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 he first picked up a guitar in the late 1950s, his professional music career didn't begin until the '80s and '90s, when he appeared at regional -- and later national and international -- blues festivals. A smattering of recordings exists from his early days, but Holmes didn't become a recording artist until the late 2000s, by which time he was in his sixties. Despite his late start, he quickly amassed a discography with a string of quality releases like 2007's Done Got Tired of Tryin' and 2016's gritty It Is What It Is. In 2019, he was championed by Black Keys' guitarist Dan Auerbach, who produced Holmes' album Cypress Grove and helped introduce the bluesman to an increasingly wider audience. Born in Yazoo County, Mississippi, Holmes' parents opened up the Blue Front Cafe in Bentonia that same year. When Bentonia blues originator Henry Stuckey moved in next door to the Holmes family in 1957, he taught young Jimmy some of his first chords. He played around on borrowed guitars throughout his teenage years, but didn't buy his own until the early '70s. As various bluesmen like Adam Slater, Cornelius Bright, and Jack Owens came through the Blue Front, they taught Jimmy the tunings, feel, and repertoire of the Bentonia blues. He also picked up some technique from Hill country bluesman Tommy West, which he blended into his own developing sound. In addition to running and booking the Blue Front, Jimmy's mother, Mary Holmes, founded the Bentonia Blue Festival which Jimmy started playing in the '80s. Although he'd been recorded a couple of times by visiting ethnomusicologists like Alan Lomax and David Evans, Holmes' professional music career essentially began on the blues festival circuit, and throughout the '80s and '90s he expanded his reach outside of Mississippi, making appearances at the Chicago Blues Festival and Tennessee's Muddy Roots Music Festival, even heading as far west as Oregon's Waterfront Blues Festival. In 2003, Peter Lee, the original founder of Fat Possum Records, recorded some sessions for Holmes in nearby Pluto that were to be released on Lee's Shade Tree Records imprint. Sadly, the label went under before the album could be released, though another producer, Jeff Konkel, eventually captured the bluesman on tape back at the Blue Front a few years later and released Holmes' debut album, Back to Bentonia, on his Broke & Hungry label in 2006. A mix of acoustic Bentonia blues staples and some originals, it earned both artist and producer a handful of awards from <I>Living Blues magazine and effectively put Holmes on the map as a recording artist. By the decade's end, he had recorded both a follow-up, 2007's acclaimed Done Got Tired of Tryin' and had his 2003 Shade Tree sessions properly released in 2008 by Fat Possum as Gonna Get Old Someday. He also appeared in Konkel's blue documentary, <I>M is For Mississippi, that same year. Holmes continued to nurture his burgeoning music career, releasing albums like 2010's Ain't It Lonesome and 2013's All Night Long, which showcased both his spare acoustic style and grittier electric blues. He also continued to manage the Blue Front which, by this point, held the distinction of being the country's longest-running juke joint. 2016 saw the release of a live set, Live at Briggs Farm, and the fiery It Is What It Is, which came out on his own Blue Front Records. After being approached by Dan Auerbach, Holmes signed with the Black Keys guitarist's Easy Eye Records and recorded the 2019 album Cypress Grove. ~ Timothy Monger, Rovi