Added: 4 years ago
From: terser
Views: 196,738
Sort by time | Sort by thread (beta)

Link to this comment:

Share to:
see all

All Comments (189)

Sign In or Sign Up now to post a comment!
  • Heard Son House do this, up close, at an afternoon blues workshop at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival (the film might be from that performance). Powerful stuff. I have his old LP with this track, titled "I Do Not Play no Rock and Roll." The great Skip James was also on the program.

    The guy pulling the old 78 at the beginning is a devoted preservationist in Frederick, MD. I'm not sure if he's still around, but the clip is from an indie documentary about him.

  • Namaste. Right to my Bhakti Heart. Sigh. Namaste.

  • 1:29 RANDOM DOG OUTTA NOWHERE

  • Pretty awesome!

  • You would probably get partnered by youtube if you just removed this one video who's copyright you don't own(at least I believe you don't). Of course I don't know if you might be interested in that.

    Great videos btw :)

  • I thought he got out of the game just before color film was mainstream shows what I know

  • What a wonderful upload -- thank you so much for sharing it.

  • I saw him in 1967 in London - frail, led on by two young guys, was carefully sat down, made some incoherent sounds then a few seconds silence then WOW into Death Letter and one of the greatest performances I've ever seen. 44 years ago and I still remember it clearly.

  • "Walkin Blues" and "Mississippi Farm County Blues" surfaced not long ago, after all this time! A collector had a copy, and the two songs are available. I downloaded them from Amazon. It was probably the holy grail of lost blues records. Scratchy? You bet, but the power and majesty of Son House pours off the songs.

  • @Slickdapj wouldn't surprise me if John Tefteller was the one who had that copy.......on one other note, according to one source is that even if you found a clean near mint copy of a lot of Son House, or Charley Patton Paramount records, you would still hear a lot of surface noise due to the poor quality of materials used...(something about they were used to line chicken coops or something like that)

  • truly divine

  • The sad part about this is, barely any black people probably watched this vid smh

  • I've always preferred Son House over Robert Johnson. Maybe because there is actual live footage of him.....Who knows, I just know I prefer him historically.

  • @rfw45 ...i heard it was the same person...

  • @rfw45

    Fair enough. How many of today's Robert Johnson critics and admirers have actually seen him live? No one I guess. All we have are studio and poor quality live recordings.

  • I think maybe he means that his music career lived well up into the sixties? I can't be sure, but it seems odd that his guy would be so misinformed. Because into the 70s Son wasn't as actively pursuing his musical career (he was pretty old by then, anyway).

  • this clip is from the documentary "Desperate Man Blues" about Joe Bussard. I just found it on netflix, its an awesome film about blues and country.

  • no one can or will ever be able to play like son house (his strumming and overall filthiness with his blues). jack white definitely does some of the most justice keeping to the gritty style as son intended it to be

  • I am so thankful the White Stripes did a cover of this song...otherwise I never would have heard this gem of a song...I may start listening to a lot more blues now!!

  • Thanks for uploading this.  Fascinating footage.

  • thanks for uploading this.

  • nice doggy

  • oool as hell thanks to uploader

  • Great song but is he toothless??? He sounds like he's got a mouth full of penutbutter! LOL! XD

  • Fantastic (if slightly inaccurate) post. Thanks for this friend.

  • this is cut thats why it is so short, you can tell from where his hand is at 0:50 compared to just after that.

  • This is a scene from the «Desperate Man Blues» DVD on the Dust-to-Digital label, a portrait of the collector Joe Bussard. The complete Son House performance of DLB is in the DVDs extras section.

  • I saw Sonhouse at the Mariposa folk festival.....he was escorted to the stage...both elbows ..held ..as he was gently placed into a chair...he then proceeded to slide the blues away...like he was some 17 yr old...looking for a howl on the Mississippi river...i never looked back...the blues was my thing!!!

  • i get goosebumps watching him play.... you have know idea how much i appreciate people like you uploading videos like this...

    :)

  • Great footage of Mr Sun House when he was well into his sixties as well as The Sixties. These videos of the great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen are true treasures. Gracious.

  • I think; when a Youtube user dislikes a video, they should have to give an explanation as to why they dislike it.. Because if you don't like this, you're either deaf or have absolutely no idea about music!

  • 1 Dislike.

    I bet the Devil saw this footage.

  • Son House lived in Rochester, NY. In 1971, a group of high school seniors in Syracuse decided to have an alternative graduation. After talking to Son and his agent, we got him to come to our graduation where he performed in return for (I think) $75 and two shots of whiskey. Unfortunately, there is neither video nor audio of this performance.

  • gabrieldix64 RE: the Captain Beefheart post, I'll finish the thought... Don Van Vliet very obviously listened to Son House. On the Captain Beefheart album Strictly Personal he sounds like he is imitating Son.

