Skip James - Hard Times Killing Floor Blues, American Folk and Blues Festival, Cologne Oct. 9, 1967
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- Опубліковано 21 тра 2016
- UPDATE NOVEMBER 2018: please enjoy my new VintageBlues4K version of Skip's original 1931 recording of this song: • VintageBlues4K E05: "H...
I don't think a version of him performing this song has been on UA-cam before. As a fan of PreWar acoustic blues guitar it is always a bit magical to discover a new sliver of audio or video from an artist of that era. As it seems we're about to embark on another Great Depression any day now, we should listen to this message from a guy who managed to make it through the first one, in style. The immortal: Skip James.
American Folk and Blues Festival
Cologne, Germany Oct. 9, 1967
![Lightnin' Hopkins - Texas Blues Man [Full Album]](/img/n.gif)
UPDATE NOVEMBER 2018: please enjoy my new VintageBlues4K version of Skip's original 1931 recording of this song: ua-cam.com/video/PHENJ1rgj1Q/v-deo.html
great document. thanks for posting.
And the article about this song: steemit.com/music/@ramblin-bob/vintageblues4k-episode-05-hard-times-killing-floor-blues-by-skip-james-1931
By far the cleanist version. Always loved this piece, but this version penetrates as to mute all question after the finish..just sittin' after that.
Ramblin' Bob 👏
What are you talking about referring to "next Great Depression?"
"The blues don't sound like sadness. It sounds like suffering through something. And suffering through something ain't sadness. It's fighting the sadness off with strength. That's what the blues sounds like. It's a tougher sound than sadness. It's the sound of carrying on somehow." - Buddy Guy (1982)
I've never heard this quote before, and it honestly made me tear up from the raw truth of it.
I learned how to play the blues by ear when I was a teenager, and have been playing/ writing stuff ever since. That quote just encapsulates the feelings/ sounds/ feel of the blues so well
Another thing that struck me from this quote is the philosophical similarities to some of Nietzsche's ideas. The main idea being: "To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering." - Friedrich Nietzsche
As my grandfather put it, blues is not sadness, is carrying that sadness on your back as you continue on.
Buddy Guy was a great drummer, but I think he was a bit of an asshole, not all talented people are necessarily nice people.
@@toddholmes4480 You're thinking of Buddy Rich. Buddy Guy was a black blues guitarist and singer. Buddy Rich was the famous drummer.
@@Hollowsmith Boy is my face red! My deepest apology to Buddy Guy, and to his fans. Thanks for setting me straight! However, Buddy Rich could be a bit of a dick, especially when he was bitching about country music.
This is unquestionably my favourite blues song - but this man's voice is a thing of such haunting beauty it mesmerizes you completely
Crazy how someone from such a different time and life as my own can make such a great impact on me.
Hard times are universal. Jesus went through them. Mohamed went through them. Without a doubt our grandchildren will go through them. That’s essentially what the blues is about
Hell yeah,, made such a difference in my musical choices when learning to play,, such a legend, such a song
Music is universal when it has a soul..
Ah...bullshit..ain't about Jesus..its about the truth..right now..and every now..no one was ever saved by a book..
@@johnchappell9232 it's not about the "book" ... it's about The Great I Am there is no creation without a creator keep it simple amen
Skip James is the most haunting and unique blues figure ever. This song specifically is my all time favorite blues song. It's just on another level.
One of the first songs I ever learned on the guitar as a boy in West Virginia, a few years ago now. My neighbor was an old drunk, and he drank himself to death, but not before teaching me a few old blues, Hank, and Johnny Cash songs. You can hear a classic Appalachian folk influence in the blues, and a heavy delta blues influence in old country artists like Hank Williams, and it is so interesting to follow their progression into modern country and rock today, something that could have only happened right here in America. This song reminds me that we are all interconnected in so many ways, this song speaks to me on a deeper level than anything I hear today, white black or otherwise. Surrounded by poverty, drugs, and despair all of my life the blues resonates within my soul. Thanks for taking the time to read.
