Lesson- 'Crow Jane'

Audio Clip #1: Introduction and Tune-up

CROW JANE

Here's a simple arrangement from Nehemiah "Skip" James, who otherwise created some of the most complex country blues guitar music ever recorded. Other early blues virtuosos inspired crews of soundalikes but, at his 1931 studio debut, Skip James made music so bleak and powerful that only creatures like Robert Johnson would go anywhere near it.

When he returned to the studio in 1964, James temporarily abandoned his preferred open E-minor mode (from low to high, E B E G B E) to perform "Crow Jane" in standard tuning. It's an oft-recorded number, a precursor to songs like "Key to the Highway," but James puts a messianic twist on it that makes his version my favorite.

Here are the chord positions used:

A bleaker shade of blue: Skip James.

The E chord shape used in bar 1 should be familiar. It's followed by a second inversion B7 shape that descends to a similar A7 and into the loping E vamp in the fifth bar. The B7-E changes in the final bars involve a little variation in the hammered thirds that occur all over the place (open third string to the first fret on the E chord, open fourth string to first fret on the B7, etc.). The lyrics are traditional boy-kills-girl, but with a Jamesian edge.

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