  • Remembering the great Son House today. Died October 19th, 1988

  • @rocktenniscat - Ah, Son House and I were alive at the same time for only 26 days.

  • @terser - well, maybe some of his karma got into you!

  • @terser

    I was born the day before he died... WHY!!!!!

  • Son House lived in Rochester, NY. In 1971, a group of high school seniors in Syracuse decided to have an alternative graduation. After talking to Son and his agent, we got him to come to our graduation where he performed in return for (I think) $75 and two shots of whiskey. Unfortunately, there is neither video nor audio of this performance.

  • @rocktenniscat Remembering the great Son House on his birthday today... March 21st, 1902.

  • what i'd give to of seen this guy play live.

  • this guy is amazing! wow..

  • GOOD STUFF,

  • See: Os Velhos da Montanha

  • @osvelhos Looks like someone's account is closed.

  • @mgb11271950 i tip my hat off to you sir, for knowing your shit

  • WELL HEED THIS,,,,YOU THOUGHT 45,000 WAS GOOD ,,,NOW YOU GOT OVER 100.000,,,,,,AMENS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD SO ,RAISE A BOURBON, THE NECTAR OFTHE BLUES ,,,

  • That performance is goddamned spectacular.

  • He's the real deal. Thanks for uploading this!

  • son house rules

  • thank you for this great upload!

  • sounds like crap.

  • @veeseee128 you are crap!, now go and suck lady gaga's cock you fucking ignorant!,

  • @veeseee128 huh?

  • his sister daughter mother and wife died.

    thats real heart there ya all should listern

  • my mother, my sister, my dead gal, and my wife

  • this is real music

  • who is the third woman? My mother, my sister, my ? and my wife

  • "The Son House Movie," starring Morgan Freeman... pass it on...

  • i love the dog walking up at the end.

  • We try it to, great song

  • I always though it was crazy how he outlived all his musical descendents, robert, muddy, wolf, jimi, he outlived them all.

  • @soulrevolution I know, it's also crazy that there don't seem to be any pictures of him other than the 60's blues revival

  • I think someone off camera was hurrying him along, judging by the way he keeps looking up as if distracted by some idiot who has no idea of what they are witnessing, I also feel this to be true by the pissed off way he rushes the last parts and ends the song in a kind of angry way. Still a great clip though!

  • @SteveGad I think you're easily reading into something. He could very well have just been distracted, and that look is as much a part of feeling what he is singing than anything else.

  • Love it!

  • Son House truly was a troubled man. He let it out through his music, great therapy.

  • Awesome. And that look he gives at 1.16 could freeze your blood...

  • im guessing he probley just used some copper tubing or something rather than a brass slide

  • Does Dick Waterman visit YouTube? Dick could tell some stories and set a lot of things right, I'm sure. He managed Son and many of the other older blues musicians who were rediscovered around the time of the 1960 Newport festival. Dick's fine photography work can be found on the internet, at his site. Just google "Dick Waterman" (No, I'm not him!)

  • This footage is extremely important when you consider that Son was a contemporary of the legendary RJ, and even more so, was an established professional when RJ was merely an apprentice. Unfortunately it's a frighteningly ominous tune, which can be heard--and seen!--in the other Son House Death Letter video, haunting the dusty roads of YouTube country.

  • @NicolletIslandSlim yea thats what i was thinking. its a little strange

  • Question??.....What would Robert Johnson's impact have been had he lived long enough to make video/film recordings? Obviously, Son House was his comtemperary.

  • yeah man, RJ would follow Son House around and sit in between set. The crowd wld boo RJ, Son House told him to "get off that stage and stop playing that racket" RJ went MIA for about 6 months and came back playing every blues song like he been playing them for years. Like a walking juke box

  • If Son House came first, how is it that RJ has received credit for being the foundation for rock n roll? Did RJ become that much better than Son?

  • He wasn't necessarily better...

    But--

    He was probably a more knowledgeable and more skilled guitar player; although if you listen to Son House's original recordings, he was pretty hot stuff, too.

    They were both great singers; but I like House's voice much more than Johnson's and consider him to be the greater vocalist.

    Johnson's greatest legacy was probably his intricate guitar parts, and more importantly, his songs, which have been covered by many great musicians.

  • open G

  • what tuning did he use on this?

  • ***UPDATE***

    That fourth record that is said not to have turned up yet at the beginning of this clip did indeed finally surface four to five years ago.

    It contained the songs "Country Farm Blues" and "Clarksdale Moan."

    I have the Yazoo CD "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of," that includes these two songs, plus many other from other blues, bluegrass, and country musicians, and it is excellent.