Thanks for sharing your story! Good insight.
That voice is every bit as brilliant as the guitar playing
This song is how i feel when i drink alone
This song hits hard in 2023.
Oh boy, does it ever!
Yup
Skip James gives me goosebumps every time I listen to him. That man right there is a legend.
The man leaves the hospital bed to play us a tune...in turn left his mark forever.....thank you Mr. James.
thank you blind owl wilson for tracking down skip james and showing him he was loved.
Relevant song these days.
Truth
Listening now in anticipation of the worldwide depression that's probably going to hit once this is over..
@@tomfrascina5846 beautiful music of today will come of it. old chinese saying "may you live in interesting times" damn sure we do brother.
Some 50 years ago I met and befriended Skip James, and I can testify that this was one of his finest performances - maybe his best. He was fighting cancer at this point, and he knew that his days were numbered. It was a truly hard times killing floor for Skip and you "can feel it in your deep down" - as he would say. Skip was more than a blues singer - he was a musical genius. It is lucky for us that he had a chance to go to Europe, and to be recorded in such a dignified manner. This video is a treasure....
Wow! As a fledgling nurse working at the John Gaston Hospital in Memphis, I took care of more than one of the ol' blues and jazz greats in their last days.
I especially remember Ma Rainey! All of us nurses treated her like a queen in her last days, and made sure she was buried proper and had flowers for her funeral.
@@impalamama7302 Thank you from all of us who love and respect these artists...
Dam! You got a life experience that can always make you smile.
Did they give you any momentos?
Dan, yes I got a lot of momentos: lots of letters, signed albums, etc. Skip invited me to stay with him in Philadelphia - "As long as you like". He was a prince. See my extensive piece "Meeting Skip James" on the web debunking Stephen Calt's hatchet job on Skip. I think he was angry because Skip didn't leave him anything in his will. Total BS book....
A Voice like cold winter wind.
Damn I wish I wrote that.😯 you mind if I take that for a song👍
Yes!!!! 🌬 and the picking too
His voice is proof that his soul has felt hard times.
his voice is like a low whispering wind in a cemetery...
...or a message from God.
Beautifully said
Great description!
@@zenmeister451 first time watching this video in a year. still true
Perfectly said!!!👍
I am from Mississippi and have played blues on stage for years. I am ashamed to admit I never heard this before....pure blues
Holy shit that's a quality recording
German engineering. Hoomeyow!!
Im glad the Europeans appreciated this music.
No wonder so many blues players stayed over in Europe
I remember being 17, listening to skip James and immediately deciding to play blues on my acoustic guitar.
Haha awesome
The Bentonia Blues style, from Bentonia, Mississippi; Skip James was its greatest exponent. I don't think I've ever heard anything in the blues more hauntingly beautiful than this man's voice, or guitar playing more sophisticated. Amazing to think that hard times drove him to give the guitar up virtually for nearly thirty years. In 1964 he was discovered in a hospital in Tunica, Mississippi, being treated for the cancer which would kill him five years later, and while in remission that same year, they put him up before an astonished audience at the Newport Folk Festival. He was virtually unknown.
Heard a story about Skip once. Seems when he would play on the corners for money in the 1930s; the store owners would pay him to go away. Not because he was bad at it, but because his eerie voice would haunt them and their customers, and lower business. He stopped performing because of that, for something like 30 years. Lived a whole other life. He only came back to it because blues aficionados begged him to, in the early 1960s. They were just in time. He'd already contracted the stomach cancer that eventually took him, in 1969.
Man is just me or can you feel the blues deep down in your soul?
Fantastic that this was preserved for us to enjoy today!
Skip James was a giant talent that wasn't recognised at his peak.
He is now remembered in blues circles for his remarkable ability.
Thanks for posting.
