Comparisons are a common, if ultimately dispensable, part of music appreciation. This artist is better than that one; this album puts that one to shame. Bagatellen probably wouldn’t exist in the absence of such completely subjective pursuits. This brings me in a roundabout manner to Son House and this particular late period collection from Columbia. Every time I spin it I find myself unconsciously measuring it against the benchmark of House’s epochal Library of Congress Recordings, now available in at least a half dozen commercial guises. These New York City performances, taped during a fertile three-day stretch in April of 1965, have a number of cosmetic advantages over those earlier Delta sides. Firstly, there’s the untarnished studio sound, leagues ahead of the Lomax field sessions of the Forties in terms of fidelity. House’s National Steel Body guitar rings out with stentorian size, free from surface grit and aural grime, his slide raking across strings to create slicing rhythms in line with his age-weathered vocals. Next, there’s the temporal elbowroom available through modern tape technology. “Levee Camp Moan” stretches to nine-and-a-half minutes and eight more tunes ease well past five-minutes apiece. Far from sterile or overly rehearsed, these tracks bring out House’s protean talents, particularly on the spirituals where he sets down his guitar and switches to simple, but penetrating handclaps. Great as these are, my prized moments come with the two versions of “Death Letter,” a harrowing lament with topical roots in common with “Saint James Infirmary” and for my money just as monumental. House was one of the giants, not just of the blues, but also of American music in general. Are these his definitive performances? Who cares. They encompass an indispensable body of song, one that I’ll continue to return to with regularity until the day they lay me on that cooling board.
Posted by derek on October 1, 2006 6:15 PMI like his very first recordings best, weren't they from 1931? Also, I go back to the Rochester recordings of 1969--raw and uncomfortably powerful stuff! I'll have to check this one out.
Posted by: marc at October 2, 2006 7:33 PMwow, great to see this as a pick. was just talking to a friend about it, and indeed it's one of my favorites of his releases - particularly the voice only track 'people grinnin' in your face' which completely slays me. i recently picked up rochester and it definitely runs a close second. 'son's blues' might be his ultimate in terms of transcendence simply because it's one of the few folk blues tracks that's not just as repetitive and deep as an indian alap, but at 20 plus minutes he builds you a resonant cave and you can really live there for awhile. for me, this late stuff just has more levels - the rawness mixed with the grace... and it's all sounding so goddamn human too... definitely the best of the best.
Posted by: sroden at October 2, 2006 9:42 PMThe first time this set was released in the UK on CD it was a single disc, and a great one. "Death Letter", "John the Revelator" and "Preachin' Blues" are favourites, but each of the nine tracks offers something marvellous. The later inclusion of the outtakes, on a second CD, kinda sullies the set. The alternative takes of five of the tracks are satisfactory, at best, though House's phrasing is often eccentric/erratic, the rhythms fragile and uncertain, the emphasis askew. And some of the extra material (eg. "President Kennedy") is so poor it's embarrassing. What CD two does is highlight how good CD one is, and that's now the only one I play. But Son House . . . love him!
Posted by: Brian Marley at October 3, 2006 12:23 AM.................................................. © 2003 - 2006 bagatellen ..................................................