I'd Rather Be the Devil: Skip James and the Blues

by Stephen Calt

Overview

Skip James (1902–1969) was perhaps the most creative and idiosyncratic of all blues musicians. Drawing on hundreds of hours of conversations with James himself, Stephen Calt here paints a dark and unforgettable portrait of a man untroubled by his own murderous inclinations, a man who achieved one moment of transcendent greatness in a life haunted by failure. And in doing so, Calt offers new insights into the nature of the blues, the world in which it thrived, and its fate when that world vanished.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781556527463
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	04/01/2008
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.85(d)

About the Author

Stephen Calt is the author of King of the Delta Blues: The Life and Music of Charlie Patton and the coauthor of R. Crumb's Heroes of Blues, Jazz and Country. He died in October 2010.

Table of Contents

Part 1
The Blues Singer     3
The Researcher     7
The Quarry     15
Looking Back     17
Part 2
Woodbine     23
The Birth Of The Blues     34
The Buck Rabbit     47
The Young Sport     56
Part 3
The Bootlegger     75
The Musician     87
The Performer     97
The Devil Woman     107
The Songwriter     111
The Murderous Music Cat     122
Part 4
Recording     133
Greatness At Grafton     138
Releasin's     158
The Convert     165
Devil Got Religion     168
The Prodigal Son     184
Limbo     191
Resumption     206
Recognition     214
The Delta     224
Part 5
The Prospectors     239
The Folk Movement     252
The Fan     260
Newport     267
Washington     274
The Sick Man     281
Air Puddings     286
Part 6
The Age of Aquarius     313
The Impostor     332
The Barrel OfCrabs     338
Scorpions     344
The Funeral     347
The Burying Ground     352
The Man Nobody Knew     355
Afterword     365
Transcription: Devil Got My Woman     367
Idioms     369
Subject Index     377
Song Index     383

What People are Saying About This

R. Crumb

This is the real thing. I drink up every word. This and Calt's life of Charlie Patton are the best books ever written on the subject of old-time blues. (R. Crumb, author, R. Crumb's Heroes of Blues, Jazz and Country)

Lawrence Cohn

An extraordinary work devoted to blues, and more specifically, to one of the true enigmas of country blues. (Lawrence Cohn, editor, Nothing But the Blues)

Alan Greenberg

Intimate, learned, trenchant, chilling, and true . . . This work surpasses its task with comprehensive research and insight suggestive of far, uncharted travels. (Alan Greenberg, author, Love in Vain)

Editorial Reviews

"[Calt] writes with a knowledge and intelligence that make even his most extreme statements interesting . . . His greatest virtue is his insistence on painting James as a real, albeit infuriating, person ."  —Boston Globe

"The appearance of a book on Skip James and his worlds as thorough, clearheaded, and insightful as Calt’s should be considered a gift of fate. To say I’d Rather Be the Devil is the best book on the subject of ‘country blues’ for the layperson would be an understatement on the order of  'Air is good for your body.'"  —Village Voice

"This is the real thing. I drink up every word. This and Calt’s life of Charlie Patton are the best books ever written on the subject of old-time blues."  —R. Crumb, author, R. Crumb’s Heroes of Blues, Jazz and Country

"Intimate, learned, trenchant, chilling, and true . . . This work surpasses its task with comprehensive research and insight suggestive of far, uncharted travels."  —Alan Greenberg, author, Love in Vain

"An extraordinary work devoted to blues, and more specifically, to one of the true enigmas of country blues." —Lawrence Cohn, editor, Nothing But the Blues

"Penetrating and idiosyncratic . . .  A remarkable book."  —Minneapolis City Pages

"Entertaining and on the mark . . . Calt’s narrative is always interesting and often spellbinding . . . Fascinating reading." —Acoustic Guitar

"A fascinating and disturbing book, containing a lot of truth, a lot of interesting historical research, and a lot of food for thought."  —Living Blues

From the Publisher

Less a biography of one blues legend than a biography of Mississippi blues, this account chronicles Skip James's life in part to make a more important, more affecting point. Most blues players from the early '20s and '30s waited decades for their music to earn them any degree of fame or financial reward. With a record's worth of songs earning them only $10 or $20, musicians survived as sharecroppers or manual laborers. Calt depicts James, born on a plantation in 1902 and abandoned early by his bootlegger father, as a man whose life before and after a single 1931 recording session was the blues. James's early years were not so different from his music-superstitious and undeniably violent. James made his living on the road, playing dance music in juke joints and whorehouses. Jazz fans discovered James in the '40s, and his songs ``22-20'' and ``Devil Got My Woman'' became instant classics. That James was one of the few to live long enough to witness his fame, which peaked in the '60s, was luck after years of hard living. Calt's interviews with James just before his death in 1969 imbue this book with a true survivor's voice. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

[Calt] writes with a knowledge and intelligence that make even his most extreme statements interesting . . . His greatest virtue is his insistence on painting James as a real, albeit infuriating, person.

Boston Globe

The appearance of a book on Skip James and his worlds as thorough, clearheaded, and insightful as Calt's should be considered a gift of fate. To say [it]is the best book on the subject of 'country blues' for the layperson would be an understatement on the order of 'Air is good for your body.'

Village Voice

Penetrating and idiosyncratic . . . A remarkable book.

Minneapolis City Pages

Entertaining and on the mark . . . Calt's narrative is always interesting and often spellbinding . . . Fascinating reading.

Acoustic Guitar

A fascinating and disturbing book, containing a lot of truth, a lot of interesting historical research, and a lot of food for thought.

Living Blues

Unflinching, at times uncomfortable, story of a truculent blues legend.

blog.wfmu.org

A compelling look at the everyday life of a blues singer, from the rural south to concert halls in America and beyond.

bluessocietyoftulsa.com