Person · 1902–1988 · Mississippi Delta [33.80, -90.40]

Son House

A preacher who turned to the blues, Son House played a fierce, sermon-like slide guitar that bridged Charley Patton's generation and the young Robert Johnson, whom he knew in person. He cut a handful of haunting sides for Paramount in 1930 and was recorded again by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress in 1941 and 1942. Rediscovered in the 1960s, he became a living link to the Delta's first decades and a touchstone for the folk-blues revival.

Evidence2

Connections4

  • influenced by → Charley Patton

    Charley Patton was the established star around Dockery Plantation when Son House took up the blues, and House absorbed his driving rhythm and showmanship at close range. The two recorded together for Paramount in 1930, making the master-and-younger-man relationship audible on disc. Patton's example runs straight into House's fierce, sermon-like style.

  • collaborates with → Willie Brown

  • influences → Robert Johnson

    Son House knew the young Robert Johnson and watched him grow from a fumbling beginner into a formidable player in a remarkably short time. House's slide technique and intense, vocalized delivery are audible in Johnson's records, even as Johnson refined them into something more compact and unsettling. The line from House to Johnson is the central thread of the Delta lineage.

  • influences → Muddy Waters

    Muddy Waters cited Son House as a direct teacher of his slide guitar, having watched House play around Clarksdale before recording for Alan Lomax. House's deep, declamatory style is the clearest single source of the young Waters's Delta sound. That inheritance traveled with Waters to Chicago, where he plugged it into an amplifier.

See it on the globe →Sources