers from the Bahamas during World War I.

(4) James's Chords and Finger Technique

James was a gifted piano player as well as a guitarist and his piano technique certainly influenced his guitar playing. In addition to his thumb, he plucked the strings with his index, middle, and ring finger of his right hand. His technique has more in common with classical guitar technique than with his the blues technique of his contemporaries. Another interesting feature of James's sound is that he tended to syat away from the IV chord and relied primarily on the I and V chords. This added a more primitive sound that a typical 12 bar blues that cycles though the I, IV, and V chords. James also used his own unique chord forms that work well in the open D minor tuning. He used as many open strings as possible when playing chords. Since his songs were all in D minor, he could play the root of I chord on the 6th or 4th string and the root of the V chord on the 5th string. He moved up and down the fretboard playing different inversions of the chord in combination with the open strings.

[dadfad]

Good post, Jim. I've liked his stuff for a long time. My first trip down to Mississippi was to try to find him. (I didn't know he'd died a few months earlier in Washington DC.)

In Yazoo I found out he'd died but I met a guitarist named Jack Owens who knew Skip and played in mostly open-minors. (Back then I wasn't even "blues-aware" enough to know that Skip's stuff was in open-minors until Jack told me.) He didn't really play stuff like Skip played. His stuff was more "up" and "danceable." He sometimes played in his own juke-joint. (Although before he died Jack did play a bit of Skip's stuff after he was semi-"re-discovered" and it was expected of him to play "Bentonia-style" (as in "like Skip James").

Actually I learned how to play in Skip's style several years later when I met Bowling Green John Cephas. I'd known John Jackson for a while and once I asked him if he ever did anything in open-minors. He said he didn't, but he knew a man over in the next county who'd known Skip and was "real good playing Skippy's tunes" and we drove over and he introduced me to John (Cephas). I learned a lot from him over the years, not only open-minors, but Piedmont Blues in general. Next to John Jackson, I probably learned more from him than anyone else.

It's funny, but while Skip James' tunes are played in open-Dm (or once in awhile open-Em, same thing relatively speaking), they actually are in the major key. (They all resolve on D-major.) I think it's the interplay between the playing mainly in Dm and finally resolving on the major that creates the "deep blue" feeling of most of Skip's tunes.

I kind of relate it to the way that in most blues, they're in a major key, but the lead-work is played in the minor-pentatonic scale (or actually the major pent-scale of the tonic-key's flatted-3rd. That third-note, whether being a major-third or flatted-third, is the difference between major and minor. The interplay of the tonic-chord between its third and flatted-third (virtually the same notes as it's minor-pent) gives it the "blues." And Skip in effect used the open-tuning of an entire minor-chord against the resolved major. Which gives it that deep-blues feel. (Does that make any sense to anyone? LOL)

Anyway, Skip did some great stuff. I actually prefer his later recording to his originals (which I rarely do). I think not only was the sound quality better, but he'd actually improved as a guitarist in those thirty-odd years. Slightly more laid-back and flowing, not quite as "frantic" in some ways.

His only tune (that I know of) in open-G is also a great one, Special Rider Blues.

[Kendra G.]

Good reading the above.. tuned to open dm...
getting comfortable here... liking it a lot..
Oh Brother ... got it on my mind... nice
to find this post..

[Lefteris]

Wow. Thanks for that post! I've been playing Hard Time Killing floor with that exact technique (He used as many open strings as possible when playing chords. Since his songs were all in D minor, he could play the root of I chord on the 6th or 4th string and the root of the V chord on the 5th string. He moved up and down the fretboard playing different inversions of the chord in combination with the open strings.). I'm an amateur so its great to know Skip played it like that as well!!