Preachin' the Blues: The Life and Times of Son House

217 Pages·2011·3.303 MB·English

by  Daniel Beaumont

Preachin’ the Blues
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Preachin’ the Blues
The Life and Times of Son House
DANIEL BEAUMONT
University of Rochester
New York City
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Beaumont, Daniel E.
Preachin’ the blues: the life and times of Son House/Daniel Beaumont.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN: 978-0-19-539557-0
1. House, Son. 2. Blues musicians—United States—Biography. I. Title.
ML420.H673B43 2011
782.421643092—dc22 2010036390
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Son House, Philadelphia, PA, 1964. Courtesy of Dick Waterman.
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PREFACE
Son House said many wise things, as befi ts a preacher—even an ex-
preacher. Perhaps my favorite is this: “If you tell a lie, it will be all over the
country in a day or two. But if you tell the truth, it will take ten years to
get there.” Which, come to think of it, sounds more like Mark Twain than
a preacher. House had something else in mind at the time, but he could
have been speaking about his own music. In fact, it took not ten years, but
more than thirty for the music he recorded for Paramount Records in
1930 to “get there,” to be heard and appreciated all over the country.
At the time of its humble origins, no one could have foreseen the
infl uence the blues would eventually exert not only on American popular
music, but also on American culture generally, and then, through the lat-
ter, on global culture as well. And what is true of the blues in this respect
is especially true of a species of blues played by Son House and some other
musicians in the Mississippi Delta. Th e names of otherwise obscure peo-
ple, places, and events mentioned by Delta musicians in their songs are
now known far beyond the confi nes of the African-American community
of north Mississippi and are applied to radio shows, Hollywood movies,
and a Japanese record label. Th e meaning of blues idioms and the signifi -
cance of obscure events mentioned in blues songs form part of a discourse
of an international community of writers and listeners. Notable sites in
the Mississippi blues history—like Clack’s Grocery—are marked by
plaques on a “Blues Trail,” and these places are visited by “blues tourists”
who may, if so inclined, stay in a bed and breakfast located on a plantation
where their quarters are “authentic sharecroppers’ shacks”—somewhat
refurbished, to be sure, with amenities like heat, air conditioning, indoor
bathrooms, and Wi-Fi that sharecroppers seldom enjoyed.
viii Preface
But no one could have foreseen these developments in 1902, when blues
was an upstart musical form in a marginalized and impoverished community
in the American South. To understand Son House’s life is to understand in
part how this happened, how a curious and somewhat unusual musical
form in that small community would, by and by, become recognized the
world over.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Th e Second Coming of the Son
CHAPTER 3
2. Ramblifi ed
CHAPTER 27
3. Th e Blues Blowed My Spirit Away
CHAPTER 39
4. My Black Mama
CHAPTER 57
5. Dry Spell Blues
CHAPTER 75
6. Jinx Blues
CHAPTER 93
7. Eclipse
CHAPTER 111
8. Father of the Folk Blues
CHAPTER 127
9. He Was Who He Was
CHAPTER 155
1. Lyrics to Selected Songs
APPENDIX 181
2. Southold, NY, Police Report
APPENDIX 185
Acknowledgments 189
Bibliography 195
Index 199