Skip James 1920s and 1930s What did James accomplish in the 20s and 30s? In early 1931, James auditioned for the record shop owner and talent scout H. C. Speir in Jackson, Mississippi. Did he get the part he was auditioning for? His 1931 records are considered idiosyncratic among prewar blues recordings and formed the basis of his reputation as a musician. How many people followed his way of doing blues? As was typical of his era, James recorded various styles of music - blues, spirituals, cover versions and original compositions - frequently blurring the lines between genres and sources. How was this received by audiences? "). James's biographer Stephen Calt, echoing the opinion of several music critics, considered the finished product totally original, "one of the most extraordinary examples of fingerpicking found in guitar music". Did he receive any awards? I don't know. Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? The Great Depression struck just as James's recordings were hitting the market. Sales were poor as a result, Did the sales eventually pick up? he gave up performing the blues to become the choir director in his father's church.
Was he satisfied with that?
Was Skip James satisfied with being the choir director in his father's church?
In early 1931, James auditioned for the record shop owner and talent scout H. C. Speir in Jackson, Mississippi. Speir placed blues performers with various record labels, including Paramount Records. On the strength of this audition, James traveled to Grafton, Wisconsin, to record for Paramount. His 1931 records are considered idiosyncratic among prewar blues recordings and formed the basis of his reputation as a musician.  As was typical of his era, James recorded various styles of music - blues, spirituals, cover versions and original compositions - frequently blurring the lines between genres and sources. For example, "I'm So Glad" was derived from a 1927 song, "So Tired", by Art Sizemore and George A. Little, recorded in 1928 by Gene Austin and by Lonnie Johnson (Johnson's version was entitled "I'm So Tired of Livin' All Alone"). James's biographer Stephen Calt, echoing the opinion of several music critics, considered the finished product totally original, "one of the most extraordinary examples of fingerpicking found in guitar music". Several other recordings from the Grafton session, such as "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues", "Devil Got My Woman", "Jesus Is a Mighty Good Leader", and "22-20 Blues" (the basis of Robert Johnson's better-known "32-20 Blues"), have been similarly influential. Very few original copies of James's Paramount 78 rpm records have survived.  The Great Depression struck just as James's recordings were hitting the market. Sales were poor as a result, and he gave up performing the blues to become the choir director in his father's church. James was later an ordained minister in Baptist and Methodist churches, but the extent of his involvement in religious activities is unknown. CANNOTANSWER
James was later an ordained minister in Baptist and Methodist churches, but the extent of his involvement in religious activities is unknown.
Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James (June 9, 1902October 3, 1969) was an American Delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter.

His guitar playing is noted for its dark, minor-key sound, played in an open D-minor tuning with an intricate fingerpicking technique. James first recorded for Paramount Records in 1931, but these recordings sold poorly, having been released during  the Great Depression, and he drifted into obscurity.

After a long absence from the public eye, James was rediscovered in 1964 by blues enthusiasts including John Fahey, helping further the blues and folk music revival of the 1950s and early 1960s. During this period, James appeared at folk and blues festivals, gave concerts around the country, and recorded several albums for various record labels. His songs have influenced generations of musicians and have been adapted by numerous artists.  He has been hailed as "one of the seminal figures of the blues."

Biography

Early years
James was born near Bentonia, Mississippi. His father was a bootlegger who reformed and became a preacher. As a youth, James heard local musicians, such as Henry Stuckey, from whom he learned to play the guitar, and the brothers Charlie and Jesse Sims. James began playing the organ in his teens. He worked on road construction and levee-building crews in Mississippi in the early 1920s and wrote what is perhaps his earliest song, "Illinois Blues", about his experiences as a laborer. He began playing the guitar in open D-minor tuning.

1920s and 1930s
In early 1931, James auditioned for the record shop owner and talent scout H. C. Speir in Jackson, Mississippi. Speir placed blues performers with various record labels, including Paramount Records. On the strength of this audition, James traveled to Grafton, Wisconsin, to record for Paramount. His 1931 records are considered idiosyncratic among prewar blues recordings and formed the basis of his reputation as a musician.

