If ever a performer embodied the emotional depth of the blues, it was Eddie James “Son” House. A preacher at times, a barrelhousing bluesman at others, House was forever, and fiercely, torn between the sacred teachings of the church and the secular lure of the blues life. House, a major influence on both Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, was born near Lyon, Mississippi, probably on the Thomas F. Keating plantation, on March 21, 1902 (or 1894, according to the Social Security application he filed in 1943). Through his association with Delta blues legend Charley Patton, House made his first records for the Paramount label in 1930. Masterpieces though they were, record sales were at a low ebb, as the Depression had just struck, and only a handful of House’s 78s are known to exist, according to collectors’ journals. House and other Delta bluesmen, including Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, and Willie Brown, performed mostly at weekend parties, suppers, and dances held at sharecroppers’ houses. He worked the fields or drove a tractor, though he preferred to sing or preach. When the spirit called, he would deliver sermons by invitation at various churches, only to resume his nightlife as a bluesman. In 1941 House recorded for a Fisk University-Library of Congress recording team led by Alan Lomax and John Work III at Clack Store near Lake Cormorant, Mississippi. Lomax, who returned to record House again in 1942, later wrote: “Of all my times with the blues, this was the best one.”
House had long been retired from music in 1964 when blues aficionados Nick Perls, Phil Spiro and Dick Waterman drove to Mississippi to look for him, only to learn he had moved to Rochester, New York, in 1943. They made national news in Newsweek magazine when they located him there on Father’s Day, and Waterman became House’s manager and guided his comeback career. Of several albums House recorded in the ’60s, the most notable was the 1965 Columbia LP, “Father of Folk Blues”. His concert performances were chilling in their passion and intensity, as he seemed to go into a trance-like state when he sang, striking guitar chords with heavy blows, rising from his chair only on occasional to sing a spirited a cappella gospel song. House performed little after the early ’70s, and from 1976 until his death on October 19, 1988, he lived in Detroit.
Jim O’Neal
www.msbluestrail.org
(Bio adapted from Mississippi Blues Trail marker text.)