Son House

For the Sun House, see Grace Hudson Museum.

Son House
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Background information
Birth name	Edward James House, Jr.
Born	(1902-03-21)March 21, 1902 Lyon, Mississippi, United States
Died	October 19, 1988(1988-10-19) (aged 86) Detroit, Michigan, United States
Genres	Delta blues
Occupation(s)	Musician
Instruments	Guitar
Years active	1930–1974
Labels	Paramount, Columbia

Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. (March 21, 1902 – October 19, 1988) was an American blues singer and guitarist, noted for his highly emotional style of singing and slide guitar playing.

After years of hostility to secular music, as a preacher, and for a few years also as a church pastor, he turned to blues performance at the age of 25. He quickly developed a unique style by applying the rhythmic drive, vocal power and emotional intensity of his preaching to the newly learned idiom. In a short career interrupted by a spell in Parchman Farm penitentiary, he developed to the point that Charley Patton, the foremost blues artist of the Mississippi Delta region, invited him to share engagements, and to accompany him to a 1930 recording session for Paramount Records.

Issued at the start of The Great Depression, the records did not sell and did not lead to national recognition. Locally, Son remained popular, and in the 1930s, together with Patton's associate, Willie Brown, he was the leading musician of Coahoma County. There he was a formative influence on Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. In 1941 and 1942, House and the members of his band were recorded by Alan Lomax and John W. Work for Library of Congress and Fisk University. The following year, he left the Delta for Rochester, New York, and gave up music.

In 1964, a group of young record collectors discovered House, whom they knew of from his records issued by Paramount and by the Library of Congress. With their encouragement, he relearned his style and repertoire and enjoyed a career as an entertainer to young white audiences in the coffee houses, folk festivals and concert tours of the American folk music revival billed as a "folk blues" singer. He recorded several albums, and some informally taped concerts have also been issued as albums. Son House died in 1988.

In addition to his early influence on Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, he became an inspiration to John Hammond, Alan Wilson (of Canned Heat), Bonnie Raitt, The White Stripes, Dallas Green and John Mooney.

Biography

Early life

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Mississippi State Penitentiary, where Son House was confined

The middle of three brothers, House was born in the hamlet of Lyon, north of Clarksdale, Mississippi and continued to live in the rural Mississippi Delta until his parents separated. His father, Eddie House, Sr., was a musician, playing the tuba in a band with his many brothers, and sometimes playing guitar. He was a church member, but also a drinker. This caused him to leave the church for a time, before giving up drink and becoming a deacon. Young Eddie House adopted the family concern with religion and churchgoing. He also absorbed the family love of music, but confined himself to singing, showing no interest in the family instrumental band, and feeling entirely hostile to the Blues on religious grounds.

Son's parents separated when he was about seven or eight. His mother took him to Tallulah, Louisiana, across the Mississippi River from Vicksburg, Mississippi. When Son was in his early teens, they moved to Algiers, New Orleans. Recalling these years, Son would later speak of his hatred of blues and his passion for churchgoing (he described himself as "churchy" and "churchified"). At fifteen, probably while living in Algiers, he began preaching sermons.

At the age of nineteen, while living in the Delta, he married an older woman from New Orleans named Carrie Martin. This was a significant step for House; he married in church and against family opposition. The couple moved to her hometown of Centreville, Louisiana to help run Carrie's father's farm. After a couple of years, feeling used and disillusioned, House recalls "I left her hanging on the gatepost, with her father tellin' me to come back so we could plow some more." In later years, House was still angry and said of Carrie "She wasn't nothin' but one of them New Orleans whores". At around the same time, probably 1922, Son's mother died.

House's resentment of farming extended to the many menial jobs he took in his young adult years. He moved around frequently, on one occasion taking off to East Saint Louis to work in a steel plant. The one job he enjoyed was on a Louisiana horse ranch, which later he celebrated by wearing a cowboy hat in his performances. He found some relief from constant manual labor when, following a conversion experience "getting religion" in his early twenties, he was accepted as a paid pastor, first in the Baptist Church, then in the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church. However, like his father before him, he fell into habits which conflicted with his calling – drinking like his father, and probably also womanizing. This led him after several years of conflict to "leave the church" – i.e. cease his full-time commitment – although he still felt the need to preach sermons from time to time.

