Stephen George Calt (March 14, 1946 – October 17, 2010) was an American blues researcher and writer, who wrote biographies of Skip James and Charley Patton. A teenage blues fan, Calt met Skip James at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival. James allowed Calt to interview him numerous times over subsequent years, and the resultant tapes formed the basis of Calt's biography, ''I'd Rather Be the Devil: Skip James and the Blues'', published in 1994, many years after James' death. In it, Calt says of their first meeting: "Had I known how our lives would intersect over the next four years, I would not have initiated that first conversation." In 1988, Calt's book, ''King of the Delta Blues: The Life and Music of Charlie Patton'', was published. He also wrote ''Barrelhouse Words: A Blues Dialect Dictionary'' (2009), co-wrote '' R. Crumb's Heroes of Blues, Jazz and Country'' (2006), and wrote many articles and

liner notes Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the record sleeve, sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for cassettes. Origin Liner n ...

on pre-war blues music. Calt died of

emphysema Emphysema, or pulmonary emphysema, is a lower respiratory tract disease, characterised by air-filled spaces ( pneumatoses) in the lungs, that can vary in size and may be very large. The spaces are caused by the breakdown of the walls of the a ...

Queens, New York Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long Is ...

, in 2010, aged 64. "Stephen Calt, R.I.P.", ''University of Illinois Press'', October 28, 2010
Retrieved 9 February 2019

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December 3, 2008 1946 births 2010 deaths American writers about music {{US-bio-writer-stub