I was obsessed with Son House's 'Death Letter Blues' as a youngster and this from the always fascinating Don's Tunes on Facebook and the web is really worth a read . . . . .
“They came to Rochester seeking an older black man who had been a blues musician in Mississippi before World War 2,” wrote blues historian Daniel Beaumont in his book Preachin’ The Blues: The Life & Times Of Son House.
“Their search had begun with some liner notes on a record album and some mistaken information from another blues musician about the man’s whereabouts. But following a trail of tips, they had finally spoken to the man himself by telephone from Memphis two days earlier.”
The rediscovery of Delta bluesman Eddie James “Son” House Jr is one of the most fascinating tales in 20th century music. As Beaumont reports in his highly-recommended book, the search for House took blues obsessives Nick Perls – “a skinny 22-year- old New Yorker” – and his two companions, Dick Waterman and Phil Spiro on a journey into the deep south. “The trip – long, hot and cramped – had taken the three young men from New York City to Memphis. From that city on the banks of a new-world Nile, their search had led them down into sweltering small towns and plantations of the north Mississippi Delta.”
When they did finally track down Son House, they found him living in obscurity in Rochester, New York. House had given up playing music in the early 40s when he moved to the city. He who had run with Charley Patton, mentored and inspired Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters and cut blues masterpieces My Black Mama Part 1 and Part 2. The latter provided the foundation for his best known recording Death Letter Blues cut in 1965, a song knitted into the DNA of Jack White. House was a complex character. As a preacher, he’d once shunned secular music – or the devil’s music as it seemed to southern Christians. He killed a man in 1928 and found himself in Parchman Farm, aka the Mississippi State Penitentiary. On his release, he fell in with Charley Patton and his place in blues folklore was secured.
- By Jerry Gilbert( Classic Rock )
Image: Jan Persson
No comments:
Post a Comment