Blues performer

In 1927 at the age of 25, House underwent a change of musical perspective as rapid and dramatic as a religious conversion. In a hamlet south of Clarksdale, Son heard one of his drinking companions, either James McCoy or Willie Wilson (his recollections differed), playing bottleneck guitar, a style he had never heard before. He immediately changed his attitude to blues, bought a guitar from a musician called Frank Hoskins, and within weeks was playing with Hoskins, McCoy and Wilson. Two songs he learned from McCoy would later be among his best-known: "My Black Mama" and "Preachin' The Blues". Another source of inspiration was Reuben Lacy, a much better known performer who had recorded for Columbia Records in 1927 (no titles released) and for Paramount Records in 1928 (two titles released). In an astonishing short time, with only these four musicians as models, House developed to professional standard a blues style based on his religious singing and simple bottleneck guitar style.

After allegedly killing a man in self-defense, he spent time in prison in 1928 and 1929. The official story on the killing is that sometime around 1927 or 1928, he was playing in a juke joint when a man went on a shooting spree. Son was wounded in the leg, and shot the man dead. He received a 15-year sentence at the Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman Farm), of which he served two years. House credited his re-examination and release to an appeal by his family, but also spoke of the intervention by the influential white planter for whom they worked. The date of the killing and the duration of his sentence are unclear. House gave different accounts to different interviewers and searches by his biographer Daniel Beaumont found no details in the court records of Coahoma County or in the archive of the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

On his release in 1929 or early 1930, Son was strongly advised to leave Clarksdale and stay away. He walked to Jonestown and caught a train to the small town of Lula, Mississippi, sixteen miles north of Clarksdale, and eight miles from the blues hub of Helena, Arkansas. Coincidentally, the great star of Delta Blues, Charley Patton, was also in virtual exile in Lula, having been expelled from his base in the Dockery Plantation. With his partner Willie Brown, Patton dominated the local market for professional blues performance. Patton watched House busking when he arrived penniless at Lula station, but did not approach him. He then observed Son's showmanship attracting a crowd to the café and bootleg whiskey business of a woman called Sara Knight, and invited him to be a regular musical partner with him and Brown. Son formed a liaison with Knight, and both musicians profited from association with her bootlegging activities. The musical partnership is disputed by Patton's biographers Stephen Calt and Gayle Dean Wardlow. They consider that House's musicianship was too limited to play with Patton and Brown, who were also rumoured to be estranged at the time. They also cite one statement by House that he did not play for dances in Lula. Beaumont concludes that Son became a firm friend of Patton, traveling with him to gigs but playing separately.

Recording

In 1930, Art Laibly of Paramount Records traveled to Lula to convince Patton to record several more sides in Grafton, Wisconsin. Along with Patton came House, Brown, and pianist Louise Johnson, who would all end up recording sides for the label. House recorded nine songs during that session, eight of which were released; but these were commercial failures, and House would not record again commercially for 35 years. House continued to play with Patton and Brown, even after Patton's death in 1934. During this time, House worked as a tractor driver for various plantations around the Lake Cormorant area.

Alan Lomax first recorded House for the Library of Congress in 1941. Willie Brown, mandolin player Fiddlin' Joe Martin, and harmonica player Leroy Williams played with House on these recordings. Lomax returned to the area in 1942, where he recorded House once more. He then faded from the public view, moving to Rochester, New York, in 1943, working as a railroad porter for the New York Central Railroad and as a chef.

Rediscovery

In 1964, after a long search of the Mississippi Delta region by Nick Perls, Dick Waterman and Phil Spiro, he ended up being "rediscovered" in Rochester, New York. House had been retired from the music business for many years, and was unaware of the 1960s folk blues revival and international enthusiasm regarding his early recordings.

He subsequently toured extensively in the US and Europe and recorded for CBS Records. Like Mississippi John Hurt, he was welcomed into the music scene of the 1960s and played at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964, the New York Folk Festival in July 1965, and the October 1967 European tour of the American Folk Festival along with Skip James and Bukka White.

The young guitarist Alan Wilson (Canned Heat) was a fan of Son House. The producer John Hammond Sr asked Wilson, who was just 22 years old, to teach "Son House how to play like Son House," because Alan Wilson had such a good knowledge of the blues styles. The album The Father of Delta Blues – The Complete 1965 Sessions was the result. Son House played with Alan Wilson live. It can be heard on the album John the Revelator: The 1970 London Sessions.

In the summer of 1970, House toured Europe once again, including an appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival; a recording of his London concerts was released by Liberty Records. He also played at the two Days of Blues Festival in Toronto in 1974. On an appearance on the TV arts show Camera Three, he was accompanied by blues guitarist Buddy Guy.

Ill health plagued House's later years and in 1974 he retired once again, and later moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he remained until his death from cancer of the larynx. He was buried at the Mt. Hazel Cemetery. Members of the Detroit Blues Society raised money through benefit concerts to put a monument on his grave. He had been married five times.

