Doc Shoe's Music Blog

“Death Letter” by Son House

By the time he was “rediscovered” in the ’60s, Son House was decrepit going on dead.  He had pickled his brain in whiskey after a lifetime stretched between Jesus and the Blues, trying hard to be a family man but driven to wander.  He was burnt out, true enough, but what fascinates me is what didn’t die.  Listen to that voice: He sounds like a back-alley prophet, handing down the Word on subjects the Bible neglected to mention.  If Johnny Cash sounds like a man grateful to be saved, Son House sounds like he’s still waiting for the miracle to come.

I’ve written earlier about that vast gulf between the Church and the Blues.  (Click here.)  It was a tension felt by every Bluesman worth his salt.  Some of them tried to cross over.  Most of them fell.  Very few, like Son House, managed to build a bridge.  It’s slender and creaky and it sways in the breeze, it’s little more than a twist of rope and a few brittle planks, but it’s still there if you need to walk it.