Skip James

As any blues scholar will tell you, Skip James' legacy rests on precisely 18 tunes recorded for the Paramount label in 1931. Just about every Delta bluesman to follow was in some way in debt to the man. Unfortunately, the only way to anthologize this historic music is to use scratchy 78s as source material. Of all the collections out there, Yazoo's Complete Early Recordings is generally acknowledged as the best, even if crackling and distortion still permeate the music. But hey, it's Skip James!