Son House & The Kings Of The Delta Blues

Performer: Various Artists
Distributor: Phantom Import Distributi

Notes: Son House was one of the giants of Delta blues, and the recordings he made for the Library of Congress are as powerful as anything else in the genre's canon, let alone the artist's own discography. This two-disc set's first half is occupied by those historic sessions, which include visceral versions of such classics as "Levee Camp Blues" and "Special Rider Blues." The second disc creates some context by picking some of the best-known tunes by House's peers, offering a few tunes each by the likes of Charley Patton, Skip James, and Robert Johnson, as well as a couple of country blues tunes from Mississippi John Hurt and Sleepy John Estes. The presence of two early Delta-style Muddy Waters cuts also hints at what the sounds of House and his contemporaries would soon inspire in Chicago. The first disc of this double-disc set collects Son House's Library of Congress sessions for Alan Lomax from 1940 and 1941, and House's huge rasping voice and vibrant slide guitar style are everywhere on it, both on the solo selections and on a handful of African-American string band pieces that find friends Leroy Williams (harmonica), Fiddlin' Joe Martin (mandolin), and Willie Brown (guitar) lending a hand. These intimate field recordings, which were tracked at Clack's Store near Cormorant, MS, are combined here with House's complete Paramount recordings from 1930, which amounted to three brilliant double-sided 78s ("My Black Mama," "Preachin' the Blues," and "Dry Spell Blues"), all of which taken together form the true heart of House's recorded legacy, since his rediscovery sides for Columbia in the '60s catch him, quite honestly, with diminishing powers. The second disc of the set is a fine survey of early country blues from the 1920s and 1930s and is pretty much icing on the cake, including as it does the key tracks of blues giants Charley Patton ("A Spoonful Blues"), Robert Johnson ("Love in Vain"), Sleepy John Estes ("Milk Cow Blues"), Skip James ("I'm So Glad"), Blind Willie Johnson ("Dark Was the Night [Cold Was the Ground]"), Bukka White ("Fixin' to Die Blues"), and others. ~ Steve Leggett

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