I Say Me for a Parable: The Oral Autobiography of Mance Lipscomb, Texas Bluesman [Hardcover]

Mance Lipscomb (Author), Glen Alyn (Author, Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1993

An account of the life of the legendary bluesman describes how this son of a slave supported his family by tenant farming cotton and who perfected his art as a blues musician and songwriter at countless dances.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In these 11 unusual narratives, recorded between 1973 and 1976, legendary blues singer and guitarist Lipscomb (1895-1976) tells folk music enthusiast Alyn all he can remember about his life. Lipscomb's parents were mainly African American, partially Choctaw Indian and formerly slaves. Life in Navasota, Tex., where Lipscomb lived for most of his life, revolved around family, church and cotton. His father was a part-time fiddler. In the 1920s, yodeller Jimmie Rogers wanted Lipscomb to tour with him. But Lipscomb refused and wasn't "discovered" again until the 1960s, when he became a hit on the folk scene, influencing Bob Dylan, The Greatful Dead, Janis Joplin and others. These "go-alongs" are the stuff of rich descriptions, told in Lipscomb's southeastern Texas dialect, recollecting parents, farming, Saturday night suppers, early musical influences, being discovered, leaving Texas and playing his music for white people. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

The oral autobiography of black East Texas farmer and songster Mance Lipscomb--a life that's one of the great American stories. Lipscomb (1895-1976) knew how to tell a tale, and had incredible tales to tell--about race and genealogy; about his allegiance to his part-Choctaw mother; about epic beatings by his father (who could play a cigar-box fiddle like a heavenly harp). The musician also speaks here about having his best friend, a cousin, and many acquaintances murdered by whites; about Frank Hamer, the Texas lawman who killed Bonnie and Clyde and who made Lipscomb his assistant and confidant when Lipscomb was ten years old; about farming (there's a dramatic account of share croppers readying mules to plow in the 4:00 a.m. darkness); about causing mass catharsis among 41,000 listeners when he played ``Motherless Children'' in Berkeley--ending his first-ever concert after just three songs. Lipscomb also demonstrates impressive insight into the structure of, and influences on, his musical style. But it was a mistake for editor-transcriber Alyn to begin with talk about Lipscomb's religious philosophy rather than to let that philosophy unobtrusively inform the narrative throughout. Moreover, Alyn's attempt to preserve Lipscomb's colorful speech through nonstandard spellings seems to trivialize his subject, and sometimes confuses (for instance, when ``rail'' is written for ``real,'' or ``miny'' for ``many''). Still, gratitude is owed Alyn for preserving Lipscomb's remarkable story. (Photos) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 508 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc (September 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039303500X
• ISBN-13: 978-0393035001
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,698,691 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #54 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Composers & Musicians > Rhythm & Blues

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More than the blues, January 8, 2003

By 

phil blank (Chapel Hill, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Say Me for a Parable: The Oral Autobiography of Mance Lipscomb, Texas Bluesman (Paperback)

This is a book that has stayed with me long after I read it. Mance has a way of speaking very directly and has a storytellers flare for keeping his narratives interesting. I picked it up as a book on the blues but I remember it as a rare frank and fascinating conversation with a man from a very different social, political and racial reality. Seeing Les Blank's documentary "A Well Spent Life" will give you Mance's voice and enable you to read the dialect with ease. It makes me wish that someone would release a CD of Mance telling stories. Glen Alyn deserves credit for his courage to transcribe the dialect and for offering just the right amount of commentary before stepping aside.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Difficult to read, but definitely worthwhile., January 25, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: I Say Me for a Parable: The Oral Autobiography of Mance Lipscomb, Texas Bluesman (Paperback)

No doubt Glen Alyn has done a lot of hard work putting this book together, but you do get the feeling this is not the best work on Mance Lipscomb imaginable. Lipscomb is a highly skilled story-teller and doesn't need the author's phonetic transcribtions to come across. If Alyn really wanted us to know about Mance's particular dialect, he should have had the book accompanied by a tape instead. Having said that, however, the book is still very entertaining, and at the end of the book we actually do have quite a clear understanding of Mance Lipscomb and the world he lived in

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bodyglin Lipscomb, January 16, 2006

By 

Big Bad Wolf (San Angelo Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Say Me for a Parable: The Oral Autobiography of Mance Lipscomb, Texas Bluesman (Hardcover)

I thought that this book was very interesting from both the music standpoint and his everyday living. The vernacular spelling was neither trivializing or confusing, but it did slow down my reading of the book. The vernacular issue is something that plagues the oral history genre and seems to have no real good answer.