As was typical of his era, James recorded various styles of music – blues, spirituals, cover versions, and original compositions – frequently blurring the lines between genres and sources. For example, "I'm So Glad" was derived from a 1927 song, "So Tired", by Art Sizemore and George A. Little, recorded in 1928 by Gene Austin and by Lonnie Johnson (Johnson's version was entitled "I'm So Tired of Livin' All Alone"). James's biographer Stephen Calt, echoing the opinion of several music critics, considered the finished product totally original, "one of the most extraordinary examples of fingerpicking found in guitar music". Several other recordings from the Grafton session, such as "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues", "Devil Got My Woman", "Jesus Is a Mighty Good Leader", and "22-20 Blues" (the basis of Robert Johnson's better-known "32-20 Blues"), have been similarly influential. Very few original copies of James's Paramount 78 rpm records have survived.

The Great Depression struck just as James's recordings were hitting the market. Sales were poor as a result, and he gave up performing the blues to become the choir director in his father's church. James was later an ordained minister in Baptist and Methodist churches, but the extent of his involvement in religious activities is unknown.

Rediscovery and legacy 
For the next thirty years, James made no known recordings and performed sporadically. He was virtually unknown to the general public until about 1960. In 1964, blues enthusiasts John Fahey, Bill Barth, and Henry Vestine found him in a hospital in Tunica, Mississippi. According to Calt, the "rediscovery" of both James and Son House at virtually the same time was the start of the blues revival in the United States. In July 1964, James and other rediscovered musicians appeared at the Newport Folk Festival. Several photographs by the blues promoter Dick Waterman captured this performance, James's first in over 30 years. James subsequently recorded for Takoma Records, Melodeon Records, and Vanguard Records and performed at various engagements until his death from cancer in 1969.

More of James's recordings have been available since his death than were available during his lifetime. His 1931 recordings and several of his recordings and concerts from the 1960s have been reissued on numerous compact discs, in and out of print. His songs were not initially recorded as frequently as those of other rediscovered blues musicians.  However, the British rock band Cream recorded "I'm So Glad", providing James with $10,000 in royalties, the only windfall of his career. Subsequently, Cream's adaptation was recorded by other groups.  James' "22-20" inspired the name of the English group 22-20s. The British post-rock band Hope of the States released a song partially about the life of James, entitled "Nehemiah", which reached number 30 on the UK Singles Chart.  Only 15 copies of James' original shellac 78 recordings are still in existence, and have become extremely sought after by collectors such as John Tefteller.

In 2004, Wim Wenders directed the film The Soul of a Man (the second part of The Blues, a series produced by Martin Scorsese), focusing on the music of Blind Willie Johnson, J.B. Lenoir and James. Because James had not been filmed before the 1960s, Keith B. Brown played the part of the young James in the documentary.  James' song "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues" was featured in the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou? and included on the soundtrack album.

James was the inspiration for Dion's 2007 blues album, Son of Skip James, which peaked at No. 4.

James was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Bentonia, his hometown.

In 2020, James' song "Devil Got My Woman" was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Personality
James was described as aloof and moody. The musicologist Dick Spottswood commented, "Skip James, you never knew. Skip could be sunshine, or thunder and lightning depending on his whim of the moment".

Musical style

James as guitarist
James often played guitar with an open D-minor tuning (D–A–D–F–A–D), resulting in the "deep" sound of the 1931 recordings. He reportedly learned this tuning from his musical mentor, the unrecorded bluesman Henry Stuckey, who in turn was said to have acquired it from Bahamian soldiers during the First World War, despite the fact that his service card shows he did not serve overseas. Robert Johnson also recorded in this tuning, his "Hell Hound on My Trail" being based on James's "Devil Got My Woman." James's classically informed fingerpicking style was fast and clean, using the entire register of the guitar, with heavy, hypnotic bass lines. His style of playing had more in common with the Piedmont blues of the East Coast than with the Delta blues of his native Mississippi.

The "Bentonia School"
James is sometimes associated with the Bentonia School, which is either a subgenre of blues music or a style of playing it. In a 1994 biography of James, I'd Rather Be the Devil: Skip James and the Blues, Stephen Calt maintained that no style of blues originated in Bentonia and that the "Bentonia School" is simply a notion of later blues writers who overestimated the provinciality of Mississippi during the early 20th century, when railways linked small towns. Calt asserts these writers failed to see that in the case of Bentonia bluesman Jack Owens, "the 'tradition' he bore primarily consisted of musical scraps from James' table". Owens and other musicians who may have been contemporaries of James were not recorded until the revival of interest in blues music in the 1960s. Whether the work of these musicians constituted a "school", and whether James originated it or was a member of it himself, remain open questions. One of the last living links to the original Bentonia school is Jimmy "Duck" Holmes, the owner of the famous Blue Front Cafe in Bentonia, Mississippi. Holmes learned to play in this particular style directly from Henry Stuckey, who reportedly taught James and Owens himself. Accordingly, Duck is called the "last of the Bentonia Bluesmen."

