I am at this moment reading a biography of Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Historically she lives in the shadow of the better known gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, who is considered to be the queen of the gospel. I don’t want to discuss if the latter is true or not. I’m not familiar with the work of […]

In the coming days I’m planning to present another great early blues artist, namely Skip James. He was contemporary to Son House, but his music style was quite different from House’s. It is perhaps interesting now to see in what way Son House was typical of the blues. His music lay certainly a solid basis […]

At the time that Son House was invited to record in April 1965 with Columbia and producer John Hammond, he had been prepared for this for almost a year by Al Wilson’s enthusiasm and skills and by medication to help him with this hand tremor and alcoholism. Before this, he had already had some stage […]

In the previous blog, I spent some time on the figure of Son House in his period until the Grafton recording in May 1930. Not really known outside the circle of the blues die hards, his music was nevertheless innovative, and clearly reflected the origins of the blues in spirituals and field hollers. His declamatory, […]

Een van de monumenten van de oorspronkelijke blues is ongetwijfeld Eddie ‘Son’ House. Een naam die wellicht enkel bij de blues aficionado’s een belletje doet rinkelen. In de muziekgeschiedenis kan zijn invloed echter moeilijk worden overschat. Hij was één van de grote vernieuwers van de blues. Zijn muziek is intens emotioneel en doorleefd, ondanks (of […]