man.” I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “That’s modern stuff.” he said you gotta go back to Blind Willie McTell, you gotta go back to. . . Charley Patton.
Willie McTell. Yeah. Charley Patton all those guys. Blind Willie McTell is one of my heroes.
The greatest. Originally, this book Insured Beyond The Grave had 70 stories.
Good Lord. Like 800 pages, and everybody that I brought it to was like, “James, seriously?”
It was too big. Nobody was going to publish this. So I de- cided to break it up into volumes. I think with the book I just wanted to remind people of the real roots of all of the arts. It has filmmak- ers, photographers, musicians, writers. . .
Everybody, yeah Two archivists, Tim Duffy and Lance Ledbet- ter from Music Maker Relief and Dust to Dig- ital.
Music Maker Foundation is so fantas- tic. That was interesting article about Tim Duffy. Yeah, they followed in the footsteps of Alan Lomax. Archiving is an art too, just ask the Grateful Dead. If you record every show and you date it, it sticks. Those two guys, Lance and Tim, searching out the old American mu- sicians or artists … I think the intention is to not only document the accomplishments, but to document what it takes to do it. There’s a price.
Music Makers, back during the days when I was doing Gritzmagazine, I mean, we were doing Gritz magazine,
Music Makers would send us all of their great releases. I was one of the first journalists to stumble on them.
Yeah, I know and I’m so glad you did. That was 15 or 20 years ago. My God.
Yeah, it’s been a long time. What is next for (in my best Col. Bruce voice) Mista Calem- ine…. Well, I have this Crowe's book and I have this other collection of fiction and then. Lord will- ing and the creek don't rise, I have the other two volumes of Insured Beyond The Grave, so I have four books on the shelf right now pretty much ready to go.
That sounds pretty good. Yeah, that is what I have in the kitty right now.
Sounds like a plan. Yeah, it’s a plan that for sure. •
(Be sure to read our review of Insured Be- yond the Grave in this issue. -Ed.)
James is also a fine photographer. Many of his images are featured in Insured Beyond the Grave.
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