Jimmy "Duck" Holmes

Jimmy “Duck” Holmes is the greatest living proponent of the Bentonia blues, a highly localized style known for its haunting and eerie sound. His dedication to preserving and passing on his knowledge, award-winning recordings, and electrifying stage performances are building a renaissance for the unique music that bears the name of his tiny Mississippi hometown.

Bentonia blues came to international attention in 1964, when the legendary Skip James was among the leading figures of the blues revival featured at the Newport Folk Festival. James learned the style from its originator, Henry Stuckey, who developed it using tuning learned from Caribbean musicians he met while serving in the U.S. Army in France during World War I. Jimmy “Duck” Holmes first heard the music as a child sitting on the porch with Stuckey, who was his parents’ tenant in the 1950s. Later, Holmes developed his own style playing in his family’s juke joint, the Blue Front, with Jack Owens, the other great Stuckey protégé.

Jimmy’s parents, Mary and Carey Holmes, opened the Blue Front in 1948, when their son was only a year old. He’s been the proprietor since 1970, after his father passed away. It’s now a designated stop on the Mississippi Blues Trail, in recognition of its status as the oldest continuously operating juke joint in Mississippi. Each year, the Blue Front hosts the annual Bentonia Blues Festival, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary.

Although Jimmy “Duck” Holmes’ daily life revolves around the Blue Front, recently fame has come knocking. His 2006 debut brought multiple Living Blues awards. In 2019, superstar producer Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys proposed a collaboration, and their sessions in Nashville led to Holmes’s most recent album, Cypress Grove, which earned him his first Grammy nomination.