Skip James - Hard Time Killing Floor Blues (2009)

James, from rural Mississippi, recorded this song for the Paramount label, which released it as a 10-inch single with "Cherry Ball Blues" in 1931. The song didn't get much attention until the blues music revival of the 1960s, when Delta blues musicians from the '20s and '30s were "rediscovered."

"Hard Time Killing Floor Blues" was re-issued on the Biograph label in 1964, the same year James first played the Newport Folk Festival; he was 61 at the time. James made more recordings before dying from cancer in 1969.

"Hard Time Killing Floor Blues" found new life when Chris Thomas King performed it in the 2000 movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? in character as blues musician Tommy Johnson. King's version, produced by T-Bone Burnett, was included on the soundtrack, which sold 8 million copies and went to #1 in America.

In the film, King performed it around a campfire with George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson (the Soggy Bottom Boys) looking on. King recalled in his book The Blues: The Authentic Narrative of My Music and Culture: "It seemed during the pivotal campfire scene, I'd truly conjured some mystical Voodoo, which Rodger Deakins, the cinematographer, had masterfully captured. I hadn't swiveled my hips on Ed Sullivan, set my guitar on fire at Monterey Pop, nor moonwalked on Motown's 25th anniversary stage. Yet, somehow, it was understood we'd caught lighting in a bottle."

Tracklist:
1.01 - Skip James - Hard Time Killing Floor Blues (3:28)
1.02 - Skip James - Sick Bed Blues (3:40)
1.03 - Skip James - Washington D.C. Hospital Center Blues (4:19)
1.04 - Skip James - Devil Got My Woman (6:20)
1.05 - Skip James - Illinois Blues (3:42)
1.06 - Skip James - I Don't Want a Woman to Stay up All Night Long (4:45)
1.07 - Skip James - Cherry Ball Blues (3:54)
1.08 - Skip James - Skip's Worried Blues (4:23)
1.09 - Skip James - Cypress Grove Blues (4:08)
1.10 - Skip James - Catfish Blues (3:33)
1.11 - Skip James - Motherless & Fatherless (4:09)
1.12 - Skip James - All Night Long (4:55)