onurblues: Steve James - Two Track Mind (1993) / Nathan James

July 18, 2022

Steve James - Two Track Mind (1993) / Nathan James - I Don't Know It (2009)

► Get the albums at the usual place...

Double King James version
Here are two master guitar finger-pickers, both bearing the same name : the elder Steve, born in 1950 in New York, and the younger Nathan, born on the West Coast in the late 1970s near San Diego. Both not only share the same name but also the same passion for "old" acoustic blues and other kinds of roots music.

Steve James, soon 72, an outstanding finger-picking and bottleneck guitar and mandolin player, left New York after working sometime with guitar maker Michael Gurian and moved to Tennessee in the early 1970s where he met and was influenced by Sam McGee (two of his songs are featured on his 1993 album), then to Texas in 1977 after a two-year stop in Memphis from 1975 to 1977. In Texas he performed both solo and with a small electric band with saxophonist Clifford Scott and drummer Bobby Irwin. His first solo acoustic album was recorded in Austin and released by the Antone label in 1993, the one you're about to listen to.

He looks towards old forms of ragtime and folk blues on this album almost entirely made of covers of traditionals ("Frankie And Albert", "Spanish Fandango") and songs from long forgotten musicians, of whom some were banjo players : Charlie Poole ("Milwaukee Blues"), Sylvester Weaver ("Guitar Rag"), Kermit Goell ("Huggin' And Chalkin'"), Sam McGee ("Amos Johnson Rag", "Railroad Blues"), Byrd Moore ("Bachelor Blues"), Prince Albert Hunt ("Blues In The Bottle"), Luke Faust ("Don't Seem Right"), or more renowned ones like Mance Lipscomb ("Rocks And Gravel") and Big Bill Broonzy ("Variations On The Saturday Night Rub"). Only one self-penned original is included : "County Line Road".

Steve James

Except for a couple of tracks ("Variations...", "Spanish Fandango"), Steve James is alone on his instrument, technically very impressive : his finger-picking bursts into melodic and rhythmic fireworks, his bottleneck slides on the strings with amazing precision. Such a mastery is put to the service of different roots styles : hobos songs ("Milwaukee Blues" "Railroad Blues" and "County Line Road") that take us back to a time celebrated by Woody Guthrie and Jack Kerouac, Piedmont or Delta rural blues ("Rocks And Gravel", "Bachelor Blues", "Blues In The Bottle", "Don't Seem Right", "County Line Road"), hokum ("Huggin' And Chalkin'"), old bluegrass rags ("Guitar Rag", "Railroad Blues", "Amos Johnson Rag", "Variations On The Saturday Night Rub"), ragtime folk blues ("Frankie And Albert", in a version close to Mississippi John Hurt's "Frankie", "Spanish Fandango").

Steve James manages to take the listener to surprising new musical territories while his music's roots firmly belong to the pre-war tradition, a tribute to the music and musicians who inspired him so much.

Nathan James, now around 44, a master of the Piedmont fingerstyle, learned by listening to old records by Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Blake, Blind Willie McTell… ("for some reason, he said once, all the blind guys were phenomenal pickers"). He also invented a strange "washboard guitar", made of an old steel-and-wood washboard body on which he adapted a neck, that he humorously baptized “Washtar Guitboard”.

At age 19, he joined James Harman band and toured for three and a half years with him. At 22, he went solo playing old-style roots music and country blues. Later, he formed a duo with harmonica, string bass, jug and kazoo player Ben Hernandez. They recorded three albums and won a first prize at the 2007 International Blues Challenge. When Hernandez dropped out of music, Nathan James then formed a trio, The Rhythm Scratchers, with two members of the Harman band, Troy Sandow on bass and harmonica, and Marty Dodson on drums. Both of them played on a couple of tracks on this 2009 album, as well as Harman on harmonica and pianist Carl Sonny Leyland, each on one song, but not the same one.