    Long live the mighty Son House!

  • amazing slide player. great song.

  • This performance always stuck with me as a child. Just the way he strikes his guitar, the fluidity of it. I don't know I just love it.

  • damn thas good

  • ERRORS OF FACT: The intro says Son House lived well into the Sixties, Son actually died in 1988 at age 86. The voiceover also says that Son recorded 3 or 4 songs for Paramont but in reality Son recorded 15 songs (19 if you count the session outtakes). This guy has done a tremendous service by posting this rare tape of Son House on YouTube. Unfortunately the 45,200 people who have viewed it will gotten some unintentional misinformation about the essential facts of Son's life.

  • Thanks!

    I am glad I uploaded this - and I think the other 45,000 other folks that have seen it are too.

    I'm not sure where I found it exactly - but I do know I downloaded the clip from a website several years ago - hopefully youtube won't take it down.

  • @terser great share! and trading info, learning..its what makes You Tube even greater each time we check on 'our elder statesmen's' great videos..this is one of them..thanks to all who add info!

  • If you goggle his name there is some info on the man.

  • internet police - it's more about the music . . there's ways to find out about his life if they really cared. i don't think that 8 second bio totally ruined the perception of son house for people.

  • yea, cause i was gonna say ,i thought he outlived Robert J. and Muddy w.

  • @mgb11271950 are you a fuckin' know it all? thanks for the info douche bag. go fuck you're sister. i did an hour ago. she wasn't bad considering she's related to you.

  • @mgb11271950 Thank you so much!

  • @mgb11271950

    not anymore thanks to the high thumbs up you got now! :D Thanks dude :)

  • @mgb11271950 Son passed in Detroit, MI.

  • @mgb11271950 this was released on dvd by sbs they ran the show . on. the roots of american music. the show and dvd are called desprate man blues. and had son house blind willie the carter family and heaps of good filming

  • His right hand technique is amazing

  • INTENSE

  • Is this standard tuning?

  • open G. beautiful tuning. goes like D-G-D-G-B-D ... and makes sure your B is just a LITTLE bit flat...

  • Son played all of his music in open key tunings. He most often used open D or open G. In Open D which strings are tuned to DADF#AD, In open G the strings are tuned DGDGBD.

  • @mgb11271950 He didn't use open D, stop disinforming people.

  • Thanks for uploading this, it's brilliant.

  • COLOR film of Son House.....?

    astonishing......thank you/gracias/shukrun.......

  • Captain Beefheart.

  • Yes?

  • Comment removed

  • Comment removed

  • @gabrieldix64 what about beefheart?

    sure nuff and yes i do?

  • @soldier312 I suppose a one word/name/phenomenon that musically linked decades and gendre. Saw, The Fall support The Magic Band in London a few years back. Same thing just different. Beefheart was the bridge. Picked up the baton and threw it. Mind how you go.

  • @gabrieldix64 More like Delta Blues

  • @Intlahcuilo You're right. Me too. Same thing. Different. Great film. Great song.

  • son é muito foda!!!

  • What can one say beyond: Son House Rules. Makes all the rockin' posers look like pretty slim pickens . . . .

  • amazing

  • one of the top 100 blues songs of all time!

    I've only loved four women in my life.

    My sister, mother, my kid girl and my wife.

  • "I thought I'd never love but four wimmin in my life

    My mother n my sister my kid gal and my wife."

    I get the idea that this was a loved woman NOT amoung those four.

  • so, i'll go a head and say it, what's up with the dog at the end?

  • Son House should be in the Rock and roll Hall of Fame. and the smithsonian on american music section.

  • noh.. i don't like him (Son House etal..) be in Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. They're not Pop? hehe..sorry, i'm ignorant?

  • its probably just this old poor quality recording of it.. , i've heard some nice sounding resonators before

  • I like the sound of a garbage can with strings.

  • Well said!!

  • @chrismortloch92 Better learn how to spell, silly teen.

  • Canad votes "AWESOME"!

  • i dont even usually listen to blues i dont know a thing about it but that slide is what speaks to me it tells a story by itself i couldnt call it dull

  • Not dull. Primitive, maybe, but it was the sheer simplicity and the raw emotion of these songs, that make them what they are. They are driven by emotion and sincerity over technical prowess...

  • Exactly.

  • Dull?

    Anything but dull.

  • It's not dull. It's not primitive. I'll give you $5000 if you could in any way recreate this with Son House's depth. I'm not rich by any means, either.

  • I love Son's music

  • Incredible!

  • This is an excerpt from the documentary Desperate Man Blues

  • Everyone who owns a guitar has so much to learn just from this clip alone...this is where it all started.

  • That's such a nice guitar! Does anyone know where I could secure myself such a fine instrument?

