Beth Anderson, Children's Writer

Here’s a terrific post from author Jason Peterson on finding the balance between details of a life and “the feel” of that life in the world in BLUES WITH A BUTTER KNIFE: THE UNSTOPPABLE MUSIC OF CEDELL DAVIS.

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Listening for the Music in BLUES WITH A BUTTER KNIFE

By Jason Peterson

The late, great zydeco and blues bassist Lee Allen Zeno once told me how he learned to play bass: “My cousin played guitar,” he said. “And when I’d look at his hand on the neck to see the chords he was playing, he’d turn and face the wall. I’d try to look again, and he’d turn away again. Finally, he’d holler, ‘You’ve got ears, don’t you?’”

I think about that story often (and Mr. Lee’s contagious laughter in telling it), especially when I’m overthinking and overcomplicating a problem. 

Stop and listen to the music.

It comes to mind again while reflecting on writing Blues With a Butter Knife: The Unstoppable Music of CeDell Davis, about another late, great musician.

At seven years old, CeDell Davis taught himself guitar. A few years later, after polio had partially paralyzed his hands, he re-taught himself the instrument – upside down, using a table knife to fret and slide the strings. Later in life, when he could no longer play guitar, he continued to sing. 

The music born from that creativity sounds unlike anyone else’s playing, and CeDell’s striking voice cuts straight to the heart.

The manuscript started when the following words came to mind while I was listening to CeDell’s music. They ended up becoming, nearly word-for-word, the opening of the book:  

            Sometimes music cuts like a knife.

            It did for CeDell Davis.

            The blues. 

The deep-down, stir-your-heart, rattle-your-bones blues. 

I liked it. 

I didn’t know where it was headed, but I wanted to keep going. While I’d written about music and musicians quite a bit, and completed countless picture book manuscripts, this was new and exciting.

After much research; the kindness and generosity of those who knew, played music with, and loved CeDell (shoutout to Greg Binns, Oteil Burbridge, Roger Stolle, Augusta Palmer, and many others!); drafts and feedback and revisions – the manuscript was complete. Or so I thought.

The result was a sparse, lyrical text. It was lean on biographical details and big on feel. I tried to capture and convey the feelings I had when listening to CeDell’s music.

And Carolyn Yoder and her incredible team connected with it. I was over the moon knowing the book would be released by Calkins Creek, home to so many of the fascinating, beautiful biographies I’d been devouring as I worked on my own text.

Carolyn provided fantastic notes on the manuscript and rightly identified that more from CeDell’s life was needed on the page to fully tell his remarkable story. 

In the revised text I submitted, I provided those details. And more details. And more…and more. At some point, I stopped considering how those added words would flow on the page and how they would impact the musicality of the text. 

I packed in the information like a solo with too many notes.

Carolyn’s feedback on that draft cut to the heart: “…the original version was simpler and clearer – and had more punch.” To bring it back to Lee Allen Zeno’s words, I had stopped listening to the music and was staring at a guitar neck. 

I needed to listen to the music again.

The ultimate result of this back and forth – as we found the balance that kept the early drafts’ musicality while telling CeDell’s story – is the final manuscript. It became complete with R. Gregory Christie’s stunning art (I still need to pinch myself whenever I see it). 

My hope is that we honored CeDell’s music and life and channeled the love that so many people have for him and his playing into this book.

And it was a lesson that I take with me in my other writing efforts: 

Don’t forget to stop and listen.

AND don’t forget to leave a comment below to get in on the drawing for a copy of BLUES WITH A BUTTER KNIFE! (US addresses only, please. Winner announced 10/25/26.)

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