Son House

Son House, hand-drawn portrait of the Delta blues artist at the Newport Folk Festival in July, 1964, age 62.

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

After working 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.

He developed his musicianship 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.
He became popular in Coahoma County, Mississippi. There he was a formative influence on Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters.

In 1943, he gave up music and moved to New York.

In 1964, Alan Wilson, co-founder of the band Canned Heat, found Son and had him listen to his old recordings as Son had lost his way.
He encouraged him to find his way back to the music and from this collaboration, Father of Folk Blues was born.
Wilson even played second guitar on “Empire State Express” and the harp on ”Levee Camp Moan”. Son’s manager Dick Waterman said,” Al Wilson helped Son House find Son House”.

He relearned his repertoire and established a career as an entertainer, performing for young, mostly white audiences in coffeehouses, at folk festivals and on concert tours during 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.
In 2017, his single “Preachin’ the Blues” was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

Ill health plagued House in his later years, and in 1974 he retired once again.
He later moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he remained until his death in 1988 from cancer of the larynx, at age 86.

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