Son House

Singer

• Born: March 21, 1902
• Birthplace: Riverton, Mississippi
• Died: October 19, 1988
• Place of death: Detroit, Michigan

American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist

House was an innovative and influential early Delta blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. His music style was accentuated by a highly rhythmic guitar and vocal style, influenced by black gospel and spiritual music, and frequently utilized slide guitar. Ultimately, House’s musical contributions heavily informed the sound of the Delta blues and therefore the blues tradition as a whole.

The Life

Eddie James “Son” House, Jr., was born in Riverton, Mississippi, near Clarksdale. Upon his parents’ divorce, when he was about seven or eight years old, he moved with his mother to Tallulah, Louisiana, and became a preacher by fifteen. Church music, and the church’s position on music, greatly influenced House in that he originally despised blues music and guitar playing. Instead, House was a self-proclaimed rambler who held several jobs (as a tree-moss gatherer, cotton-field hand, and steel-plant worker) in a variety of locations (Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Missouri) until his mid-twenties. Then, in 1927, House was instantly inspired when he saw bluesman Willie Wilson playing guitar with a small medicine bottle on his finger, which he used as a slide. Only a few of these details regarding House’s life were known until his “rediscovery” by Phil Spiro, Nick Perls, and Dick Waterman in 1964.

In 1943, House moved to Rochester, New York, to work for the rail system and gave up playing music altogether not long afterward. Two decades later—with the folk revival in full swing in the mid-1960’s—Son House became an epic name and ultimately was sought out. After relearning his craft, House played the Newport Folk Festival (1964-1966), toured Britain with the American Folk Blues Festival in 1967 (when he appeared on the BBC2’s Late Night Line-Up), and also enjoyed time on the coffeehouse circuit throughout the United States.

House’s health declined in the early 1970’s. Diagnosed with both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, he gave up playing in 1976. He eventually moved to live with his family in Detroit, where he died in his sleep on October 19, 1988. His music was featured in the 2007 film Black Snake Moan.

The Music

Willie Wilson was Son House’s first teacher. Initially House learned familiar tunes in “Spanish” tuning, but he soon began experimenting with other tuning systems and composing original works. In 1930, he met Willie Brown and Charley Patton, and eventually the three began playing at old plantation balls and similar events. It was at such an engagement that House met the young, eager Robert Johnson. That same year, Patton brought House to the attention of Paramount Records through his manager, Arthur Laibly, and the three bluesmen traveled to Grafton, Wisconsin, to record their respective albums. House was also recorded in Lake Cormorant, Mississippi, by ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress in 1941-1942.

After House moved to Rochester, New York, he quit playing music once “All [his] boys [were] gone.” Regrettably, Patton (1934), Johnson (1938), and Brown (1952) had died prior to the folk revival.

“Shetland Pony Blues.”Recorded in 1941 (and again in 1942 under the title “Pony Blues”), the basic song is borrowed from Charley Patton. House, however, crafted his own arrangement, complete with original verses and his distinctive style of playing bottleneck guitar. Open D-tuning in the guitar accompanies House’s wailing but strong voice. Characteristically, he aggressively snaps his low strings and employs heavy vibrato in both his playing and singing. House uses the pony theme as a pretense to expresses advances toward a woman. The 1941 Library of Congress recording took place at Klack’s Store in Lake Cormorant, Mississippi, to utilize the store’s essential supply of electricity. For this reason, one version includes the background railway noise of a passing train.

“Walkin’ Blues.”An ideal example of the “standard” twelve-bar blues, the 1941 recording includes Brown on guitar, Fiddlin’ Joe Martin on mandolin, and Leroy Williams on harmonica. Therefore, this recording archives the sound that Brown and House created together at their numerous plantation ball performances. House sings and shouts his lyrics while forcefully strumming his famous steel-bodied National guitar. His musicians contribute by providing brief instrumental interludes, lively commentary, and other vocalizations. In a 1942 interview with Lomax, House claimed “Walkin’ Blues” to be the precursor to his composition “My Black Mama.” “American Defense.”In stark contrast to most of his music, “American Defense” uses a waltz tempo while maintaining House’s typical Delta blues style. House paints himself as a patriot with lines such as “There won’t be enough Japs to shoot a little game of craps.” However, in every chorus he warns “This war may last you for years.” “John the Revelator.”House’s arrangement of the traditional song is one the most frequently cited of House’s recordings, and it links him to his religious background. Lyrically, the biblical subject matter is a clear connection to gospel. Musically, House abandons the use of guitar in favor of nothing but hand claps and foot stomping to accompany himself. The call-and-response chorus alternates between “Who’s that writin’?” and “John the Revelator,” evoking church choir undertones, both lyrically and melodically. House makes use of falsetto, near-shouting, and near-speaking vocal techniques as well as substantial melismata to complete the connection with the gospel tradition.

