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Son House's place, not only in the history of Delta blues, but in the overall history of the music, is a very high one indeed.
Hewas a major innovator of the Delta style, along with his playing partners Charley Patton and Willie Brown. Few
listeningexperiences in the blues are as intense as hearing one of Son House's original 1930s recordings for the Paramount
label.Entombed in a hailstorm of surface noise and scratches, one can still be awestruck by the emotional fervor House puts
intohis singing and slide playing. Little wonder then that the man became more than just an influence on ...read more
Son House's place, not only in the history of Delta blues, but in the overall history of the music, is a very high one indeed.
Hewas a major innovator of the Delta style, along with his playing partners Charley Patton and Willie Brown. Few
listeningexperiences in the blues are as intense as hearing one of Son House's original 1930s recordings for the Paramount
label.Entombed in a hailstorm of surface noise and scratches, one can still be awestruck by the emotional fervor House puts
intohis singing and slide playing. Little wonder then that the man became more than just an influence on some white English
kidwith a big amp; he was the main source of inspiration to both Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson, and it doesn't get
muchmore pivotal than that. Even after his rediscovery in the mid-'60s, House was such a potent musical force that what
wouldhave been a normally genteel performance by any other bluesmen in a "folk" setting turned into a night in the nastiest
jukejoint you could imagine, scaring the daylights out of young white enthusiasts expecting something far more prosaic
andcomfortable. Not out of Son House, no sir. When the man hit the downbeat on his National steel-bodied guitar and you
sawhis eyes disappear into the back of his head, you knew you were going to hear some blues. And when he wasn't shouting
theblues, he was singing spirituals, a cappella. Right up to the end, no bluesman was torn between the sacred and the
profanemore than Son House.
He was born Eddie James House, Jr., on March 21, 1902, in Riverton, MS. By the age of 15, he was preaching the gospel
invarious Baptist churches as the family seemingly wandered from one plantation to the next. He didn't even bother picking
upa guitar until he turned 25; to quote House, "I didn't like no guitar when I first heard it; oh gee, I couldn't stand a guy
playin'a guitar. I didn't like none of it." But if his ambivalence to the instrument was obvious, even more obvious was the
simple factthat Son hated plantation labor even more and had developed a taste for corn whiskey. After drunkenly launching
into a bluesat a house frolic in Lyon, MS, one night and picking up some coin for doing it, the die seemed to be cast; Son
House mayhave been a preacher, but he was part of the blues world now.
If the romantic notion that the blues life is said to be a life full of trouble is true, then Son found a barrel of it one night
atanother house frolic in Lyon. He shot a man dead that night and was immediately sentenced to imprisonment at
ParchmanFarm. He ended up only serving two years of his sentence, with his parents both lobbying hard for his release,
claiming selfdefense. Upon his release -- after a Clarksdale judge told him never to set foot in town again -- he started a new
life in theDelta as a full-time man of the blues.
After hitchhiking and hoboing the rails, he made it down to Lula, MS, and ran into the most legendary character the blues
hadto offer at that point, the one and only Charley Patton. The two men couldn't have been less similar in disposition,
stature,and in musical and performance outlook if they had purposely planned it that way. Patton was described as a funny,
loud-mouthed little guy who was a noisy, passionate showman, using every trick in the book to win over a crowd. The tall
andskinny House was by nature a gloomy man with a saturnine disposition who still felt extremely guilt-ridden about playing
theblues and working in juke joints. Yet when he ripped into one, Son imbued it with so much raw feeling that the
performancebecame the show itself, sans gimmicks. The two of them argued and bickered constantly, and the only thing
these two menseemed to have in common was a penchant for imbibing whatever alcoholic potable came their way. Though
House wouldlater refer in interviews to Patton as a "jerk" and other unprintables, it was Patton's success as a bluesman --
both live andespecially on record -- that got Son's foot in the door as a recording artist. He followed Patton up to Grafton,
WI, andrecorded a handful of sides for the Paramount label. These records today (selling scant few copies in their time, the
few thatdid survived a life of huge steel needles, even bigger scratches, and generally lousy care) are some of the most
highly prizedcollectors' items of Delta blues recordings, much tougher to find than, say, a Robert Johnson or even a Charley
Patton 78.Paramount used a pressing compound for their 78 singles that was so noisy and inferior sounding that should
someoneactually come across a clean copy of any of Son's original recordings, it's a pretty safe bet that the listener would
still begreeted with a blizzard of surface noise once the needle made contact with the disc.
But audio concerns aside, the absolutely demonic performances House laid down on these three two-part 78s ("My
BlackMama," "Preachin' the Blues," and "Dry Spell Blues," with an unreleased test acetate of "Walkin' Blues" showing up
decadeslater) cut through the hisses and pops like a brick through a stained glass window.
It was those recordings that led Alan Lomax to his door in 1941 to record him for the Library of Congress. Lomax was
cuttingacetates on a "portable" recording machine weighing over 300 pounds. Son was still playing (actually at the peak of
hispowers, some would say), but had backed off of it a bit since Charley Patton died in 1934. House did some tunes solo,
asLomax asked him to do, but also cut a session backed by a rocking little string band. As the band laid down long and
loose(some tracks went on for over six minutes) versions of their favorite numbers, all that was missing was the guitars
beingplugged in and a drummer's backbeat and you were getting a glimpse of the future of the music.
But just as House had gone a full decade without recording, this time after the Lomax recordings, he just as
quicklydisappeared, moving to Rochester, NY. When folk-blues researchers finally found him in 1964, he was cheerfully
exclaimingthat he hadn't touched a guitar in years. One of the researchers, a young guitarist named Alan Wilson (later of the
blues-rockgroup Canned Heat) literally sat down and retaught Son House how to play like Son House. Once the old master
was up tospeed, the festival and coffeehouse circuit became his oyster. He recorded again, the recordings becoming an
importantintroduction to his music and, for some, a lot easier to take than those old Paramount 78s from a strict audio
standpoint. In1965, he played Carnegie Hall and four years later found himself the subject of an eponymously titled film
documentary, all ofthis another world removed from Clarksdale, MS, indeed. Everywhere he played, he was besieged by young
fans, asking himabout Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, and others. For young white blues fans, these were merely exotic
names from thepast, heard only to them on old, highly prized recordings; for Son House they were flesh and blood
contemporaries, not justsome names on a record label. Hailed as the greatest living Delta singer still actively performing,
nobody dared call himself theking of the blues as long as Son House was around.
He fell into ill health by the early '70s; what was later diagnosed as both Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease first affected
hismemory and his ability to recall songs on-stage and, later, his hands, which shook so bad he finally had to give up the
guitarand eventually leave performing altogether by 1976. He lived quietly in Detroit, MI, for another 12 years, passing away
onOctober 19, 1988. His induction into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame in 1980 was no less than his due. Son House was
theblues. « hide |
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