I'd Rather Be the Devil

"Less a biography of one blues legend than a biography of Mississippi blues ... Calt's interviews with James just before his death in 1969 imbue this book with a true survivor's voice." -- Publishers Weekly "[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