Crossroad Blues

Son House

Son House was born near Lyon in Mississippi on March 21, 1902. As a teenager, Son chopped cotton and had a great passion for the church. He delivered his first sermon aged fifteen and within five years was the pastor of a small church south of Lyon. He had an affair with a woman ten years older, and had to leave the church.  He followed his sweetheart to Louisiana, but by 1926, Son House returned to the Lyon area and began playing guitar with local guitar player James McCoy. Son House quickly improved his guitar playing and within a year was playing with Rube Lacy, a local Delta slide guitar player.

In 1928, House shot and killed a man at a house party near Lyon and was sentenced to work on Parchment Farm. He was released within two years after a judge in Clarksdale re-examined the case. Son House relocated to Lula and there met bluesman Charley Patton. Patton befriended House, who began working as a musician around the Kirby Plantation. In 1930, Patton, Son House, guitarist Willie Brown, and pianist Louise Johnson went to Grafton, Wisconsin, for a recording session for Paramount Records. Son House's influence on Delta musicians can be seen on these recordings made in Grafton. House's powerful vocals and slide guitar style established him as a giant of the Delta blues, but this didn’t lead to commercial success.

Son House continued playing with Willie Brown during the 1930s and moved to Robinsonville, the home of Robert Johnson. When Johnson was sufficiently good enough, he gigged with House and Brown, and picked up the older musicians' licks. Folklorist Alan Lomax recorded Son House and Willie in 1941 for the Library of Congress. Lomax returned to Robinsonville the year after to record Son house, but House didn't record again until the 1960s.

Son House died in 1988, and his influence can be heard in the works of Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James, and many other blues musicians.