Added: 4 years ago
From: TheDoC1986
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  • Son House is as awesome as one man could possibly be.

  • @dcmohler1983 agreed!

  • Thank you again for the video

    I had not yet finished and I would just add that I also agree to "deermilk" in his commentary of 2009

    Son House out of its capacity to touch the listener has a sense of timing. His stage presence can not leave indiférérent.

    French text translated by Google

  • I had not finished and about this I read somewhere that "Death Letter" is considered one of the most anguished laments stunning and emotionally in the work of the Delta blues

    French text translated by Google

  • Thank you for your video. I agree with "faunoran" in his commentary of 2010. The interpretation of Son House is emotionally stunning. With that voice that sounds like death, pain associated with this through every fiber of the body you really feel that the letter announcing the loss of the beloved was received in time.

  • want some real mean bastard music,, listen to Albert King, Gotta love the KING

  • This music has real character, and is played with emotion, the shit of today is so fake.

  • BAD ASS!!! Too legit!

  • In-fucking-credible! This sends chills down my spine!

    

  • the white stripes brought me here:)

  • Saw him at Ann Arbor Blues Festival 1970- 3000 people transfixed by this man.

  • Jeeez! This is so great! thx for sharing

  • Closest thing to Son House Jr. today is Seasick Steve.  Been listenin' to Son House for 35 years and it never gets old.

  • The master. Jack White got his inspiration from Son house. He gets it right too. I listen to this and tears come to my eye's. This hardly ever happens to this old man but this one reallt strikes a cord in my soul. Thanks for the post.

  • I wonder where that guitar is right now,,,,,,

  • @SHRIKE427 Don't know but no-one else alive could get that sound out of it.

  • @SHRIKE427 it should be in a museum right now

  • The true father of the delta blues!

  • Love his guitar work. Very interesting way of strumming the guitar! Wish there were more videos like this

  • Crikey. Outstanding performance from a master.

  • I play the blues a lot, and everybody tells me why I play things that are so old and out of date. I don't even know what to say to them, the blues is just so natural and so raw, you can literally see it in Son House's face when he's playing the guitar. He doesn't play the blues cause it sounds cool, he plays the blues because he lives it and feels that shit flowing through his veins...

  • THIS IS GODLIKE.

    This is so perfect

    Son house is my 2nd favorite guitarist

  • This has got to be one of the most intense performances I've ever seen.Makes my skin crawl.

  • those are some fat fuckin' strings that man is using.

  • The greatest blues artist.

  • How his fingers hits the strings like he wants to show his pain anger, and right after that, how he pats the strings with the same fingers showing his passion and love for life. Damn, blues isn't about wasting years workin' on that guitar, no, it's all about living your life in the way you like and then with all the anger, sadness, happiness, blues rises in your heart. That man definitely does not play his guitar, he pours out his feelings and this is why blues will always be remembered.

  • There is a special place in heaven for the person that had the foresight to film this!

  • The Passion, Honesty and Love that this Man shows in any performance is just Incredible.

  • beautiful

    

  • you cannot cover this the same way its just not to be replicated , too good !!

  •  Great years for music! Great musicians and great souls.

  • after watching this all I have to say for the state of music and art today is, fuck jay - z, fuck wayne and fuck just about anyone at the top of the rap game or even rock game for that matter fuck em' all they have no passion and no balls just bunch of corporate pigs getting fatter and richer in a faltering economy...if son house wee around tofay hed rrip his whole heart out nd show it to the world!

  • @steviewonder417 i think theres just as much passion in some rappers as there is in some bluesmen and just because you dont like it doesnt make it bad

  • @NintendoSinceBirth1 some you bastard not all some

  • @steviewonder417 theres always gonna be crap in music, they had back in the 60s with top of the pops and the 70s with discos and now we have the crap on the radio that little kids and teenage girls like, but there is great music around today too its just harder to find

  • @NintendoSinceBirth1 cool with that

  • @steviewonder417

    You seem ignorant of the many great artists that exist today, in many genres: bluegrass, classical, roots music, blues, and world music. I mean great, in the sense that they are communicating something heartfelt and real, in the vein of Son House. Step out of the corporate matrix and find them. Of course living in SF bay area makes that an option you may not have, but there is still youtube.

