Calt believes that James hated women, people, and deep down himself, and although his evidence is convincing, it must be noted that Calt is hardly hate-free himself. In fact, he seems a little crazy--and, like James, more than a little 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 adulatory "air pudding." The phrase, typically enough, is James's. The man may have been a sonuvabitch, but within the limits of his experience he was a conscious artist and no fool, and for all his resistance to hagiology, Calt makes these things amply clear. A remarkable, if remarkably cranky, book.

City Pages, ????