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 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.
The floating-verse lineage for this recording (who else recorded it, where the melody or lyric traveled, and how it was adapted) is still being mapped. This section will trace the song's DNA across the archive.
Contributions welcome at OlMrRead@ccblues.com.