Table Of Content"The appearance of a book on Skip James and his worlds as thorough,
clearheaded, and insightful as Gait'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."*
—Don Rowland, Voice Literary Supplement
u[Calt] seems, like James, more than a bit brilliant. His analyses of
blues history and James's music are penetrating and idiosyncratic, and
the harsh skepticism with which he views blues-collector culture and
the music it lionizes is something like a pleasure after decades of adu-
latory 'air pudding.'... A remarkable book."
—Robert Christgau, Minneapolis City Pages
"In light of the romanticism that permeates most works on blues,
Gait's vituperation is refreshing. He writes with anger and iconoclastic
zeal and he generally knows what he's talking about. The result is a
fascinating and disturbing book, containing a lot of truth, a lot of in-
teresting historical research, and a lot of food for thought Unlike
the hagiography that often passes for blues scholarship, Gait's book
shows James as a real person In a world where Robert Johnson is
on a stamp and the House of Blues is making the juke joint into a fla-
vor of the month, [Gait] offers a valuable counterweight."
-Elijah Wald, Living Blues
"[Gait] writes with a knowledge and intelligence that make even his
most extreme statements interesting His greatest virtue is his insis-
tence on painting James as a real, albeit infuriating, person Gait's
perspective is badly needed." —Boston Globe
"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.... Gait 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.... Gait's interviews with James just before his death in 1969
imbue this book with a true survivor's voice." —Publishers Weekly
"Entertaining and on the mark... Gait's narrative is always interesting
and often spellbinding Fascinating reading." -Acoustic Guitar
"An extraordinary work devoted to blues, and more specifically, to one
of the true enigmas of country blues. Stephen Gait's proximity to Skip
James, when reduced to the written word, brings this lone, mysterious
figure to multi-dimensional reality. Carefully thought out, it should be
in the library of anyone who is even remotely interested in American
vernacular music."
—Lawrence Colin, editor of Nothing But the Blues
"This probing study uncovers much of the life and personality of one
of the most talented, but disturbed, of bluesmen, Skip James. In docu-
menting 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." —Paul Oliver, author of Blues off the Record and
Screening the Blues
"As if urged and informed by his subject's demons, Stephen Calt adds
a stark stanza to our culture's historical and mythological canon with a
portrait of Skippy James that is intimate, learned, trenchant, chilling
and true. All great things are vital, and this great work surpasses its task
with comprehensive research and insight suggestive of far, uncharted
travels." —Alan Greenberg, author of Love in Vain:
A Vision of Robert Johnson
"This is the real thing. I drink up every word. This "and Gait's life of
Charlie Patton are the best books ever written on the subject of old-time
blues. Gait cuts through the bullshit with cold precision, punctures the
romanticism that coats these blues legends like congealed chicken fat.
But hell, I'll still be romantic about old music even after Gait is finished
with it—I can't help it when I listen to the records. The more I know
the truth about it, the better I like it, actually: it makes it all the more
interesting. Also, there's a hidden, extremely dry humor in Gait's writing
that I greatly enjoy. I can imagine some people missing this and being
annoyed at the—shall we say—'down beat' mood. For me it's just right."
-R. Crumb, author of Fritz the Cat and Weirdo
I'd Rather
Be the
DEVIL
SKIP JAMES
+
the BLUES
Stephen Calt
CHICAGO
REVIEW
PRESS
An A Cappella Book
Copyright © 1994 by Stephen Calt
Reprinted by arrangement with the author
Cover design: Jonathan Hahn
Cover photo: Ann Charters
This edition published in 2008 by
Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
814 North Franklin Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610
ISBN 978-1-55652-746-3
Printed in the United States of America
5 4 3 21
To Christopher Calt and Xiomara Vogel
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When our enemies deceive us,
when our friends betray us,
we are not to be consoled;
yet we are quite willing to
deceive and betray ourselves.
La Rochefoucauld
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AUTHOR'S NOTE
With the exception of a few isolated comments, the Skip James
quotations in this book were drawn from tape recordings made
by the author at irregular intervals between 1964 and 1969, in
New York City, Palisades, New York, and Philadelphia. The el-
lipses within quotations represent the elimination of redundan-
cies and superfluities, rather than pauses in speech. James*
quoted letters are rendered in their original spellings.
Most of the material I obtained from James was gathered in
the course of social visits. Recording reminiscences was an in-
cidental aspect of the visits themselves, at least to James. |Ie
did not share my interest in documenting his life; for the most
part he appeared to be indulging a peculiar whim of mine. He
had no interest in anything that might be written about his life,
and no awareness that anything he said about himself could
conceivably tarnish his reputation. The only subject that ap-
peared to make him skittish were the road camps that had em-
ployed him as a youthful laborer; he felt that young people
would be better off not knowing that such "dirtier than dirty"
places existed. "I don't think it would be worthwhile to have
that published, in a way," he said, after recording his reminis-
cences about it. "That wouldn't be etiquette."
James also had a general aversion to discussing his musical
development or past experiences as a blues musician, and almost
never volunteered anything on the subject. He was more re-
sponsive to questions about his musical career when his remarks
were not being recorded, and I thus made a practice of an-
notating his passing musical tidbits by hand.
The recordings were discourses rather than interviews: be-
cause James was resistant to anything resembling probing, the
author found it politic to interrupt as infrequently as possible.
It was expedient to assume such a passive role because James