Nathan James

"There’s a lot more to discover by mixing blues and roots music", he explained once. And that's exactly what he is doing on this album : he explores deeper into acoustic and electric Delta blues and take them in new directions mainly through his own original compositions beside a few covers ("My Last Nerve" from his former band leader Harman, "Too Long" from the Mississippi Sheiks, and "Easy Baby" from Mississippi-born West Side Chicago blues pioneer Magic Sam).

At first sight (if I may dare this misuse of language when dealing with music), Nathan is less a traditionalist in the form than Steve. Several reasons explain this impression : he is a multi-instumentist (guitars, banjo, mandolin, harmonica, upright bass, drums and foot percussion) and overdubs some of his songs with extra bass and percussion parts, or has guests doing so; he plays both acoustic and electric; he plays his own original material. If Nathan's work sounds more contemporary, in fact it is as deeply rooted in pre-war music than Steve's own, even if more related to the blues genre and with more groove ("No Baby Don't", "I Don't Know", "Too Long", "Send You Back Home", "'Undecided Woman Blues").

Two last details : Nathan includes gospel influences in his material ("Walk With Your Maker", "Wayfaring Stranger") while Steve doesn't, at least on the 1993 album. Nathan also diversifies more his instrumental approach with several tracks on banjo.

Nevertheless, both James travel on the same river of traditional folk music in the proper sense of the word "folk", with the same ambition : keep tradition alive by bringing it to the public in a more accessible form. Both albums succeed in their own way to fulfill this noble mission. Highly recommendable ! ■

Videos
► Steve James
● With Del Rey (photo), 2020 : https://youtu.be/S3i4UkXL66M
● Steve James (mandolin, vocals), Brian Kramer & Lasse Johansson (guitars), Arman Sikiric (harmonica), Stockholm (Sweden), 2019 : https://youtu.be/UzOebg_gybs
● Live at N°1 Guitarshop, Gothenburg (Sweden), 2018 :
→ Part 1 : https://youtu.be/IKvdxfggM3w
→ Part 2 : https://youtu.be/03RkWxmAjUo

● Isle of Bute Sailing Club, 2016 : https://youtu.be/0KkAboo4iyg
● “Galway Station Blues", 2015 : https://youtu.be/VtRdgOHpEkY
● Helsinki (Finland), 2014 : https://youtu.be/AX4tYx-eIrU
● Tampere (Finland), 2014 : https://youtu.be/RZU0JuFS9V0
● Bottleneck Guitar Workshop, Claremont Folk Music Festival (California), 2014 :
→ Part 1 : https://youtu.be/m3AjKs3b87s
→ Part 2 : https://youtu.be/K7y8DYLPF1c
→ Part 3 : https://youtu.be/_m4TB2w6Ths
● "Change" live in Vancouver, 2012 : https://youtu.be/gNyZL2IYoHU
● On "Horses Sing None Of it" with Del Rey, 2006 : https://youtu.be/OHH05kLfpso

► Nathan James 
● Friday Night Acoustic Shakedown!, 2022 : https://youtu.be/vMQEmgqn7U0
● Some Covid confinement streamed concerts (2020-2021) :
→ Rainy Day Mood, 2021 : https://youtu.be/wF0DUhgje1w
→ Acoustic Blues Sunday, 2021 : https://youtu.be/HJhqWON-YUg
→ Thursday Evening Jump, 2020 : https://youtu.be/XfhsSg4bgNk
→ Don's Country Kitchen Session, 2020 : https://youtu.be/Dx_H6Mq05Tw
→ Friday Night Boogie!, 2020 : https://youtu.be/MhCvYhAZVr0
● With the Rhythm Scratchers, 2020 : https://youtu.be/lrPXkoZMnhM

● With James Harman (photo), 2020 : https://youtu.be/PrSiD2Oj9cc
● On Hapnyn, 2018 : https://youtu.be/-gvmw3XSIdE
● With Fiona Boyes, Vache de Blues, Villerupt (France), 2015 : https://youtu.be/8lZ1LghzbVo
● The Blues City Deli, 2013 : https://youtu.be/TIFkJvOdJOI