HUFFINGTON
10.27.13
Exit
MUSIC
BIG MAYBELLE
SKIP JAMES
ELLIOTT SMITH
Soul songbird Mabel Louise Smith,
a.k.a. Big Maybelle, was born on May
1, 1924, in Jackson, Tennessee. At
age 8, Mabel won a singing contest,
opening the gate. By 1936, she joined
Memphis bandleader Dave Clark, and
her trajectory was on course. In 1952,
on signing with Okeh Records, she
became Big Maybelle. She recorded
“Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,”
produced by a young Quincy Jones,
in 1955 (in a turnabout, it went to
No. 1 for blue-eyed soul legend Jerry
Lee Lewis in 1957). Her all-too-brief
career included a trove of releases for
Brunswick, Decca, King, Savoy, and
Scepter Records. The diva passed
away from diabetic complications
in 1972 in Cleveland. Remember her
with “Candy,” from the collection
Blues, Candy & Big Maybelle.
Bluesman Skip James was born
Nehemia Curtis James in the Mississippi Delta in 1902, the son of a
preacher and reformed bootlegger.
As a teen, he held odd jobs in construction and sharecropping. In his
20s, James made his first demos.
Then in 1931, he recorded a couple
dozen sides for Paramount Records.
Just as his career was filling up with
promise, it was crushed by the economic gravity of the Great Depression. James retreated to the church
as a choir director, later becoming a
minister. Decades would pass before this enigmatic, unmistakably
original and accomplished picker’s
resurgence came about at the Newport Folk Festival in the mid-’60s.
James passed away in 1969, but his
influence runs deep. His songs have
been immortalized by Cream, Chris
Thomas King, Bonnie Raitt, and Alvin Youngblood Hart. In 1992, James
was inducted into the Blues Hall of
Fame. The 1931 title “Devil Got My
Woman,” off Blues From the Delta, is
spooky and heartbreaking.
Artist Elliott Smith is one of our late,
great treasures. He was born Steven
Paul Smith on Aug. 6, 1969, in Omaha,
Nebraska. In his first year his parent