Episode 7: Fare Thee Well

VMP Anthology

In this season’s finale, we cover the sixth and final album in your Vanguard box set, Skip James’ Today! James’ signing to Vanguard represented the logical endpoint for a movement started in the mid ’50s, by a wave of artists and record collectors who obsessed over the 78s of old, forgotten bluesmen. At some point in the early ’60s, some of these players and collectors started actively hunting down the old bluesmen whose records they obsessed over. In this episode, we talk with Elijah Wald about Skip’s rediscovery, and how he wasn’t content to play to type when touring in the ’60s. We also talk about how Today! presented Skip James to a new generation.