Death Letter Blues
Son House had vanished from the music industry in the 1940s, retiring to a life of hard drinking and obscure labor. In 1964, a group of young folk enthusiasts tracked him down in Rochester, New York, unaware that he...
Son House had vanished from the music industry in the 1940s, retiring to a life of hard drinking and obscure labor. In 1964, a group of young folk enthusiasts tracked him down in Rochester, New York, unaware that he hadn't touched a guitar in years. Re-taught how to play his own songs by Alan Wilson of Canned Heat, House entered Columbia Studios to record 'Death Letter Blues.' Armed with a National steel guitar and a copper slide, he delivered a devastating, raw performance about identifying a lover on a morgue cooling board, proving the Delta fire still burned decades later.