I'd Rather Be the Devil by Stephen Calt

Author:Stephen Calt
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Blues (Music) - Mississippi, James, General, Biography & Autobiography, Music, Blues Musicians - United States, Skip, Blues (Music), Blues, Genres & Styles, Composers & Musicians, Blues Musicians
ISBN: 9781556527463
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 1994-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

21. Limbo

Although James’ fledging ministry may have been marked by a lack of constancy, it had none of the unsavory quality of his previous careers. In an age of opportunistic preachers who were stereotyped in blues song as womanizers and charlatans, James attempted to live up to the ideals of his calling. “Now I know there are lots of preachers just for the filthy lucre sake, and also for socializin’ [sex],” he would say in the 1960s. “And when they pastor churches, the best-lookin’ sisters of those memberships is his associates and concubines. In some churches, he will not be successful unless he does socialize with some of those sisters, ’cause they have the influence by bein’ secretary in the church and so forth. But I never did like that . . .”

As a neophyte in the church, he appears to have done little outright blues-playing. He gave up guitar altogether, and made no reference to his musical past in the company of fellow church members. For this reason he was able to astound one of the females in his father’s flock who owned a copy of 22-20 Blues; after noticing the record on a visit to her home, he took great delight in casually duplicating it on her piano.

While studying for the ministry, he played in his father’s church in Plano, worked as a church piano tuner (a skill he had learned from a man in Natchez) and repairman (primarily re-felting hammers), and sang in the choir of the church. He then became the pianist and lead singer of the Dallas Jubilee Quartet, an outfit whose bookings were arranged by the deacon of his father’s church. Using his father’s 1927 Buick, they appeared in Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, and Wichita. On one occasion, he played blues in Oklahoma for a white party. Since there had recently been a racial disturbance in the vicinity, he was provided with an armed guard. He was even more impressed by the fact that a white woman hugged him after he gave a performance in a white church.

James disbanded his gospel group after about a year because its married members objected to being separated from their wives. Their domesticity caused him to snort: “There’s no sense wasting holy bread on dogs.”

The spiritual he most doted on during this period was his father’s composition, Sea Walking Jesus, which was sung in a sedate style. It remained one of his favorite pieces, rendered on both piano and guitar. Although James was the most gifted blues musician of the era to become a spiritual singer, he did not create any sacred songs in the fashion of his father or Thomas A. Dorsey, the ex–blues pianist who became the accredited pioneer of what became known as “gospel” music. As a blues musician, James was among the most imaginative performers of his generation; as a spiritual singer, he was a conformist. The bold departures of another Baptist quartet, the Soul Stirrers, who were to modernize black religious singing,

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