Topic: any Jim Jackson fans?

[banjochris]

To add to Bruce's comments -- Victor I think routinely made at least two takes of most numbers, because they could afford to, especially in the flush days of the '20s, and seemed to keep a lot of them, hence the relatively large number of alternate takes -- Tommy Johnson, Ishman Bracey, Furry Lewis, Luke Jordan, Julius Daniels, etc.

[Randy Meadows]

jim jackson death certificate

[dj]

I was wondering if anyone had any theories as to why Jim Jackson was accorded so many multiple takes of a given song.

Sorry to be a little late on this, John.  I agree with what Bruce and Chris said, but I think there's a bit more to the story.

One source of Jim Jackson's "alternate" takes is that he remade some of the songs he originally made for Vocalion when he recorded for Victor.  On January 22, 1928, Jackson cut Old Dog Blue, My Monday Blues, and Mobile-Central Blues for Vocalion.  Eight days later, on January 30 and February 2, he recorded My Monday Woman Blues, My Mobile Central Blues, and Old dog Blue for Victor.  All of the above are available to us today.

But beyond that, Jim Jackson seems to have had some trouble producing a satisfactory take of a song.  For example, Mobile-Central Blues, My Monday Blues, He's In The Jailhouse Now, and Old Dog Blue were all recorded at the Vocalion session on October 10, 1927 that also produced the massive hit Jim Jackson's Kansas City Blues, Parts 1 & 2, but none of the songs from that session other than Kansas City were released at that time.  At Jackson's January 22, 1928 Vocalion session all the unreleased songs from October were recut.  My Monday Blues had 2 unissued takes (one of which has survived), then 3 other songs were cut before Jackson came back to My Monday Blues and recorded the issued take.  Looking at Jackson's discography, he recorded two unissued songs on September 24, 1928 (Goodbye Boys and Black But Sweet), 8 (!) on July 16, 1929 (Mean Woman Blues, Santa Fe Blues, I Ain't Gonna Turn Her Down, Dicty Blues, Bring It On Home To Your Grandma, Warm It Up To Me, Mississippi Blues, and Crazy 'Bout Nancy Jane - Santa FE Blues and I Ain't Gonna Turn Her Down survive), and went back for another try on Mean Woman Blues and I Ain't Gonna Turn Her Down, both of which went unissued, in October of 1929.  Listening to the surviving unissued takes, it's hard to see anything wrong with them,  But the fact that continued efforts were made to retry so many of the unnisued takes makes it seem like something unsatisfactory must have been perceived in them at the time.

[Lignite]

Some of my Jim Jackson favs that haven't been mentioned yet are What A Time, which is an earlier recorded version of Leadbelly's We Shall Be Free. Other real killers (pardon the pun) are I'm A Bad Bad Man and I'm Gonna Build Me A Graveyard Of My Own. The lyrics of both songs are pretty violent (and funny in a grotesque way) and obviously from a different musical generation and not at all dissimilar to Uncle Dave Macon in some of his more bizzarre offerings. You've definately got to check out Jim Jackson 'cause he's got more to offer than just Kansas City. Like Henry Thomas and Uncle Dave, he offers a rare glimpse into what rural music was like in the century pre the blues, and we're real lucky those three older musicians got recorded in the 1920s.

[TonyGilroy]

I recently noticed the Uncle Dave Macon Bear Family box being sold on Amazon for ?40 and grabbed it fast.

I'd only heard odd tracks before and hadn't been particularly impressed but listening at length to his entire repertoire is intriguing to say the least. This really is the weird old America. So many of his pieces make no obvious sense and appear to be random surrealistic exercises in word play but they're all performed with extraordinary energy and no little skill particularly when the McGees or Delmores are on board.

Jim Jackson is palpably from the same world.

[tenderfoot84]

My first esposure to Jim Jackson was his version of hesitation blues. And now although friends and family despair of my love for country blues it must be said that this is a song that grabs people. It's infectious. Humourous, lively and supremely accessible. My dad even had it as a ringtone. The only other songs I know that can cut through the aversion to old time music like that are luke jordan's church bells and andrew and jim baxter's the moore girl. Jim Jackson seems at times horrendously repetitive but I'd take ten well chosen songs by him above ten of leadbelly or john hurt or anyone else just on the back of his "in the moment" delivery.

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