In June of 1964, three young, white blues fans set out from New York
City in a Volkswagen, heading for the Mississippi Delta in search of a
musical legend. So begins Preachin' the Blues, the biography of
American blues signer and guitarist Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. (1902 -
1988). House pioneered an innovative style, incorporating strong
repetitive rhythms with elements of southern gospel and spiritual
vocals. A seminal figure in the history of the Delta blues, he was an
important, direct influence on such figures as Muddy Waters and Robert
Johnson.
The landscape of Son House's life and the vicissitudes he
endured make for an absorbing narrative, threaded through with a tension
between House's religious beliefs and his spells of commitment to a
lifestyle that implicitly rejected it. Drinking, womanizing, and singing
the blues caused this tension that is palpable in his music, and
becomes explicit in one of his finest performances, "Preachin' the
Blues." Large parts of House's life are obscure, not least because his
own accounts of them were inconsistent. Author Daniel Beaumont offers a
chronology/topography of House's youth, taking into account evidence
that conflicts sharply with the well-worn fable, and he illuminates the
obscurity of House's two decades in Rochester, NY between his departure
from Mississippi in the 1940s and his "rediscovery" by members of the
Folk Revival Movement in 1964. Beaumont gives a detailed and perceptive
account of House's primary musical legacy: his recordings for Paramount
in 1930 and for the Library of Congress in 1941-42. In the course of his
research Beaumont has unearthed not only connections among the many
scattered facts and fictions but new information about a rumoured murder
in Mississippi, and a charge of manslaughter on Long Island - incidents
which bring tragic light upon House's lifelong struggles and
self-imposed disappearance, and give trenchant meaning to the moving
music of this early blues legend.