Discography

78 RPM Recordings
Recorded May 28, 1930, in Grafton, Wisconsin, for Paramount Records.

• "Walking Blues" (unissued and lost until 1985)
• "My Black Mama – Part I"
• "My Black Mama – Part II"
• "Preachin' the Blues – Part I"
• "Preachin' the Blues – Part II"
• "Dry Spell Blues – Part I"
• "Dry Spell Blues – Part II"
• "Clarksdale Moan"
• "Mississippi County Farm Blues"

For Library of Congress/Fisk University
Recorded August 1941, Clack Store in Clack, Mississippi

• "Levee Camp Blues" (with Willie Brown, Fiddlin' Joe Martin, Leroy Williams)
• "Government Fleet Blues" (with Willie Brown, Fiddlin' Joe Martin, Leroy Williams)
• "Walking Blues" (with Willie Brown, Fiddlin' Joe Martin, Leroy Williams)
• "Shetland Pony Blues" (with Willie Brown)
• "Camp Hollers" (with Willie Brown, Fiddlin' Joe Martin, Leroy Williams)
• "Delta Blues" (with Leroy Williams)

Recorded July 17, 1942, Robbinsonville Mississippi

• "Special Rider Blues" (two takes)
• "Low Down Dirty Dog Blues"
• "Depot Blues"
• "American Defense"
• "Am I Right Or Wrong"
• "Walking Blues"
• "County Farm Blues"
• "The Pony Blues"
• "The Jinx Blues (No 1)
• "The Jinx Blues (No 2)
• Several Interviews

The music from both sessions and most of the recorded interviews have been reissued on LP and CD.

Singles

• "The Pony Blues" / "The Jinx Blues", Part 1 (1967)
• "Make Me a Pallet on the Floor" (Willie Brown) / "Shetland Pony Blues" (1967)
• "Death Letter" (1985)

Other albums (This list is incomplete. For a complete list, see external links.)

• The Complete Library of Congress Sessions (1964) Travelin' Man CD 02
• Blues From The Mississippi Delta (w/ J. D. Short) (1964) Folkways Records
• The Legendary Son House: Father Of Folk Blues (1965) Columbia 2417
• In Concert (Oberlin College, 1965) Stack-O-Hits 9004
• Delta Blues (1941–1942) Smithsonian 31028
• Son House & Blind Lemon Jefferson (1926–1941) Biograph 12040
• Son House – The Real Delta Blues (1964–65 Recordings) Blue Goose Records 2016
• Son House & The Great Delta Blues Singers (With Willie Brown) Document CD 5002
• Son House at Home: Complete 1969 Document 5148
• Son House (Library Of Congress) Folk Lyric 9002
• John The Revelator Liberty 83391
• American Folk Blues Festival '67 (1 cut) Optimism CD 2070
• Son House – 1965–1969 (mostly TV appearances) Private Record Pr-01
• Son House – Father Of The Delta Blues: Complete 1965 Sony/Legacy CD 48867
• Living Legends (1 cut, 1966) Verve/Folkways 3010
• Real Blues (1 cut, University Of Chicago, 1964) Takoma 7081
• John The Revelator – 1970 London Sessions Sequel CD 207
• Great Bluesmen/Newport (2 cuts, 1965) Vanguard CD 77/78
• Blues With A Feeling (3 cuts, 1965) Vanguard CD 77005
• Son House/Bukka White – Masters Of The Country Blues Yazoo Video 500 :
• Delta Blues and Spirituals (1995)
• In Concert (Live) (1996)
• Live At Gaslight Cafe, 1965 (2000)
• New York Central Live (2003)
• Delta Blues (1941–1942) (2003) Biograph Cd 118
• Classic Blues from Smithsonian Folkways Smithsonian Folkways 40134 (2003)
• Classic Blues from Smithsonian Folkways, Vol. 2 Smithsonian Folkways 40148 (2003)
• The Very Best of Son House: Heroes of the Blues Shout! Factory 30251 (2003)
• Proper Introduction to Son House (2004) Proper

External links

• Memphis Beale Street Brass Note Submission Biography
• Illustrated Son House discography
• Son House at Find a Grave
• Inaugural (1980) inductee to Blues Foundation Hall of Fame (bio by Jim O'Neal)
• Tampa Red and Son House at the Wayback Machine (archived April 11, 2008), History of National Reso-Phonic Guitars, Part 3
• House Discography at Smithsonian Folkways
• Son House at AllMusic (biography by Cub Koda)