Learning the blues from Son Thomas in Leland MS
This is a shot of Son and myself taken during my first of several visits with him. Son doesn't usually wear that hat unless he's getting his picture taken.
Here's one way James 'Son' Thomas would end his songs in the key of E
Here's a vamp that he would play in the key of E
Here's a tape recording I made of Son Thomas playing in the front room of his home in Leland MS.
All I knew about James 'Son' Thomas (besides being a great blues musician) was that he lived somewhere in Leland MS. After I arrived in Leland I literally went up to the first person I saw and asked if they ever heard of Thomas. The man I asked was carrying a small boy up on his shoulders. He turned to me, slowly put the boy down and leaned into my car window. "Yeah, I know Son. He's hanging out at the chicken joint up that road. Just go to the intersection and you'll see it."
Wow, what luck. I drove up to the intersection and immediately spied one of those franchise chicken restaurants. By this time I was pretty excited. It had been a long trip and I was anxious to meet 'Son' for the first time. But I was not that fortunate.
When I walked in and asked about James, no one there had ever heard of him. The manager came out from behind the counter and had me repeat Thomas's name. Then he turned to the waitress and asked her to summon the cook from the kitchen. "What was your boyfriend's name?" he asked the cook. "My boyfriend's name is James." she replied. "Where is he?" he asked. "He's over at the chicken joint across the street." she said. Now I'm thinking to myself there's only one chicken store around here, at least from what I could make out from the street. At this point the manager points to the building (depicted below) and says "That's the place over there."
As you can see from the picture, there's no way anyone could tell what kind of a place it is.
So I walked across the street and entered the building. Inside were about a half a dozen tables with old, mix and match chairs. Behind the counter was a man wearing an apron who looked at me with a bit of suspicion. Sitting at on of the tables were two farmers who also gave me the once over. However, Thomas was nowhere to be found.
Anybody ever hear of James 'Son' Thomas I asked? The cook said no. The men at the table just shook there heads. Great, I thought, another dead end. Just then a man who I hadn't noticed before spoke from out of the corner of the room. "Son's over at his house, just up the block. There's a big white car parked out front. You can't miss it."
Above is a picture of James standing in front of his home. When I first arrived I was greeted by Jame's large white dog named 'Snowball.' All she did was jump up on me and lick me all over my face. Pretty soon James came up to the door and started laughing. 'I see you made friends with my dog.'
Born in Eden MS in 1926, Son learned how to play the guitar from his uncle and grandfather. He didn't really start playing seriously until he was in his fifties. During this time one of the ways he made a living was by digging graves. 'I worked as a gravedigger with a man who only had one arm. He was so good at it that he could beat me diggin, just with that one arm.'
Within minutes of my arrival James broke out 2 guitars, one for him and the other for me. We spent the better part of the day jamming on his front porch.
Besides from being an excellent musician, James was a talented maker of clay sculptures. He would get the clay from the banks of the Mississippi river. On one of my visits I noticed a large mound of red clay sitting in his front yard. This was his supply. Inside his front porch was a table laden with cans of spray paint, cotton swabs and sculptures in various stages of development. He would the apply spray paint once a piece was hardened with one of those Q-tips. Below is one of his finished sculptures. You can sure see the gravedigging influence here.