Born
near Lyon, Mississippi, March 21, 1902, Son House chopped cotton as a
teenager while developing a passion for the Baptist church. He delivered
his first sermon at the age of fifteen and within five years was the pastor
of a small country church south of Lyon. His fall from the church was
a result of an affair with a woman ten years his senior, whom he followed
home to Louisiana. By 1926, House had returned to the Lyon area and began
playing guitar under the tutelage of an obscure local musician named James
McCoy. He developed quickly as a guitarist; within a year he had fallen
in with Delta musician Rube Lacy and began emulating his slide guitar
style. House shot and killed a man during a house party near Lyon in 1928.
He was sentenced to work on Parchman
Farm, but was released within two years after a judge in Clarksdale
re-examined the case. Having been advised by the judge to leave the Clarksdale
vicinity, House relocated to Lula and there met bluesman Charley
Patton while playing at the Lula railroad depot for tips.
Patton
befriended House, who began working as a musician around the Kirby Plantation.
In 1930, Patton brought him, guitarist Willie Brown, and pianist Louise
Johnson to Grafton, Wisconsin, for a recording session with Paramount
Records. House's influence on the Delta
School of musicians can be judged from a handful of recordings made
in Grafton. His song "Preachin' The Blues Part I & II" was
a six-minute biography of his life and served as inspiration for Robert
Johnson's "Preaching Blues" and "Walking Blues."
House's powerful vocals and slashing slide guitar style established him
as a giant of the Delta School but did not lead to commercial success.
House continued playing with Willie Brown during the 1930s and developed
a relationship with a young Robert Johnson after moving to Robinsonville,
Mississippi. After Johnson had learned to play guitar, he began to gig
with House and Brown, learning the older musicians' licks.
House, Willie Brown, Fiddlin' Joe Martin, and Leroy Williams were recorded
by folklorist Alan Lomax near Lake Cormorant, Mississippi, in 1941 for
the Library of Congress. Lomax returned the next year to record House
in Robinsonville, but the musician did not make another commercial record
until the "blues revival" of the 1960s. His influence, however,
would be felt through the recordings of Johnson, Muddy
Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Elmore
James, Robert Nighthawk, and other
successful blues artists.
Son House died October 19, 1988.
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