Jimmy Duck Holmes

The last surviving bluesman of what became known as the Bentonia School, Jimmy "Duck" Holmes is known for both his own sparse, haunting blues style and as the longtime proprietor of the Blue Front Cafe, America's longest-operating juke joint located in his hometown of Bentonia, Mississippi. Following in the tradition of Bentonia forebears like Henry Stuckey and Skip James, Holmes' dark and earthy approach represents a specific regional strain of country-blues which utilizes open E-minor and D-minor guitar tunings and often results in eerie, complicated chord voicings. Although...