Topic: Son House

[Chris]

Another from newcomer me.

i first saw |Son House when I was 17 or 18 (I'm now 52). It was one of the clips from Festival and was shown on a film / movie review programme on TV. Even in those few seconds I knew there was something special. However, it is only in the last few years that I have bought anything. i now have Preachin the Blues and The original Delta blues.

I do not come across Son House Cds very often, but there does appear to be a lot of duplication / repackaging.

Can anyone suggest CDs to look for to get me a reaonably complete collection in as few moves as possible?

Has anybody put together a song by song dicography?

Chris

[Slack]

Hi Chris, welcome to the board.

No aware of any song by song dicography - but you'll want to get the Library of Congress Complete Sessions.  I don't think you'll find these duplicated anywhere else.

Cheers,

[uncle bud]

Chris, you probably want to get the 1965 recordings on Columbia called Father of the Delta Blues (not the 2 disc live set on Sony). And you need to get his original 1920s sessions if you don't have those first, either on the Document disc or Yazoo Masters of the Delta Blues, or as part of the JSP Charley Patton set. And as Slack said, the LofC recordings, which were on Biograph but exist in other incarnations as well. That will cover the important stuff. Everything else is for the completist. There's also film footage available through Stefan Grossman's videos.

[snakehips]

Hi there !

I'm pretty new here too !

The 1965 Columbia recordings on CD are (in my view) his absolute best performances, as far as his rediscovery is concerned. The rest (CD/DVD/Video) just don't have him in top form (he is either to old to perform well, guitar out of tune, or tipsy !

A good video/DVD though with Son House is the "Devil Got My Woman" video.
Its also got Bukka White, Rev. Pearly Brown on 12 string, Skip James and Howling Wolf !!
Great as it shows Wolf getting cheesed off with Son House, spoiling his show. Great Wolf stuff despite the band being slightly out of tune with concert pitch (band just flat relative to his harmonica).

[Rivers]

I think Wolf's set is superb on the video, the band is what I like to term "nicely out of tune". What a great player Hubert Sumlin was when he was in Wolf's band to be sure.

[Bob B]

hi all

saw hubert sumlin at the long beach blues fest in 2003---actually more rock and soul fest---time has taken a toll on hubert, but still he showed flashes of the brilliance that made him so valuable to wolf's moans.  hubert played in a band fronted by bob margolin.  unfortunately, most of the crowd had little idea of the magnitude of the great guitarist.  sorry, the shift key to capital letters seems to have taken a dive.

keep the music healthy

bob b

[Rivers]

He should have kept that amp, whatever it was, assume Fender, and crap Vox guitar. I love old electric players that fingerpicked and cranked the tremelo knob. Houston Stackhouse was another one.

Whoops, we're in the danger zone here but I just wish electric blues had kept going in that direction. Much closer to the spirit of the original IMHO