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Son House heckles Howlin’ Wolf, who keeps it classy, 1966
10.12.2013
08:16 pm
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Howlin' Wolf
 
During the American Folk Blues Festival in Newport, Howlin’ Wolf reflects on the meaning of the blues, while Delta blues peer Son House heckles him, sloshed out of his ever-lovin’ gourd. It could have been way more uncomfortable than it actually was, but Howlin’ Wolf elegantly hands House his drunken ass. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Son House, but Wolf is one of those seemingly rare aggressive, “dangerous” performers who also happened to be a really, really good person.

In additions to being a devoted husband and father (and raising his wife’s two daughters from a previous relationship), Howlin’ Wolf (real name Chester Burnett) actually attempted to support his mother as soon as he became successful. Tragically, she drove him to tears, rejecting both her son and his money for their association with “The Devil’s Music.” In a time when black musicians were almost never properly compensated, Howlin’ Wolf was a musician’s union member and managed his money incredibly well. Not only did he possess innate business savvy, he passed that knowledge on to his band members, who received health insurance as a condition of their employment. They were also required to pay union dues, but if they couldn’t afford it, Wolf would front them the money, or send extra dosh to their family back home.

It might go without saying that Howlin’ Wolf attributed much of his success to the avoidance of vice and excess, and with Son House as a cautionary tale, it’s not hard to imagine why.
 

Posted by Amber Frost
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10.12.2013
08:16 pm
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Amazing footage of blues legend Son House
01.04.2011
07:05 pm
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image
 
Pioneering American singer and slide blues guitarist, Eddie James “Son” House recorded in the 1930s and again in the 1040s for Alan Lomax and the Library of Congress, but he retired from music to work for the New York Railroad. The legend of Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil for his guitar prowess is alleged to have started with Son House. House was an obscure figure before a renewed interest in the blues saw a career revival in the 1960s and performances before audiences worldwide.

A Son House performance in Leicester, England, was described by Bob Groom in in Blues World magazine in 1967:

It is difficult to describe the transformation that took place as this smiling, friendly man hunched over his guitar and launched himself, bodily it seemed, into his music. The blues possessed him like a ‘lowdown shaking chill’ and the spellbound audience saw the very incarnation of the blues as, head thrown back, he hollered and groaned the disturbing lyrics and flailed the guitar, snapping the strings back against the fingerboard to accentuate the agonized rhythm. Son’s music is the centre of the blues experience and when he performs it is a corporeal thing, audience and singer become as one.

Ill health sidelined Son House again in the early 70s and he died, at the age of 86 in 1988. In recent years, Jack White’s advocacy for his music—the White Stripes recorded a cover of “Death Letter” and performed it on the Grammy Awards—has led a new generation of listeners to his work.
 

 
After the jump. Son House explains the B-L-U-S-E…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.04.2011
07:05 pm
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