Birthday Blips: Son House
PeetieWheatstrawContinuing with a theme raised in yesterday’s column on Sister Rosetta Tharpe, I will start with the tritone, a sound which has historically been referred to as “Satan in music” and “the devil in music” from as early as 1725. Musically, a tritone is nothing more than a musical interval that spans three whole tones, but it still had many opponents. Its discordant nature gave it a bad reputation in much European classical music, and it remained out of the comfort zone of many composers until the early twentieth century when musicians such as Igor Stravinsky and Bela Bartok began using it regularly. A restless interval, the tritone does not sit well by itself; it needs to be coming from one key and going to the next. Likewise Son House, born March 21, 1902, never sat still from the day he was born in Riverton, Mississippi to his death in Detroit.
Image by theopieSon’s restless body stored a restless soul, keeping him in a lifelong spiritual struggle that can be heard in many of his songs. By the age of fifteen, Son House was giving sermons, and by twenty he was a pastor of a Baptist church. This preaching and pastoring undoubtedly influenced his songwriting. For example, take the lyrics to “Preaching Blues”:
Oh, I'm gonna get me a religion, I'm gonna join the Baptist Church
Oh, I'm gonna get me a religion, I'm gonna join the Baptist Church
I'm gonna be a Baptist preacher, and I sure won't have to work
Oh, I'm a-preach these blues, and I, I want everybody to shout
I want everybody to shout
I'm gonna do like a prisoner, I'm gonna roll
my time on out
Oh, I went in my room, I bowed down to pray
Oh, I went in my room, I bowed down to pray
Till the blues come along, and they blowed my spirit away
Oh, I'd-a had religion, Lord, this every day
Oh, I'd-a had religion, Lord, this every day
But the womens and whiskey, well, they would not set me free
Oh, I wish I had me a heaven of my own
Hey, a heaven of my own
Till I'd give all my women a long, long, happy home
Hey, I love my baby, just like I love myself
Oh, just like I love myself
Well, if she don't have me, she won't have nobody else
Everything from the call and response pattern that partly originated in churches (having no songbooks or often no ability to read them made the call and response very popular in religious services) to the spiritual struggle the words express, show a man longing for spiritual comfort, despite the struggles he faces attaining it. These struggles with “womens and whiskey” haunted Son for most of his life, especially when a budding career as a blues musician pulled him away from the church. Once again we find an example of the sacred and secular unable to co-exist musically. As blues historian Robert Palmer wrote in his excellent book titled Deep Blues, “Blues was so disreputable that even its staunchest devotees frequently found it prudent to disown it. The church and the blues were not supposed to mix.”
During the late twenties and early thirties, Son lived the life of the travelling bluesman in the Mississippi Delta. He teamed up with fellow forefather of the Delta Blues, Charley Patton, and the two built strong reputations as the best musicians around. Both had distinctly original styles that complimented each other well, with House being the more powerful of the two. Again referencing Palmer’s Deep Blues, “[House's] instrument became a congregation, responding to his gravelly exhortation with clipped, percussive bass rhythms and the ecstatic whine of the slider in the treble.... It was stark, gripping, kinetic music that demanded to be danced to and would have left few listeners unmoved.” Among the listeners turned disciples that were moved by his sound were Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, and Howlin’ Wolf, and among the tools Son House drew upon to drive his 12-bar blues along was that “devil in music”, the tritone interval.
For more than a decade, minus a two year sentence for a murder he pleaded was self-defense, Son House made his living as a musician. By the mid-forties though, he completely gave up playing and returned to the Baptist church. He remained there preaching until 1964, when the Bob Dylan-inspired folk music revival swept the country and he found work playing at festivals and colleges. In 1974 he retired once again, living the remainder of his years in Detroit until his death at the age of 86 in 1988.
So can music be “evil”? I don’t know. Nor am I sure what Son House would have to say about that. But he certainly saw a distinction between the life of a religious man and the life of a bluesman, and like many others of his time, did not see how the two could co-exist. Personally, I can see how discordant notes can create discomfort and add darker moods to music--they’re used all the time in our movie soundtracks to add ominous and foreboding tones to scenes. And who knows, maybe they stir up something beyond that, something Son House referred to when he sang, “Oh, I went in my room, I bowed down to pray / Till the blues come along, and they blowed my spirit away.”
Here's Son House "Preachin' Blues":
Check out more from Son House and all other artists featured in the Birthday Blips column at http://blip.fm/PeetieWheatstraw
Reader Comments (1)
Another cool history of the blues. I liked how this musician set out on his own path almost from the start. Bouncing back from the Blues to the Church, letting each go and come back, like a refrain in his life. He seemed to live the music. Rosetta never left the church, just made her freedom within it.
Son House should be a movie but thank you for the book. This summer I will read it.