Episode #126 | 4.18.23
Skip James: A Sawmill Shootout, Pimping, Bootlegging, and the Son of a Preacher Man
Listen free:
Amazon Music | iHeart | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify
In this episode
Skip James’s most famous lyric was “I’d rather be the Devil” and he put his money where his mouth was: he is believed to have shot a man dead, spent time as a pimp and a bootlegger, and womanized up and down the United States. Skip may have eventually found religion, and even recognition as the last great bluesman to be discovered by white America, but all that devilish living–and a possible hex–would bring his lifestyle to a brutal end.
Sources
I’d Rather Be the Devil: Skip James and the Blues, by Stephen Calt
Whose Skip James is This? (The Oxford American)
Sharecropping | Themes | Slavery by Another Name (PBS)
Penile Implant Procedure (Advanced Urological Care)
Penectomy for Penile Cancer: Recovery, Procedure, and More (Heathline)
How to – Penile amputation – Large Animal Surgery – Supplemental Notes (University of Minnesota)
Disgraceland is a podcast about musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly. It melds music history, true crime and transgressive fiction. Disgraceland is not journalism. Disgraceland is entertainment. Entertainment inspired by true events. However, certain scenes, characters and names are sometimes fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
Credits
Hosted and written by Jake Brennan.
Copy editing by James Sullivan.
This episode was mixed by Matt Beaudoin.
Score by Jake Brennan.
Mixed and Engineered by Sean Cahalin.
Additional music and score elements by Ryan Spraker.
Additional music services by Bryce Kanzer.
Ad music composed by the late, great Ian Kennedy.
Disgraceland theme song, "Crenshaw Space Boogie" written and produced by Jake Brennan. Performed by Jake Brennan, Bryce Kanzer, Jay Cannava and Evan Kenney. Mixed and engineered by Adam Taylor. Score by Jake Brennan.
*illustrations by Avi Spivak @avispivak