#james son thomas

[coeurdeverre82]

val wilmer — deep blues 1960–1988

[hoodoogardens]

James “Son” Thomas, musician and sculptor, photographed by Bill Ferris in Leland, Mississippi, 1968. Thomas was born in 1926, in Eden, Mississippi.

Thomas first learned guitar and sculpture from his uncle, and his art proved a valuable source of income, supplementing the wages he earned picking cotton and digging graves. In 1982 Thomas’s clay sculptures were featured in Black Folk Art in America, 1930–1980, organized by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

One of many such skulls, Untitled of 1988, features a gaping mouth, lined with human teeth, split into a macabre grin. The skeletal form reflects Thomas’s professed affinity for “hoodoo” beliefs. He claimed to rely on dreams as sources for both his songs and his sculptures, and many of his portrait busts evoke a dreamlike state of flux and vagueness.

Thomas  died in 1993, in Greenville, Mississippi.

[killerbeesting]

William Ferris, James “Son” Thomas, musician and sculptor, Leland, Mississippi, 1968

[hoodoogardens]

“Son” Thomas on his porch with his sculpture, Leland, Mississippi, 1989. Photograph by Rex Miller/Rexpix

[questcequecestqueca]

James Son Thomas - Valerie Sybil Wilmer

Nudes & Noises

[ars-luciferina]

[fliegender]

James "Son" Thomas, Skull, 1987. Via freakyfauna

[sonntagsschule]

Bluesman Pat Thomas and son of bluesman James Son Thomas, at his Father’s grave. Leland, MS, >. Photo: Lou Bopp. And here you can hear the Beefsteak Blues from James Son Thomas, who sings his own words from his gravestone, >. Source: LP/CD/MP3 "Living Country Blues USA Volume 9 - Mississippi Moan" or: CD "Beefsteak Blues" available via. Thanks to Ziggy Christmann, a really great blues-music lover.