I’m from The Mississippi Delta, and I regret never seeing him. 💙
I "see" his triumphant spirit when I listen to him sing. He (Nehemiah), Son House, and J. B. Lenoire are what can I say, indescribably all I love in early Delta Blues ...
this must be one of the most beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard. His music is like wind. It floats straight through you. Catches your inner side like a gust can.
Dude passed away about 2 years after this... Had a voice of an angel who'd been through it all...
he passed away in 1969 from the cancer
@@frankdiscussion2069 The royalties from Cream's cover of _I'm So Glad_ paid his medical bills.
That mic and vocal sound is phenomenal for a 54 year old recording
incredible isnt it
Is it because it's German technology?
@@beaksofeagles its weird how so many great live performances that can be found on youtube are from German music shows (Louis Armstrong, Samy Davis Jr. and so on ...)
@@beaksofeagles its because the technology for microphones never changed; the unfortunate truth was the schematics for the Microphone had been patented and protected for luxury application.
on a tangent, recently the patent for microphones expired; so, recently, there's been a big boom of third party microphone mods. (aka people getting cheap microphones, then buying 'mods' that fit the mic they bought for about the same price as the mic, giving a~100$ mic about 3000$ worth quality- same 'pieces' just a more refined version from the same schematics all mics follow)
@@OGaian Haha! Ernie Seeler was born in Cuba of GERMAN parents.
A whole minute of an introduction giving real background to the song and Skip James. The don't write em' like the used to, they don't show em' how they used to. Beautiful.
Looks like we don't really need another awestruck comment here but I can't help it. Skip James just blows me away. One of the great, great originals of the 20th century. This music gets inside the sorrow of the entire Black experience in America and it just stays there but it is not depressing. Haunting, disturbing, unmooring even but not depressing. It is art (and from what I have read of him he knew that). I am grateful that we have this! Amen.
Put this in a box, and label it "Severe Spine Chill Inducer".
I've listened to this quite a bit lately, and this man's voice always gives me chills. Sounds downright haunting and I love it.
The lower I get in life, the better music I listen to. Needless to say I'm pretty damn low
His voice cuts me to the core. Absolutely beautiful.
Can anyone else feel this pain in 2020 ..?
You said it, brother
Looks like what's happening now, all over the planet....
None of us could feel the pain of a black man growing up in Mississippi in 1902. We can hear it though. We can hear it.
this guy literally pulls the mystery, the cosmos and eons of old time with this song.
The truth in this piece of music should make us all very humble
This man walked through more than a few graveyards. He stopped playing his secular music but continued playing in the church. When he was "rediscovered" he was one of only a couple bluesmen( imo) that played better than when they were younger. A serious man singing about serious things. "There is a war between the The Lord and The Devil. It's battlefield is in the hearts of men." To me, Skip James' life and music embody that.
One of the best songs ever made in the history of music
60+ years since this was played on the German TV Music show 100 years since it was first played . I know life is before I was born I'm not stupid as to not know history, but it's still mind boggling with the lyrics still as valid today as then
@@RasTona_ I agree I've seen a few old recordings with German TV and they've bothered to keep them in storage, the presenters are there to not make the program all about them and they are the star they have these as the guest singers are there to sort of record for prosperity the music lyrics and the singer I get that feeling anyway and it's a complete platform for the singer to shine in their performance and the presenter just introduces even if in a stilted way like 'here is so n so' with no interaction it is a bit weird. But I suppose we are used to presenters and chat show hosts in modern day.
@@wendypope9211 , check out the Folk Seattle channel on UA-cam: excellent tv-studio performances by and interviews with blues players such as Brownie McGhee and Elizabeth Cotten. Good sound, and closeup video of their hands. Lots of great stuff there!
