To me, Son House will always be the defining Delta blues musician, and in some ways the defining blues musician, period. That is partly a statement about his talents and partly about when I heard him and how he affected me, personally.

Like most people who were around in the 1960s and not fortunate enough to hear him live, I was introduced to House by the album he recorded for Columbia Records in 1965. The odd thing about that record, for me, is that although House was an excellent lyricist and the songs were largely his own, the tracks that captured my imagination were an old gospel song, “Don’t You Mind People Grinning In Your Face,” which he sang a cappella, and this regional standard, which John Hurt and Furry Lewis recorded as “Pera Lee.”

This seemed to me to perfectly capture what made House’s slide playing unique — his uncanny control of pitch, dynamics, and nuance. When I was in Lahore, Pakistan, and my host, who had a home recording studio and a superlative collection of recorded ragas by masters of the North Indian classical style, commented that he didn’t understand why Western musicians had so little interest in tone, I played him House’s recording of “Pearline” (this was long before the internet, but I had a cassette with a bunch of my favorite blues recordings), and he was amazed.

There was much more to House than that. I didn’t understand until I saw him on videos — and I’m sure some people who saw him live will say the videos still don’t have it — but he is the only blues artist I have ever seen who truly seems possessed by the music, the way people are possessed by the spirit in African and African diaspora religious traditions. I don’t know how else to say that or to describe the transformation that seems to take place, and the spiritual depth of his greatest performances — and it is surely relevant that he was a preacher before he began playing guitar, and left the church for the music.

When historians trace the lineage of Delta blues, they tend to make Charlie Patton the trunk and source of the style, with a good deal of justification. Patton had a unique rhythmic power and complexity, and a couple of core tunes that were adopted by all the players who came in contact with him. (I’ve posted my take on Tommy Johnson’s “Bye and Bye,” a version of Patton’s “Pony Blues,” and House and Willie Brown’s “Future Blues” or “Jinx Blues,” another Patton standard.) But for a lot of us the defining Delta sound is the slide style adopted by Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, and Patton didn’t play like that: that was Son House. I gather he said he picked up the rudiments from another guitarist, Rube Lacey, but none of Lacy’s recordings suggest he had anything like the subtlety, inventiveness, and power of House’s best work.

To me, no one did. Robert Johnson made some superb recordings in House’s style — I’ve posted about his “Walking Blues,” which is taken directly from House, who used the same guitar part for several songs, and also sang many of the same verses. In Escaping the Delta, I put forward the theory that this was Johnson’s original, root style; that he first went into the studio  planning to record some potential hits in the more recent, urban styles of Leroy Carr, Peetie Wheatstraw, and Casey Bill Weldon, but ran out of his prepared tunes, so on the last day recorded a bunch of songs from House — and that those recordings are his most fervent, ferocious performances, because House was a far more passionate model than the current hitmakers. House was also a stronger singer than Johnson; he was one of the greatest singers ever in the blues tradition, with a wildness in his voice that left its mark on Johnson and Muddy Waters, but which neither — to my ears — ever matched. (They had other strengths; I’m not saying House was better; but when they sound most like him, they fall short of what he could do.)

Anyway… I especially loved House’s recording of “Pearline,” but it never would have occurred to me to perform a version of it, because, again, what I love about it is his uncanny control of pitch, dynamics, nuance, which I have never heard equaled and can’t come close to myself (especially when it comes to pitch) — and his voice, and his depth and power. But this Songobiography project is about what has affected me, what I’ve learned, and what I’ve loved. I mostly try to rework pieces in my own way, to personalize them and come up with arrangements that show my strengths… but in this case, I’m just remembering and paying tribute.