Bentonia School

The Bentonia school, a style of guitar-playing sometimes attributed to blues players from Bentonia, Mississippi, features a shared repertoire of songs, guitar tunings and chord-voicings with a distinctively minor tonality not found in other styles of blues music. ^[1]

While not all blues musicians from Bentonia played in this style, one particular blues player, Skip James (1902–1969), had a distinct, complicated, and highly sophisticated style that veered from typical blues guitar playing. His style became known as Bentonia School. ^[2]

James became the most well-known of the small pool of musicians associated with the Bentonia School. Others include Jack Owens, Jimmy "Duck" Holmes, and the un-recorded Henry Stuckey. ^[3] Both James' and Owens' styles featured haunting minor chords and droning strings which, in comparison to the music of many other blues musicians, ring with an ominous and eerie feel.^{[ citation needed ]}

The Bentonia school of guitar playing has strong associations with a guitar-tuning based on an open E minor chord. From the lowest (6th) string to the highest (1st), the tuning uses E-B-E-G-B-E. (A common variant pitches the same intervals a whole step lower, in D minor: D-A-D-F-A-D.) Although other blues musicians in a range of styles used this tuning (Booker "Bukka" White, Albert Collins, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Henry Townsend and others), the Bentonia musicians used it to great effect, achieving a distinctive tonality unique to the region.

References

1. Blues: A Regional Experience, Bob L. Eagle, Eric S. LeBlanc, Greenwood Publishing Group (2013), p. 212, ISBN   978-0274977475
2. 'The Personal Blues of Skip James', Bruce Jackson in Sing Out!, January 1966, pp. 26-31
3. The Blues Encyclopedia, eds Edward Komara, Peter Lee, Taylor and Francis Group (2006), p. 696, ISBN   978-0415926997

External links

• bentoniablues.com – Mission Statement: “Anything Bentonia Blues.” To foster communication among those who love and appreciate the Bentonia School of Delta Blues.
• Video: Jimmy Duck Holmes keeping the Bentonia Blues alive
• Discovery Channel “I Am The Blues”. A musical journey through the Louisiana Bayou, the juke joints of Mississippi Delta and Beltonia, Mississippi Hill country. A tour of the Chitlin’ Circuit with Bobby Rush and other blues legends.

Films

• Deep Blues (1991). Directed by Robert Mugge.