Mississippi has long been regarded as the true home of the blues. Before Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf signed with Chess Records in Chicago, they were well-known in their home state of Mississippi. And before anyone had heard of either one of those legendary bluesmen, Charley Patton and Robert Johnson were revolutionizing and refining blues writing and singing and slide playing in the Mississippi Delta.
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Dozens of significant blues figures have called Mississippi home, their work splitting off into various sub-genres, such as hill country blues, electric blues, and Bentonia blues, a style that originated in Bentonia, Mississippi (population around 400) some nine decades ago. The most notable Bentonia bluesman was Skip James (“Floating Bridge”), best known for his unusual falsetto singing and his way of tuning the guitar to a minor key, or what these Bentonia practitioners call “cross-note” tuning. The last remaining performer of this style of music, as well as the proprietor of Mississippi’s last surviving “juke joint,” is Jimmy “Duck” Holmes.
Black Keys member Dan Auerbach, a longtime blues aficionado who has recorded numerous tracks written and originally recorded by Southern blues artists with Black Keys partner Pat Carney, is the producer of Holmes’ new album, Cypress Grove. “I was 17 listening to people like Little Son Jackson and Lightnin’ Hopkins and Lance Lipscomb,” Auerbach says. “It’s just something I grew up with. Any way I can support these guys, I’m happy to do it. With this record I just wanted to make something good and not overthink it.”
Holmes,72, has made nine albums including Cypress Grove, but his juke joint, the Blue Front Café, may be the most important part of his life. At the Blue Front on Friday nights, Holmes and whatever musicians happen to be in the neighborhood turn off the jukebox and take the stage — actually, a spot on the floor in the corner of the café — for a night of Bentonia blues, and whatever else happens to come out of people’s mouths and instruments. He was basically raised in the juke joint which his parents owned before he took over nearly 50 years ago, and he has played music there for as long as he’s been able to tune a guitar (to cross-note tuning of course).
Holmes says that he didn’t even know who the Black Keys were before he met Auerbach, but that it means a lot to him to work with younger musicians who are trying to preserve the traditions of the blues. “I really don’t put myself in a particular category the way others do,” he says. “But I learned this music from the old-school guys showing me and passing it on to me. Henry Stuckey lived five or six steps from my parents, and he would get his guitar out and play and me and my siblings would sit and listen to him until morning. And what him and his relatives and others showed me and taught me, I’d like to pass that on to the younger generation.” The first real guitar Holmes ever owned has been displayed at the famed Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi.
Auerbach put together a hot band for Cypress Grove, one he believed would have a feel for what Holmes was trying to communicate with his music, and assembled everyone at his Nashville studio. “I got Eric Deaton, he used to play bass for [Mississippi hill country bluesman] Junior Kimbrough. There’s just nobody better at the juke-joint style, he’s the best. Then I got a percussionist [Nashville Symphony drummer Sam Bacco], not necessarily for drums but to help build the foundation. Jimmy sings really delicate, he’s not really a shouter, so we couldn’t overdo the drums. He’s got his own thing, he’s got his own juke-joint style of the Bentonia school, but he doesn’t sound anything like Skip James.”
“We cut it with Jimmy pretty much tracking live,” he continues, “me and Eric, and Sam on percussion, with Jimmy playing guitar and singing. He’s cool, he’s a nice guy, not super-outgoing, a little shy, but once he gets comfortable he really gets into it. He was very comfortable in the studio, no issues with wearing phones or anything like that. Jimmy pretty much chose the songs, and I told him we were ready when he was, we’ll just see what happens. We just rolled with whatever way he wanted to go. It really was a lot of fun.”
Interestingly enough, Auerbach himself hasn’t played at the Blue Front Café, hasn’t even been to Bentonia, and was mostly aware of Holmes by reputation and through the albums he has already recorded. “It’s one of those things I’d really like to do someday,” he says.
Holmes himself is a man of few words, and when asked what he thinks of today’s modern blues artists who mostly play offshoot styles that are light years away from what he plays, Holmes is a diplomat. “Well … I don’t criticize, I don’t judge. I just do what I do, the Bentonia style. I’m just an old country guy. I’m happy I can still do it.”
