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

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Chicago Review Press, Apr 1, 2008 - Biography & Autobiography - 400 pages

Skip James (1902&–1969) was perhaps the most creative and idiosyncratic of all blues musicians. Drawing on hundreds of hours of conversations with James himself, Stephen Calt here paints a dark and unforgettable portrait of a man untroubled by his own murderous inclinations, a man who achieved one moment of transcendent greatness in a life haunted by failure. And in doing so, Calt offers new insights into the nature of the blues, the world in which it thrived, and its fate when that world vanished.

 

Contents

Part Two
21
Part Three
73
Part Four
131
Part Five
237
Part Six
311
Afterword
365
Devil Got My Woman
366
Idioms
369
Subject Index
377
Song Index
383
Copyright

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About the author (2008)

STRONGStephen Calt is the author of King of the Delta Blues: The Life and Music of Charlie Patton and the coauthor of R. Crumb's Heroes of Blues, Jazz and Country. He lives in Fresh Meadows, New York.

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