Eddie James “Son” House, Jr. (1902-1988)—an unparalleled bluesman, one of the blues genre’s inventors. Born in Riverton, Mississippi about two miles from Clarksdale, he learned from Patton and was the teacher of Robert Johnson. In 1927, Son House was sentenced to 15 years at the Mississippi State Penitentiary then known as Parchman Farm—a very rough place to do time. Apparently, House was performing at a juke joint when a drunken man opened fire in the place. House was hit in the leg, drew his own weapon and killed the man. His sentence was drastically reduced and he was released from Parchman in 1929. He recorded between 1930 and 1943. He recorded some test pressings for Henry Speir and for Alan Lomax and the Library of Congress. He recorded only a few commercial sides. Despite his genius, he was not a dedicated musician and only did it for the money and eventually laid the guitar down. There is some confusion over when he retired from music and why. One source stated that House quit playing in 1948 when his best friend, bluesman Willie Brown, died. But Brown died in 1952. From his retirement until 1963, House did not touch a guitar. This infuriated Howlin’ Wolf, one of his chief disciples, who felt that House had thrown his career away for the bottle. House was located in 1963 living in Rochester, New York working for the railroad. He was persuaded to start playing again but was so long out of music that he could not remember how to play his own material. A 22-year-old Al Wilson (guitarist and founder of Canned Heat) was brought in to teach House how to play House. Wilson literally knew every note that House had played from listening incessantly to the old recordings. With Wilson’s help, House was able to perform a set at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964. House continued to perform all over the U.S. and Europe until 1974 when ill health forced him to retire for good. He moved to Detroit and spent the last 14 years of his life there, dying in 1988 at the age of 86. He had no family. The Detroit Blues Society held a series of benefit concerts to buy a proper headstone for Son House who is buried at Mt. Hazel Cemetery in Detroit.
The grave of Son House at the Mt. Hazel Cemetery in the Brightmoor area (Lahser and Pickford)—an area so incredibly run down and squalid that I didn't feel safe parking my car anywhere when I went to visit his grave.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK7M3n6Wwo0
Watch carefully, kiddies, this is how its done.