Son House

I had a very pleasant surprise this morning when a FedEX person rang my doorbell and woke me up. I had fallen asleep on the couch the night before and had failed to set any alarm. The package arrived a half hour before I was to be at work, so it had impeccable timing. Not only that, the package itself was a mix CD that a listener had compiled for me. After rushing to work, I threw the mix on and was treated with plenty of grand tunes including perhaps my favorite blues song, "John the Revelator" by Son House.
It's a very simple tune comprised of a soft clapping and a capella, but single-handily is one of the most powerful songs in the American songbook. Immediately it calls upon us vicariously fore we are Adam, naked and ashamed, answering to God with our sin upon our chest. Son House knew about sin. He was a spiritual man of sin, in battle with God. He murdered a man for which he went to prison and he quit music afraid that the blues was inhabited by the devil himself. Upon returning to music in 1964, he found a new audience and a new lust to play it.

This was recorded in 1970 long after many of the original greats were gone, but Son House wasn't and we are blessed with these later life recordings that are vibrantly full of fidelity. Son House died Oct. 19, 1988. It was my birthday. The blues at its best is a vicarious relish within all our sorrows to understand that our individual sorrow is not wholly our battle.

Please enjoy this song and may it conveniently help you out by getting you to work on time or something equally spectacular.

Son House - John the Revelator MP3

Thanks for the mix, Jamie.