Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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.

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.

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.calt was letting his personal judgement concerning mr.james get in the way of an acurate representation. most of the character jugements so often hinted at throughout this biography seem to come from calt's experiences with the man towards the end of his life. Lets all remember Mr. calt what a genius [as John hurt has called the man] really means. I'm sure dieing of cancer and not reciveing your due during your lifetime would make anyone bitter. I hope there are others out there who wait for anything to read about such a person and if so, this is a good place to start

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.

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. The detail can be exhaustive at points and the information itself is well presented, but this book is a complete failure as a biography. For whatever reason, Calt adopts an extremely negative and nihilistic tone as narrator for the entire book and is unremittingly condescending to James and southern black culture in general. Calt regularly speaks in hyperbole and presents his own opinion or perception of a given incident as fact. Calt also loves to project himself into the story; this is permissible in first-person situations where he was actually present, but more often than not he wasn't and is merely guessing at what he thinks happened. This is fine practice in a story, but not in a book touting itself a biography.

One other HUGE issue is Calt's complete disregard for ethnocentric language. In one particularly heinous incident, on page 325, Calt asserts that an adult James "...was too much the plantation darkey..." to encourage white musicians to explore black music. This term should only be acceptable in a vignette recalling the roots of southern black culture and music; used in this context, it's simply a racist and condescending judgment of a man for whom Calt seems to harbor a strange Freudian jealousy.

Weird book; weird author; weird musician. I guess it all fits. At least there are tabs for "Devil Got My Woman" in the appendix.

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 target) and the apparent contempt he has for any white student of that genre detract from this otherwise darkly fascinating portrait of Skip James.

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 the so-called "white guitar nerds" who befriended and, as Calt states, cheated many of the original Blues musicians whose careers had been brought back to life. I don't know for a fact if James killed one man or many men, or robbed a bank, or hated all women; all I know is that this is what Calt alleges. The book is still great to read, though, because of its vividness. Calt also puts forth a theory that the beginnings of the Blues lie in a hymn that was taught to slaves. This is also considered quite a questionable theory in the Blues world. In addition to this, Calt has also said some negative things about the great Dick Waterman, who did and is doing a great deal to help the original Country Bluesmen and their living family members, respectively. One thing Calt is well aware of is that James was a genius, at least at his 1931 sessions, and that he never got the fame nor the recognition that he rightfully deserved, with John Hurt being favored by Country Blues fans. This is an excellent read, though the accuracy of the material is questionable, and is really in stark contrast with Elijah Wald's "Society Blues", a biography on Josh White, which paints its main character as a wonderful, heroic, gentle human being.

Being a fan of both Fahey and James, which seems to be the main topic to argue about in this novel, i must say they both seemed to be pretty wacked. James was a bitter jerk who had an ignorant distaste for other artists of his time, while Fahey was just enraptured in his own world. They were both drunks, and men with distinctive styles that could arguably come from their obnoxious larger than life egos. Reguardless, in the end, they leave their virtuoso work for others to learn from, frankly i couldn't care less about the theories that Fahey tried to profit off James. Fahey certainly was not a good publicist, which is a factor in James's lack luster revival but Skip's own lack of motivation to refine his music in his older years was definitely just as critical to his lack of success. You can't make an artist succeed if the artist acts like he couldn't care less. Skip and Fahey simply did not like each other, both were to arrogant. Fahey was a brilliant artist just as James was and was simply not the kind of person who should have been directing Skip's career. Fahey died poor, James did too, both were forgotten and now amongst younger listeners they are being revived. Both are important to the other in that their information on the internet link the two artists. This book is great, but all that matters is the music we have to listen to today.