@@goodun2974 I will look this up I do appreciate good music of any type I only struggle with jazz but you know got a few years to try again Miles Davis I suppose i can look at again saw the film birth of cool i think 4? years back that was really good
Great music and souls will always be relevant/timeless. He's singing the blues about the killing floor. You can transfer that blues to Walmart or Amazon workers, overseas factory work...it goes on and on.
Wow! Over a million views! When I saw him perform in a tiny club in San Diego there were about 30 or so people in the audience. I knew at the time that he was a very important artist, and it was really a shame that he didn't get the recognition he deserved. He would write me, "Haven't had a show in 4 months" etc., etc.. He was hurting. If he could only see that he got over a million views! He was a true national treasure.....
I hope that all of the lucky folk seeing this Master perform his craft realize how lucky they are.
We do
He's bonafide
this song saved my life when I was 19. first time I heard it I cried .
from that day forward I knew I wasn't alone and not only that. that others needed me.
Chris Miller that's amazing dude. This song is quite something indeed. All good to you man
Absolutely haunting vocal performance. Incredible
Skip James is one of the truly great blues artists of the 20th Century. The world would be a less bright place without his extraordinary songs! 👍👍👍👍👍
Wow, never heard Skip before, he had a beautiful soulful voice.
This song is my hands down favorite blues song and it is indeed hauntingly vibrantly brilliantly beautiful. Thank you Brother Skip James.
this is one of many humanity’s treasures and must be cherished and appreciated.
Anyone who found their way to Skip James is alright in my book.
🙌🙌
The blues sounds so much better from someone who has lived the blues
Holy shit, that voice is so haunting
His voice could awake the dead from all those deep depression years - a voice that suffocates, mighty powerful,
Why is the audio quality so fantastic? Them damn Germans. On point
For real! I’m genuinely amazed.
Wondering the same thing! Damn
Neumann microphones were way ahead of their time
Recorded 1967 technology was pretty good
Look up Telefunken microphone technology...Germany got stiffed in post WW2 allocation of radio bandwidth...so they had to re-design their equipment and systems to be better quality.
Just realized this is the tune that "Tommy Johnson" was playing in 'O Brother, Where art Thou",
Jaw dropped the first time I heard his voice
If that ain't the blues...what is? I feel like crying every time I hear it - so sad, so beautiful.
My great auntie had memorized this song.. she didn’t have any way to record it.. she memorized this song from hearing her dad sing and hum it.. I’m so blessed to hear this again from its roots..
I heard about Skip James and then saw him at the Ontario Place, in Washington, DC, about 1964. Eerie. I'm glad people have not forgotten him.
This song came first but reminds me of Blind Faith's "Cant find My Way Home" in feel. You can really hear how famous musicians were heavily influenced by him, John Hurt and others. Thank you to all the blues legends. They paved the way.
"And the people ,are driftin' from door to door
Can't find no heaven, I don't care where they go".
America didn't deserve you. You were a voice crying out in the wilderness. But some of us were fortunate enough to find you, and so you will live forever.
Nehemiah "Skip" James. Legend.
For a song that is so sad, yet you don't want it to end
I listen to this almost every night. Music bible.
One of the greatest songwriters in popular music.. fragile like a flower in the wind, and haunting like a moan in the dark
Exactly. Right after you get thumped with a ball bat.
Full Wave Recked - Another good one man!
How these hard times just keep coming back around.
They have never gone actually...
They always do, sooner or later.
His voice shoots lightning through my spine
Audio quality is incredible for a 1967 recording.
High quality audio playback has been possible since the dawning of tape as long as you have the masters and you store them correctly. This looks like it's a direct feed before broadcast
@@jimmonaghan5745 And the video quality of this is also amazing if you have the original. It lost something in the upload.
@@portoflongbeach for sure. UA-cam codec lowers quality of video.and audio. But makes sense. How else do you fit millions of HD and 4k video onto the servers?
Wow, what a treat to see him perform this live! Thanks Ramblin' Bob, you're the best!
Haunting voice.
