I'd Rather be the Devil: Skip James and the Blues - Softcover

Calt, Stephen

3.8

146 ratings by Goodreads

9780306805790: I'd Rather be the Devil: Skip James and the Blues

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0306805790 ISBN 13: 9780306805790

Publisher: Da Capo Press Inc, 1994

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Skip James (1902-1969) was one of the greatest Mississippi bluesmen, and a creative and idiosyncratic blues musician. His 1931 performances of "Devil Got My Woman", "I'm So Glad" and "22-20 Blues" transcend the genre. "I'd Rather Be The Devil" is a biography of James - and one of the few accounts of the dangerous and disreputable life of a professional blues musician. Based largely on hundreds of hours of conversations with James himself, Stephen Calt paints a portrait of a man troubled by his own murderous inclinations, a man who achieved one moment of greatness in a life haunted by failure. And, in doing so, Calt offers insights into the nature of the blues, the world in which it thrived, and its fate when that world vanished.

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Review:

"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"

"[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 Back Cover:

This probing study uncovers much of the life and personality of one of the most talented, but disturbed, of bluesmen, Skip James. In documenting the singer's decline during the period of his greatest exposure, Stephen Calt challenges the values of blues enthusiasts and calls into question widely accepted beliefs about the blues genre, its history and its exponents.

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