“Preachin’ the Blues.”Like many of House’s songs, this selection begins at a moderate tempo, slowly escalates in intensity, and ends with a three-note, stepwise motion leading to, but not actually ending on, the tonic. His guitar accompaniment is very simple, placing emphasis on the lyrics. “Preachin’ the Blues” reflects House’s personal purgatory, his inability to commit completely to either the sacred or the profane. “I can’t hold God in one hand and the Devil [the blues] in the other one,” he laments. This dichotomy is illustrated by his curious lyrical juxtaposition of becoming a Baptist preacher to his love for women and corn liquor. House first recorded “Preachin’ the Blues,” an original composition, for Paramount Records.

Musical Legacy

The musical legacy of Son House resides primarily in his voice, guitar, slide techniques, and repertoire. While few recordings exist from his early, and arguably prime, period, the raw intensity, percussive and bottleneck slide guitar practice, and religious subject matter made a profound impression on many prevailing blues musicians. Notably, Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters fortuitously had personal interactions with House. Waters has been quoted as saying, “it was Son House who influenced me to play” and, in reference to bottleneck playing, that he “picked that up from Son House.” Johnson observed House perform at several plantation balls as a youth. Subsequently, House’s influence reached most of the blues movement and helped establish rock and roll. As late as 1999, the alternative rock band the White Stripes credited House as a major inspiration and dedicated their their first album to him. In 1980, Son House was inducted into Blues Foundation’s Hall of Fame.

Principal Recordings

albums:Son House and J. D. Short: Blues from the Mississippi Delta, 1963; Father of the Delta Blues: The Complete 1965 Sessions, 1965; The Legendary Son House: Father of Folk Blues, 1965; Son House and Blind Lemon Jefferson, 1972; Son House: The Legendary 1941-1942 Recordings in Chronological Sequence, 1972; Son House: The Real Delta Blues, 1974; Delta Blues: The Original Library of Congress Sessions from Field Recordings, 1941-1942, 1991; Son House at Home: The Legendary 1969 Rochester Sessions, 1992.

singles: “Clarksdale Moan,” 1930; “Dry Spell Blues, Parts I and II,” 1930; “Mississippi County Farm Blues,” 1930; “My Black Mama, Parts I and II,” 1930; “Preachin’ the Blues, Parts I and II,” 1930; “Walkin’ Blues,” 1930; “Shetland Pony Blues,” 1941; “American Defense,” 1942; “John the Revelator,” 1965.

Bibliography

Charters, Samuel. The Bluesmen: The Story and the Music of the Men Who Made the Blues. New York: Oak, 1967. A collection of chapters devoted to several bluesmen, including Son House, which features an interview transcription and song lyrics.

Cohn, Lawrence. “Son House.” Sounds and Fury 3 (1965): 18-21. After House’s “rediscovery,” several articles were published devoted to his personal history. This article also includes a short discography.

Cowley, John. “Really the ’Walking Blues’: Son House, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, and the Development of a Traditional Blues.” Popular Music 1 (1981): 57-72. This article provides an in-depth analysis and discussion of House, Waters, Johnson, and the composition “Walkin’ Blues.”

Koda, Cub. “Son House.” In All Music Guide to the Blues, edited by Michael Erlewine, Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, and Cub Koda. San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books, 1999. This encyclopedic guide to the blues contains entries on bands and musicians, including biographies and albums.

Oliver, Paul. “House, Son.” In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie. New York: Macmillan, 2001. A substantial entry in this definitive multivolume dictionary dedicated to all styles of music and musicians. Provides a concise biography of House.