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

Stephen Calt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1994

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"[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

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Pr (September 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306805790
• ISBN-13: 978-0306805790
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,483,797 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #66 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Composers & Musicians > Rhythm & Blues

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No One Said It Was Going To Be Easy . . ., February 6, 1999

By 

Sviatoslav (Berkshires, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I'd Rather Be the Devil: Skip James and the Blues (Paperback)

What we have here:1) The lengthy and always compelling transcribed oral-autobiography of Skip James, a brilliant, idiosyncratic (and none too nice) blues musician from Bentonia, Mississippi whose greatest work was done in the 20's and 30's. A cynical fascinating tale of violence and feigned redemption, petty compromise and amoral cultural brilliance in the Jim Crow South. 2) A tour-de-force critique of the early 60's Folk Scene and the misguided, patronizing white college students who "rediscovered" blues musicians like Son House, Mississippi Fred McDowell and Skip James. Told by a man (Stephen Calt) who, to his lingering shame and horror, played more than a bit part. A scathing dark comedy about race, art, America and ostensibly good intentions, which Tom Wolfe would've given a kidney to have penned.3) Pages upon pages of detailed technical musical analysis that, alas, is all too often prejudiced by the ambivalence and still festering rage of Calt. 4) A minor yet compelling intellectual memoir in which -- twenty-five years after James' death -- Calt tries and fails miserably to reconcile all of the above.The end result is a deeply flawed, mashed together work of incendiary history, cruel insight and all manner of self-delusion. A messy harrowing work of great worth and constant interest.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An in-depth study, but watch for biases..., September 29, 2001

By 

Bryan Case (Washington) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I'd Rather Be the Devil: Skip James and the Blues (Paperback)

For those interested in James and his music this is probably the most thorough biography available. Stephen Calt tends to be vitriolic and is often none to kind in stating his opinions about James' behavior or those of other blues musicians discussed in the book. That's fine, such bluntness is refreshing from the candy-coated, politically correct "criticisms" often present in biographies.
However, Calt does have one habit that is, in my opinion, a reprehensible practice for a biographer. He tends too much towards conjecture. Instead of stating events, he often extrapolates what people are feeling, thinking, or might have done in a given situation. This kind of "completion" can get in the way of allowing the reader to draw his own conclusions.
All in all though, if you are interested in Skip James you would do well to read this book.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Groundbreaking Piece Of History, June 19, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: I'd Rather Be the Devil: Skip James and the Blues (Paperback)

In this book, Stephen Calt uses Skip James as a case-study to show the guts of the popular music industry from completely new angle. In the 1960s, a generation of British musicians suddenly became Blues aficionados after hearing that music on records. The recordings they heard were new reissues of old forgotten 78rpm discs from the 1920s and 1930s. Calt traces the story of how the reissued records came to be, and the new market they ultimately created. The story is not a pretty one. For fans of most popular music--especially the line which runs through the Stones, Clapton, and Led Zeppelin--this is fascinating and disturbing stuff. Skip James, the unlikely intellectual with many moral faults of his own, turns out to be a perfect lens through which to view the ugly business of some incredible music.

Calt is often accused of being "mean spirited" and pompous and such. Any writer whose purpose it is to shatter baseless myths is certain to ruffle some feathers. And that is the point.