Discography

Paramount 78-RPM records, 1931

Later recordings, 1964–1969
Despite poor health, James recorded several LPs from 1964 to 1969, mostly revisiting his 1931 sides, traditional music, and spirituals, but also including a handful of newly written blues meditating on his illness and convalescence. These five prolific years have not been thoroughly documented: recordings, outtakes, and interviews not released on James's LPs (which have been repeatedly cannibalized and reissued) are scattered among many compilations released by small labels. Previously unreleased performances continue to be found and released but have been left largely unexplained, sometimes hours' worth at a time. Original recordings and reissues are listed below.
Greatest of the Delta Blues Singers (Melodeon, Biograph, 1964)
She Lyin' (Adelphi, 1964; first released by Genes, 1996)
Today! (Vanguard, 1966)
Devil Got My Woman (Vanguard, 1968)
I'm So Glad (Vanguard, 1978)
Live: Boston, 1964 & Philadelphia, 1966 (Document, 1994)
Skip's Piano Blues, 1964 (Genes, 1998)
Blues from the Delta, with two previously unreleased recordings (Vanguard, 1998)
The Complete Early Recordings of Skip James – 1930 (Yazoo, 1994)
The Complete Bloomington, Indiana Concert, March 30, 1968 (Document, 1999)
Skip's Guitar Blues, 1964(?), (Genes, 1999)
Studio Sessions: Rare and Unreleased, 1967 (Vanguard, 2003)
Hard Time Killing Floor Blues (Biograph, 2003†)
Heroes of the Blues: The Very Best of Skip James (Shout!, 2003)
Hard Time (Universe, 2003†)
Cypress Grove Blues (2004)
 Hard Time Killin' Floor (Yazoo 2075, 2005)

References

External links
 Interview with Skip James' surviving cousin

1902 births
1969 deaths
People from Bentonia, Mississippi
American blues singers
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues pianists
American male pianists
Country blues singers
Songwriters from Mississippi
Blues musicians from Mississippi
Blues revival musicians
Country blues musicians
Delta blues musicians
Vanguard Records artists
Deaths from cancer in Mississippi
Paramount Records artists
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American pianists
Guitarists from Mississippi
Mississippi Blues Trail
African-American male songwriters
African-American pianists
African-American guitarists
20th-century African-American male singers
Satisfied is the debut studio album by American country artist Ashley Monroe. It was officially released on May 19, 2009, by Sony Music Entertainment and was produced by Mark Wright.

Satisfied was originally intended for release in the summer of 2006. However, its debut was continually postponed due to the lack of the singles' commercial success. Satisfied spawned the title track and "I Don't Want To" as radio singles, both failing to become major hits on the Billboard country survey. Although an advanced CD copy was issued in 2006, it remained unofficially unreleased for several years. The project was finally released as a music download to online retailers in 2009.

Background and content 
Ashley Monroe was signed to Nashville's division of Sony Music Entertainment after securing a publishing contract at age nineteen. She began recording music for the album shortly after. The material chosen for Satisfied focused on emotions associated with the death of her father. As a teenager, Monroe's father died from Pancreatic cancer. Matt Clark of Engine 145 described the album's emotional depth, stating, "Satisfied is the culmination of six years of therapeutic and deeply personal artistry and Monroe’s heartbreak over the loss of her idyllic family life is the dominant theme of the album. At times it is difficult to tell whether Monroe is more heartbroken for the “normal" experiences that she has lost or for the inability of others to appreciate the love and stability that she once took for granted."

Monroe wrote or co-wrote seven of the album's twelve original songs. She collaborated with friend Sally Barris and Nashville songwriter Brett James on several of the tracks. The title track was co-written by both Monroe and Barris. "Make Room at the Bottom" and "Hank's Cadillac" were collaborative writing efforts between James and Monroe. "Can't Let Go" was first recorded by Alternative country artist Lucinda Williams. "Pony" was written and first recorded by Australian country singer-songwriter Kasey Chambers. Two of the album's tracks are duets with other country artists. The sixth track "That's Why We Call Each Other Baby" is a duet with Dwight Yoakam and the twelfth track entitled "I Don't Want To" is a duet with Ronnie Dunn of Brooks & Dunn.

