James "Son" Thomas (October 14, 1926 – June 26, 1993)[1][2] was an American Delta blues musician and sculptor.

Together they recorded "Once I Had a Car", which is included on the compilation album Mississippi Delta & South Tennessee Blues (1977).

[10] While working as a gravedigger, he was also a folk artist, making sculptures from unfired clay, which he dug out of the banks of the Yazoo River.

[4] His most famous sculpted images were skulls (often featuring actual human teeth), which mirrored his job as a gravedigger and his often stated philosophy that "we all end up in the clay".

[7] Called To Create: Black Artists of the American South, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, September 18, 2022 – March 26, 2023, curated by Harry Cooper.