Son House: Father of Folk Blues [MUSIC ON VINYL/COLUMBIA]

Why you'll love it

This Music On Vinyl reissue presents the stereo mix on 180g vinyl, pressed in the EU. John Hammond produced the sessions, and the record opens with "Death Letter," later covered by The White Stripes, Johnny Winter and Cassandra Wilson.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Stereo mix
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

In June 1964 three young blues fans tracked Son House down in Rochester, New York, roughly 1,000 miles from the Mississippi Delta where he had taught Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters a thing or two. He hadn't played seriously in years. Ten months later he was in a New York studio for Columbia, and the voice was every bit as fierce as the 1930 Paramount sides that made his name.

"Death Letter" is the centrepiece, a stark slide guitar tale that borrows its opening from his own My Black Mama. "Preachin' Blues" revisits another Paramount number, "John The Revelator" is sung with nothing but his own handclaps for company, and the closing "Levee Camp Moan" stretches out for about nine minutes. Al Wilson of Canned Heat adds second guitar on "Empire State Express" and harmonica on that long finale. Everywhere else it's just House, his guitar and that voice, which is all it needs.

House spent the rest of the 1960s on festival stages, a former preacher who finally had the congregation he deserved, and we suspect the Delta has never sounded quite so loud in a living room.

Also at Kops: more Son House on vinyl · browse Blues

Tracklist

Listen

On Columbia / Music On Vinyl (cat# MOVLP2030), a reissue of the 1965 album.