Critical reception 

Satisfied was generally met with positive reviews from music critics and online journalists. AllMusic compared the record's musical sound to that of classic country performers, "Unlike many contemporary country singers, Monroe has an old-school Nashville sound voice. Indeed, on her debut single, "Satisfied," and the impassioned ballad "I Don't Wanna Be," Monroe sounds startlingly like the young Dolly Parton. A solid set made for modern-day country radio, SATISFIED is a promising debut."

Clark gave Satisfied three and a half out of five stars. He often criticized the record label's choices of what was included on the final record, "There is a fine line between thematic cohesiveness and redundancy, and Monroe’s occasional trespasses keep this album from soaring. By the time the casual listener reaches the end of the album, he or she could be forgiven for thinking that some of the songs have been done before. Nonetheless, it is a remarkable and refreshingly authentic debut effort from a promising female artist." Clark also notes that Monroe's voice eludes the album's weak spots, "At times Monroe's writing seems naïve and simplistic, but her vocal ability more than makes up for the imperfections. It is difficult to tell whether her naivety is a sign of immaturity or a vestige of a thirteen-year old's shattered conception of domestic tranquility." Peter Cronin from the Country Music Association originally stated in 2006 that, "Satisfied, released on June 27 on Columbia Records, proves that Monroe has found an artistic voice that is uniquely her own."

Release and commercial performance 
The title track from Satisfied was give release in early 2006 as an advanced single. The song became a minor hit on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart that year, only reaching the forty third position. Because the single did not perform well commercially, the album's original release date of June 27, 2006 was pushed back. Satisfied was briefly sold to online digital music distributors during this time frame. Also, it was briefly distributed in advanced copies via a CD format. Meanwhile, "I Don't Want To" was chosen to be the second single for the album and was released in late 2006. The song peaked at number thirty seven on the Hot Country Songs chart and Satisfied was still left unreleased. In hopes of issuing the record, Monroe did an exclusive sixteen-week radio tour in 2006.

Several reasons help explain the delay of the album's initial release. Sony Music Entertainment was hesitant to release Satisfied until one of its singles would reach the "top-twenty" of the Hot Country Songs chart. Secondly, the label merged with the larger BMG Rights Management in 2007. BMG was against releasing previously-recorded material. Stephen L. Betts of the online music site The Boot wrote that Satisfied was a difficult album for radio DJ's to market. Betts also explains how it led to Monroe's departure with her record label, "... Ashley signed to Sony Music. Radio programmers (some moved to tears after hearing her deeply confessional songs), however, couldn’t fit her music to their format. Her one album for Sony, the boldly traditional Satisfied, remained largely unreleased and Ashley and the label parted ways in 2007." The album's delay also caused negative reactions from the music industry at large. Music critic Matt Clark from Engine Clark quoted, "...I will not forgive Sony if they succeed in squandering the potential of Columbia recording artist Ashley Monroe, who has recorded the best country debut album since Lambert’s Kerosene."

The album was eventually released by Monroe's former label as a digital download on May 19, 2009. It was exclusively sold to online digital stores, including iTunes. With the new release changes were made to the original track listing. "I Don't Want To" was not included in the new release. Additionally, a new twelfth track entitled "Promised Land" was featured as a bonus track.

Track listing

Personnel 
 Ashley Monroe – lead vocals
Additional Musicians
 Ronnie Dunn – background vocals
 Dwight Yoakam – background vocals
Technical personnel
 Mark Wright – Record producer

Charts 
Singles

References

External links 
 Official Website
 Satisfied by Ashley Monroe at Discogs

2009 debut albums
Ashley Monroe albums
Columbia Records albums
Sony BMG albums
Albums produced by Mark Wright (record producer) Good 2 Go was a female R&B/dance vocal group from Los Angeles, consisting of Melissa Miller, Natalie Fernie, Kathy Webb, Cindy Shows and Melissa Brauchler. They scored a one-hit wonder with their single "Never Satisfied", which peaked at #64 on the Billboard Pop Singles and at #10 on Billboard's R&B chart in 1992. The group released only one album, a self-titled release on Giant Records.

Good 2 Go album

Tracklist
Good 2 Go (4:14) 
Go With The Flow (3:19)
Notice Me (5:09)
Money Can't Buy Love (4:33)
White House (3:32)
Never Satisfied (4:38)
He Thinks He's All That (3:37)
Don't Want To Change You (3:20)
Romance You (5:21)
Oooooo Song (4:25)

References

External links
Never Satisfied on YouTube

Musical groups from Los Angeles
American girl groups