Son House
Son House was a towering figure in the history of Delta blues, a contemporary of Charley Patton and Robert Johnson who cut epochal recordings in the 1930s and '40s and went on to an impressive career revival after he was rediscovered in the 1960s. House's best work is among the most emotionally vivid of the country blues, with the slash and sharp strum of his guitar a powerful match for the moaning wail of his voice in his songs of love, faith, and lives gone wrong, and his original 1930s recordings for Paramount Records and his later field recordings from 1941 and 1942 for the Library of Congress can be savored on the 2004 collection A Proper Introduction to Son Hose: Delta Blues. House was also among the few blues artists of the '30s whose sides (after they were rediscovered) nearly matched the originals for emotional power and impact, and his 1965 Columbia Records album The Legendary Son House: Father of the Delta Blues was a revelatory experience for blues fans on first release. The 2003 compilation Heroes of the Blues: The Very Best of Son House includes a sampling of tracks from all three periods of his career, and 2022's Forever on my Mind made one of his first post-comeback performances available for the first time.
Son House was born Edward James House, Jr. on March 21, 1902, in Lyon, Mississippi, the second of three siblings. His father was a part-time musician as well as an elder in the Baptist church who struggled with alcoholism as his son was growing up but would later renounce the bottle. Son took up singing early, but initially avoided blues music as it was forbidden in his father's church. By the time Son was eight years old, his parents had separated and with his mother he relocated to Tallulah, Louisiana, and in his early teens they settled in New Orleans, making their home in the Algiers neighborhood. Son was a frequent churchgoer in this period, and when he was fifteen he began preaching sermons. At nineteen years old, House married Carrie Martin, who was several years his senior, and they moved to Centerville, Louisiana, where they worked her father's farm. A few years later, their marriage was in tatters and House left her in 1922, shortly after the death of his mother.
House worked a variety of odd jobs before he became a paid pastor first at a Baptist church, and later at a Colored Methodist Episcopal church. He was said to be an effective preacher, but he fell into his father's habits and began drinking to excess and chasing women, which led him to leaving the church. House had given up on preaching when at age 25, while hanging out with one of his drinking buddies, he saw a man playing bottleneck guitar and was immediately obsessed with the sound of the instrument. He soon bought a guitar and was a quick study, playing out with his friends James McCoy, Willie Wilson, and Frank Hoskins within a matter of weeks. Not long after House began performing in public, he was performing at a jook joint when a patron pulled a gun and started shooting. House took a bullet in his leg and he returned fire. The shooter died, and House was sentenced to fifteen years at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman Farm. House was released in two years, when his family and the planter they worked for spoke on his behalf.
After his release, House ended up in Lula, Mississippi, which was also the home of Country blues titan Charley Patton. Patton and House became friends, and House performed alongside him and fellow bluesman Willie Brown. In 1930, a producer from Paramount Records came to Lula to persuade Patton to record new material for them. After hearing House, they opted to do a session with him as well. Paramount's Art Laibly cut nine songs on House, and eight of them saw release on 78s issued in 1930 and 1931. None of the releases sold especially well, and the inferior material Paramount used for their pressings meant they wore out quickly. But one person who heard and appreciated them was Alan Lomax, the esteemed ethnomusicologist who conducted field recordings of American regional music for the Library of Congress. In 1941, when House was making a living driving a tractor for several plantations in Mississippi, Lomax invited him to record a session for him, and House agreed, with accompaniment from Willie Brown on guitar, Fiddlin' Joe Martin on mandolin, and Leroy Williams on harmonica. (Charley Patton had been six years dead by this time and was unable to join them.) In 1942, Lomax recorded a second session with House, but by 1943 he had moved to Rochester, New York, and taken a job with the New York Central Railroad. He soon gave up performing music.
In 1964, Dick Waterman and a handful of other blues fans who were researching Delta blues artists of the 1920s and '30s heard House's classic Paramount recordings and traveled to Mississippi in hopes of finding him. When they learned he'd moved to Rochester years ago, they headed Northeast and soon discovered House was still working for the railroad and had not played guitar for years. Under their encouragement, House relearned his old songs with the help of Alan Wilson, who would later form the blues-rock band Canned Heat. With Dick Waterman as his manager, House, who had previously been unaware of his reputation among young blues and folk fans, started performing again in late 1964, and in 1965 he signed with Columbia Records, which released his comeback album The Legendary Son House: Father of the Delta Blues later that year. (In 2022, Easy Eye Sound issued a collection of previously unreleased live recordings made just prior to House's comeback sessions, titled Forever on my Mind.)
In the years that followed, House became a frequent presence at blues festivals, clubs, and the college concert circuit, as fans enjoyed the rare opportunity to witness one of the major figures of the Delta blues live and in person. A handful of live albums would document this period of his career, including The Oberlin College Concert, Delta Blues and Spirituals, and Live at the Gaslight Cafe, 1965. By the early '70s, House was struggling with both Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, and in 1976, unable to play guitar or remember his lyrics, he retired from music for good. House settled in Detroit, Michigan, with his wife Evie, whom he had married in 1934, and they lived quietly until his death on October 19, 1988, at the age of 86.
© Mark Deming /TiVo
Similar artists
-
John The Revelator (Live Radio Broadcast)
Blues - Released by Easy Action on 20 jan. 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Special Rider Blues
Blues - Released by Pimlico Records on 24 nov. 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
-
-
-
Riding Where Sunshine
Jazz - Released by Riding Where Sunshine Records on 11 okt. 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Living for My Music
Jazz - Released by EFM Songs on 11 mrt. 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Les Pionniers Du Blues, Vol. 11: Son House
Blues - Released by Mpm on 6 okt. 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Essential Blues Masters
Blues - Released by Classic Music International on 14 jul. 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
-
Moaner, Let's Go Down in the Valley
Son House, Louise Johnson, Delta Big Four
Pop - Released by Musikraft Records on 1 okt. 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
City Bouncing Uptown
Jazz - Released by City Bouncing Uptown Muzik on 14 aug. 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Your Trouble Will Come Someday (Live London '70)
Blues - Released by Second Line on 30 dec. 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Classics Best Works
Blues - Released by Classics Works Recordings on 9 jun. 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Absolute Music Mood
Blues - Released by Classical Harmony Compositions on 14 mei 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Time Songs Imagination
Jazz - Released by Time Songs Imagination Music Rec on 11 apr. 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Best Vintage Selection
Blues - Released by Retro Music Box on 27 nov. 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Buzzy Suite Masters
Jazz - Released by Buzzy Suite Masters Recordzzz on 13 jun. 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Nail Jumping
Blues - Released by Nail Jumping Rec on 7 feb. 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
My Music My Mood My Soul
Jazz - Released by Classics Works Recordings on 24 sep. 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Son House (Have I Got Blues Got You)
Blues - Released by Imperial Presents on 12 dec. 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo