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

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: cherry ball, blues rediscovery, house frolic, Skip James, New York, Devil Got My Woman (more...)

4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

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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.

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Product Details

Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Da Capo Pr (September 1994)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0306805790
ISBN-13: 978-0306805790
Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1 inches
Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces

Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,965,986 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Inside This Book (learn more)
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
cherry ball, blues rediscovery, house frolic, blues specialists, blues career, phrasing pattern, instrumental phrase, blues phrase, folk circuit, recording director, blues idiom

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Skip James, New York, Devil Got My Woman, Henry Stuckey, Johnnie Temple, Son House, John Hurt, Roll Jordan, Yazoo City, Charlie Patton, Cypress Grove, Tommy Johnson, Jim Crow, Gayle Wardlow, Special Rider, Muddy Waters, Hard-Luck Child, Illinois Blues, Jack Owens, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Ishmon Bracey, Yazoo County, Vicksburg Blues, Pallet On The Floor, Tin Pan Alley

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	86% buy the item featured on this page: I'd Rather Be the Devil: Skip James and the Blues 4.1 out of 5 stars (8)
	6% buy Barrelhouse Words: A Blues Dialect Dictionary 5.0 out of 5 stars (1) $17.79
	3% buy Crossroads: The Life and Afterlife of Blues Legend Robert Johnson 3.8 out of 5 stars (5) $11.21
	2% buy Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History of the Mississippi Delta 4.8 out of 5 stars (29) $10.88

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Customer Reviews

8 Reviews

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
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Average Customer Review

4.1 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 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

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.

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6 of 7 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)

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.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A real biography, August 1, 2007

By	Mr. Richard M. Mason (Oxford, England) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It's a crying shame this is out of print and so expensive. It's one of the best books of any kind I've ever read. It made me feel uncomfortable at times, challenging as it does so many predisposed ideas about the blues, treatment of black people and the music business. Calt has strong opinions and obviously his own axe to grind. But his musical analysis of James' work is masterly and incisive. It's a timely reminder that a great musician does not necessarily a good person make. If you like your myths about the blues kept intact, avoid. If you are open-minded and crave a good read, seek this book out. But listen to the music first.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Five star story, two star delivery
No other comprehensive biographies of Skip James exist as of today, so Stephen Calt is your only choice if you want to learn about the man. Read more

Published 11 months ago by the-ian

5.0 out of 5 stars What A Read!
It would certainly be wise to take everything Calt says about James with a grain of salt. He seems to have very bitter memories of the Country Blues revival in general, and all of... Read more

Published 17 months ago by D. B Pepper

5.0 out of 5 stars A Groundbreaking Piece Of History
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. Read more

Published on June 19, 1998

3.0 out of 5 stars Well researched but mean spirited
Calt obviously knows his stuff when it come to Delta blues. Regrettably, his spiteful and unneccessary attacks on fellow blues enthusiasits ( guitarist John Fahey is a favorite... Read more

Published on May 14, 1998

3.0 out of 5 stars All hail Skip
I must thank mr. calt for his dedication to mr.james for he deserves all the credit and acclaim that he can get. through out the book I got the feeling that mr. Read more

Published on January 30, 1997

› See all 8 customer reviews...

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