Bentonia School (blues)
Encyclopedia
Bentonia School, a style of guitar
-playing sometimes attributed to blues
players from Bentonia
, Mississippi
, features a shared repertoire of songs, guitar tunings
and chord
-voicings with a distinctively minor
tonality
not found in other styles of blues music.
While not all blues musicians from Bentonia played in this style, one particular blues player, Skip James
(1902–1969), had a distinct, complicated, and highly sophisticated style that veered from typical blues guitar playing. His style became known as Bentonia School.
James became the most well-known of the small pool of musicians associated with the Bentonia School. Others include Jack Owens and the un-recorded Henry Stuckey. Both James' and Owens' styles featured haunting minor chords and droning strings which, in comparison to the music of many other blues musicians, ring with an ominous and eerie feel.
The Bentonia school of guitar playing has strong associations with a guitar-tuning based on an open E minor chord. From the lowest (6th) string to the highest (1st), the tuning uses E-B-E-G-B-E. (A common variant pitches the same intervals a whole step lower, in D minor: D-A-D-F-A-D.) Although other blues musicians in a range of styles used this tuning (Booker "Bukka" White
, Albert Collins
, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup
, Henry Townsend
and others), the Bentonia musicians used it to great effect, achieving a distinctive tonality unique to the region.
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
-playing sometimes attributed to blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
players from Bentonia
Bentonia, Mississippi
Bentonia is a town in Yazoo County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 500 at the 2000 census. Some blues scholars maintain that there is a "Bentonia School" of blues singing and guitar-playing, and that "Bentonia-style" is a distinct style of Delta Blues, but Bentonia lies outside the...
, Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
, features a shared repertoire of songs, guitar tunings
Guitar tunings
Guitar tunings almost always refers to the pitch of the open string, though some tunings may only realistically be attained by the use of a capo on an unmodified instrument....
and chord
Chord (music)
A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
-voicings with a distinctively minor
Minor scale
A minor scale in Western music theory includes any scale that contains, in its tonic triad, at least three essential scale degrees: 1) the tonic , 2) a minor-third, or an interval of a minor third above the tonic, and 3) a perfect-fifth, or an interval of a perfect fifth above the tonic, altogether...
tonality
Tonality
Tonality is a system of music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center", or tonic. The term tonalité originated with Alexandre-Étienne Choron and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840...
not found in other styles of blues music.
While not all blues musicians from Bentonia played in this style, one particular blues player, Skip James
Skip James
Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James was an American Delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter, born in Bentonia, Mississippi, died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....
(1902–1969), had a distinct, complicated, and highly sophisticated style that veered from typical blues guitar playing. His style became known as Bentonia School.
James became the most well-known of the small pool of musicians associated with the Bentonia School. Others include Jack Owens and the un-recorded Henry Stuckey. Both James' and Owens' styles featured haunting minor chords and droning strings which, in comparison to the music of many other blues musicians, ring with an ominous and eerie feel.
The Bentonia school of guitar playing has strong associations with a guitar-tuning based on an open E minor chord. From the lowest (6th) string to the highest (1st), the tuning uses E-B-E-G-B-E. (A common variant pitches the same intervals a whole step lower, in D minor: D-A-D-F-A-D.) Although other blues musicians in a range of styles used this tuning (Booker "Bukka" White
Bukka White
Booker T. Washington White , better known as Bukka White, was an American Delta blues guitarist and singer. "Bukka" was not a nickname, but a phonetic misspelling of White's given name Booker, by his second record label .-Biography:Born between Aberdeen and Houston, Mississippi, White was the...
, Albert Collins
Albert Collins
Albert Collins was an American electric blues guitarist and singer whose recording career began in the 1960s in Houston and whose fame eventually took him to stages across the US, Europe, Japan and Australia...
, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup
Arthur Crudup
Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup was an American Delta blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known outside blues circles for writing songs such as "That's All Right" , "My Baby Left Me" and "So Glad You're Mine", later covered by Elvis Presley and dozens of other artists.-Career:Arthur Crudup...
, Henry Townsend
Henry Townsend (musician)
Henry 'Mule' Townsend was an American blues singer, guitarist and pianist.-Career:Townsend was born in Shelby, Mississippi and grew up in Cairo, Illinois. He left home at the age of nine because of an abusive father and hoboed his way to St. Louis, Missouri...
and others), the Bentonia musicians used it to great effect, achieving a distinctive tonality unique to the region.