  • It's an old National Dobro I think... somebody else knows more about I'm sure...

    Always check ebay if you are interested in vintage instruments...

  • The times I saw him in the middle 1960's, he was using a length of copper pipe as a slide---led me to go to a hardware store and "try on" pipe til I got a good fit. They sold me a scrap length, cut it to the length I asked for, and never asked what I needed it for.

  • I thought Son House was kinda ordinary compared to the great Robert Johnson when I was a kid...

    All Robert did, after learning from Son House, was take the music past where he found it.

    Son House - Father of Delta Blues FACT!

  • B.B.King has learned much from The Great Son House.

  • School won't help ya none.  A lot of educated morons out their. Just look at Washington DC ;)

  • Dont you realise that this man, born in 1902, didnt get the same education as we get nowadays? show some respect, please.

  • He is pretty easy to understand...

  • Please ignore the negativity. Very easy to understand! If some of these folks don't understand, they should go back to listening to Barry Manilow. This is the Blues by one of the King's of the Blues! The Blues is the biggest influence in modern music today. Long Live The Blues! Thank you terser for posting this awsome piece of history!

  • He learns that the woman he loves is dead. He rushes home. At the funeral, as she's lowered into the ground, he realizes how much he loves her.

  • BB king could learn a thing or two from this guy.

  • pure delta blues. real blues, not that commercial eric clapton stuff.

  • absolutely amazing.

    thanks so much for posting this!

  • ITs not a colonel sanders tie.. its a Mississippi String Tie. Get it right. lol

  • Son House lived until 1988.

  • JosephNScott was not very famous at all although he dearly wanted to be. He died

    in 1998 but was reborn as a retarded two legged Piglet. He now roams cyberspace passing foul wind wherever

    he travels. Anyone knowing the whereabouts of the above named piglet -

    please report it to me as I am a dedicated

    pighunter and eater of pigs. Thankyou

    very much.

  • Modern blues,such as Jimmy Hendrix and Cream and all forms of rock come from the likes of these great artists so its so good to know people still love and want to see them.Give me some cold beers and a long night to listen to this guy and nothing else matters!

  • Someone else posted the entire clip of this performance somewhere and it got taken off! :(

  • looks like he has 7 fingers on his picking hand.

  • Thank you posting this. This is favorite song of his. Amazing

  • What a musical legend. I love how he uses his right hand..amazing

  • Thanks for posting this treasure.

  • mindblowing.

  • "Obernasenbart'; 'Was Son House Very Famous?"

    If you study the History of American Delta Blues (Google his name)- you'll discover that

    along with 'Charley Patton and Robert Johnson'

    -He's one of the greatest and most influential

    Bluesmen of the 20th century. The film we see

    here, and there are others as well - show him

    not long before he died. Because of his personal battle between playing the blues and 'serving God' - he turned to alcohol in later life and became a 'Heavy Drinker' ."

  • Thank you for posting this great footage of this grand old man.

    (For anyone who likes this - treat yourself to his earliest recordings - they're longer and his voice is even more powerful!)

  • awesome vid, except that essentially everything said in the beginning is factually wrong.

  • "Hurry Hurry, the gal you love is dead."

    whoa! Hurry anywayz....Son House.

    thx me mon'

  • phew!

    his intensity made me sweat in my temp. controlled environment with 'me cool electronics'.

    A TRUE LEGEND 10.

    He never really needed a band. POWER of 1.

  • was son house very famous

  • Wow !!!! Great !!

  • "The Holy Trinity of Blues music"...

    Charley Patton

    Son House

    Robert Johnson

  • No room for Blind Lemon Jefferson? Leadbelly? Bukka White? Skip James? Mississippi John Hurt? Blind Willie Johnson? Mississippi Fred MacDowell? Jimmy Rogers?

  • "Yeah", Your right On HOWLINWILF13.

    Those guys definately are among my favourites

    and of course they stand in the company of Blues Titans. I love Jimmy Rogers but I dont

    think he would be considered a delta bluesman.

    He's more 'Country/folk' and some consider him

    to be 'the father of 20th century 'Country music'. Well at least that's the opinion of some I have read - rightly or wrongly. The reason I wrote 'the holy trinity of Blues' is

    because 'Rolling Stone' mag labelled them as that."

  • THE best...

  • He was a great burning fire.

    All the digital technology in the world can't do that. And never will.

  • I'm glad his missing 78 turned up a few years ago, too bad I didn't find it though. This is amazing footage.

  • That is what you call power kids.

  • His playing say's it all!

  • He's playing with his whole body. Look at the intense look in his eyes at the end.

  • it seemed like he was possessed... is some kind of trance, or something.

  • Yep, right at 1:17, he looks downright terrifying.

    Incredible, full body performance.