Delta Blues, Part 2 - Son House
by Don Erickson
The Mississippi Delta region is roughly the fan-shaped area of flat,
fertile farmland in the northwestern part of the state between the
Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. Vicksburg is to the south, Memphis to the
north. The many plantations in the region became home to many workers.
The most famous plantation was Dockery Farms, just east of Cleveland,
MS, between Highways 61 and 49. Charley Patton, the first big star of
Delta Blues, was living there in 1903 and was already an accomplished
musician. It's entirely possible that Patton was the singer playing
slide guitar with a knife that W. C. Handy heard at the Tutwiler
railroad station that same year. There were several more blues musicians
who worked the general area, and the town of Drew, off Highway 49,
became the center for a tradition of blues that was unique to the area.
Even though Patton was one of the earliest practitioners of the Delta
Blues, he wasn't recorded until 1929. Many of his fellow blues
performers never, or rarely, got the chance to be heard on vinyl. Some
of these lesser-known talents included Mott Willis, Dick Bankston, Ben
Maree, Nathan Scott, Cap Holmes, Jimmy Holloway and Patton's mentor,
Henry Sloan.
Patton learned from Sloan, and Willie Brown learned much of his craft
directly from Patton. Brown had a technique that surpassed Patton's, but
unfortunately Willie was woefully under-recorded. One of the few songs
that has survived is "Future Blues", recorded at Grafton, WI
in 1930. Patton had brought Brown to Grafton, along with Son House,
another artist who came to record. House had just served two years at
the famous penitentiary, Parchman Farm, for shooting a man dead at a
party. His parents lobbied hard for his release, claiming it was
self-defense. House hitched and hoboed his way to Lula, MS, just east of
Helena, AR, where he met Patton.
Willie Brown became good friends with Son House and they both settled in
Robinsonville, MS, between Helena and Memphis, just off Highway 61. They
worked as a team and were the kings of the blues in the northern Delta
for the next 13 years. They made some recordings for the Library of
Congress in 1941 and 1942. The following year they moved to Rochester,
NY, disappearing from the blues scene. Brown eventually ended up back in
the Delta, where he died in December 30, 1952 in Tunica, just south of
Robinsonville. He was 52 years old.
In 1964, Son House was finally tracked down by some blues researchers,
which included Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson, the brilliant harp and
guitar player and original member of the boogie band Canned Heat.
Wilson, who had learned Son's tunes, literally had to show Son how to
play his own tunes once again. House recorded that year and hit the
festival and coffeehouse circuit. He played Carnegie Hall in 1965 and
was the subject of a documentary film in 1969. He was the living
embodiment of the Delta blues.
Unfortunately, in the early '70s his health began to deteriorate.
Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases eventually brought an end to his
performing days in 1976. He lived quietly in Detroit, MI for another 12
years, passing away on October 19, 1988. He was inducted into the Blues
Foundation's Hall of Fame in 1980.
Both Willie Brown and Son House were huge influences on perhaps the most
important figure to come out of the Delta, Robert Johnson. And yes, that
is the same Willie Brown that Robert Johnson mentions in his famous
"Cross Road Blues", later covered by Eric Clapton and Cream as
"Crossroads". Robert Johnson's seemingly sudden transformation
from a rough beginner to a virtuoso of the guitar, brought out the tales
of Johnson making a midnight deal with the Devil at a dark and lonely
crossroads near Dockery's plantation.
But before Robert's legend grew, there was another bluesman that bragged
about making a deal with the Devil. His name was Tommy Johnson (no
relation to Robert) and was one of the finest and most popular artists
who learned the Delta style of blues and went on to help create an
important blues scene in and around Jackson and Crystal Springs, MS.
You can read about Tommy Johnson's interesting life and times right here
in next month's Blues Crier.
Reprinted with permission from the April 1997 issue of the Blues Crier
