Jimmy ‘Duck’ Holmes – Bentonia Blues/Right Now
Crossnote Records -2025
www.facebook.com/jimmyduckholmes
5 tracks; 41 minutes
Jimmy ‘Duck’ Holmes is now 78 years old and known as the last exponent of Bentonia Blues, a style of acoustic blues originally brought to everyone’s awareness by Skip James. He is a former Grammy nominee (for 2019 album Cypress Grove) and has run the Blue Front Cafe in Bentonia, Mississippi for many years. This recording was made there on 8 April 2024, live to tape, no overdubs or post-recording ‘fixes’. There is no audience noise, so it appears that this was recorded in the cafe, but not at a live gig. There are just three musicians involved: Jimmy plays guitar and sings, Ryan Lee Crosby plays twelve string guitar and Grant Smith adds calabash and percussion. The five lengthy songs are all credited to Jimmy, though they do recycle blues lyrics we are all familiar with, in the best traditions of the blues!
The two opening tracks both run over ten minutes. Jimmy goes straight into “Devil In The Dark” and the style is immediately clear as Jimmy plays the rhythm, Grant adds percussion effects and Ryan adds some guitar frills between vocal verses. Lyrical references to “black cat crossing my trail” and “must have been the Devil, had a long barbed tail” add to the feel of the song. “Hurry Hurry” finds an impatient Jimmy who is not keen to wait until tomorrow, “tomorrow might be too late”. “Knick Knacks All Day” includes familiar lyrics like “I ain’t never loved but four women in my life – my mama, my sister, sweetheart and should a been wife”; the shortest track here, this one is faded out at just over five minutes. “Hairdresser” starts with a visit to the Ladies’ hairdresser but then digresses into one of those familiar blues tales of infidelity, the girl coming home late looking disheveled! His suspicions are clearly confirmed by a late night telephone call that claims that “another mule is kicking in your stall”, another familiar line from classic blues tunes. The percussion comes across strongly on this one and Ryan’s twelve string work sits nicely over Jimmy’s steady pulse. The final track is “All Night Long”, Jimmy drinking and failing to find sleep as he awaits the return of his woman.
The music throughout is all very similarly paced, so those who like variety in their music may not enjoy this album. However, fans of Jimmy and the Bentonia school of blues will, and that is probably the main audience for this latest release from a stalwart of the blues traditions.