Why do I keep coming back to this song
This has the weight, the gravitas, of someone who lived through the Great Depression. Yes, there have been covers of this song, but none that resonate with such desperation and melancholy.
This is one of the greatest live performances of all time.
He don't shred. I very like it . To say the truth it's one of my favourite bluesman. You don't need to roar to sing the blues
Love all these old black bluesmen. They had class and style and some of the coolest muthas to walk the earth
DAMN STRAIGHT
This man lived this song and it shows.
I thought I felt it in the O brother were art thou film but this really hits the soul!
This video is so precious, we are all so lucky that it even exists. Thank you for posting this integral piece of American Civilization. Skip James is surely up in heaven now, resting from all his labors. Where would the blues be without him and Son House and Charley Patton and all the other giants?
Skip makes it sound so easy, but that's some sophisticated, tricky fingerpicking on guitar. the way he slightly bends some of the bass notes, while continuously picking, damn.
Try using the neck
As soon as I heard the timbre in his voice I was absolutely floored
me too, thats the blues right there!
falsetto like no no ones business!
@@zainpunka1703 ‘tis
To the uploader of this: it's an absolutely unusually beautiful and emotional piece of magic. I hope if there's a God up there that Skip James receives in heavenly royalties a millionfold of what he invested in beauty for us down here on earth to listen to him. Thank you!
I had only ever heard Skip's recordings from the 1930's. Seeing him here in such good audio and video quality blew the top of my head off. I may add too that I think Skip may have gotten better with age, this performance is stunning.
I saw this great artist in the early 60's in Birmingham (UK). He was amazing and seemed to sing from his life experiences. As far as I know, he also wrote "I'm So Glad'; later made famous by the brilliant 'Cream' ; sang by Jack Bruce.
Damn I got chills from this one
You can hear the field holler skeleton in the structure of this song, but Skip’s voice gives it such subtleness that it just borders on the ethereal! His guitar work is so in sync with his singing as well. Listening to his lyrics, you could see how his songs( as well as other blues musicians’ ) would appeal to European audiences. Even in the early 60’s there were plenty of people still dealing with hardships brought on by a post-war recovery.
Yeah huh
I have the feeling my soul has stuck in the 60's, and I love it.
God what a beautiful voice.
First notes and my back is full of shivers. I want to hear this when I go.
Probably my favorite song of all time. haunting, powerful, timeless, painfully human... like nothing i've ever heard.
The intro makes it even better
Hier ist Skip James mit dem Hard Times Killing Floor Blues. One of my favorite things in life is catching bits of English in with a different language. Cracks me right up for some reason.
Wow what a voice! Its high and melodic, smooth as honey but with a little gravel underneath.
n with that guitar twang coming from playing near the bridge, his own one man band : -D
I've always known the Chris Thomas King version from the O'Brother soundtrack, that I loved so much, but this one is haunting. Really glad to discover it, I'll keep coming back here
Chris King’s version is great. But this is the real shit, son.
What a magnificent voice, soft and harsh woven together.
Thanks Europe for recording these masterpieces
Indeed, Europe took care of American Blues-men and Jazz-men for years.
They invented recording equipment back then that is still state of the art today
Haunting and beautiful at the same time.
yup, we've come full circle.
bust out the blues again, it's gonna be a long decade
Got my acoustic guitar
This is a gem. I pray we never lose this video
His feet are in the dirt but his voice is in the heavens. beautiful
Gossebumps inducing. Takes an outstanding artist to capture the feelings of an ordinary human being during an era so that the coming generations can feel it in their hearts.
If I would've been born, and would've been standing there in the audience, an unstoppable stream of tears would've fallen down my face, without even truly understanding what he's singing.
67 years old and his voice is like honey. As good as it always was
I guess he was only 65 here in this recording, but ya, he didn't forget how to sing
It's moments like this that I love youtube
A haunting melody, soulfully rendered