  • @nodunce no your fucking ignorant to to what I actually posted idiot. I never said all rappers asshole quit being so damn sensitive. Not only did I also mention rock artist, I aso specifically said the corporate sellouts....Y are you leaving pretentious comments like "you seem ignorant of the many great artist that exist todAY" QUIT BEIN A DOUCHE! CONTEXT MY FRIEND FUCKING CONTEXT!

  • @steviewonder417 Jack White is the man that keeps R&R alive

  • @steviewonder417

    Best comment on youtube. Ever.

    (Besides the spelling/grammar)

  • @steviewonder417 I think you need to listen to some more modern music boy. Just because it ain't popular, don't mean it's not there

  • @steviewonder417

    Want to get even more of the story? Go read a biography of Son House. Pretty amazing/sad about how this giant was put away into "common jobs" for many years. Recorded by the Library of Congress in the 1930s, working the railroads in the 50s, then brought out back into the light in the last two decades of his life.

    It doesn't get more real than this, and I wish we could recognize genius when it arrives on our doorstep.

  • What tuning is he in. It's not open G

  • @bastus451 it is in open g.

  • @bastus451 it is in open g

  • FN LOVE IT-Where its real DIRTY LIFE

  • Hello, proof that just because it's old doesn't make it good.

  • Son House, John Lee Hooker, Howlin Wolf, Lil Wayne.

    Somewhere along the line something went terribly, terribly wrong.

  • @tf1985

    Yeah, it was Reagan..

  • @tf1985 either that last ones parents were on too many drugs or may it really is the apocalypse

  • @tf1985 this is the best blues performance ever,no way!

  • @tf1985 yeah lol, the end of that line

  • @tf1985 haha yeah, the end of that bloody line

  • @tf1985 EXTREMELY wrong.This generation [We] owe music and art a huge apology.

  • @Fayme20

    There's real artist out there but you wouldn't know about it because companies don't want you to see them. They put a blanket over them and beat them with a stick. We wouldn't notice because we're blinding by the women they push out on the videos in their underwear.

  • @tf1985 The only thing that Lil Wayne has in common with those men is the color of his skin. What ever went wrong with Lil Wayne's music has nothing to do with the blues. There's a reason good people die poor. Money is of no concern to a true artist. If you want to know what the blues really led to, you have to look underground.

  • @tf1985

    It's called money . 

  • @tf1985 nothing went wrong,everyone has their own expression...

  • @tf1985 loloool..House, Hooker, Wolf and then the bombshell; Wayne(garbage)..BEST POST ON YOUTUBE EVER!!

  • @tf1985 Auto tune.

  • @tf1985 i totally agree with ya!!!

  • Damn this is so old, but sooooooo good! This is where rock n roll started! With the dirty old black blues. Love it!

  • Cool as fk <3

  • The Real Deal!

  • Rebellion, harsh realities, sorrow and pain is where this music comes from.

  • how can anybody dislike this ? assholes..this is what i call REAL music...

    the way Son plays the guitar is freakin cool..

  • If any University offered a class in "Singing like you mean it", Son House would be one of the core curriculum subjects!

  • Man, I wish he could have seen how Jack covered this song. He probably would have liked it.

  • He's a gem and we southerners dont mind sharin one of the treasures we contributed to modern day rock, rock and blues, etc. But make no mistake, this is southern heritage artist that became the artist we all love because of our racial strife and economic pressure unique only to the southern United States of America, and YES I am 100% bias on the topic! LOL

  • I swear he is my favourite blues singer ever. He just pours his heart out. And there's some other amazing blues singers like Robert Johnson or Howlin Wolf but none top Son House... At least thats what I think

  • If someone who never heard music before asked me what it is, i would show them son house and no other...Son House truly is music in its best and truest form.

  • @6Expendable6Youth6 I couldn't have said it better myself.

  • Son House plays guitar like a goddam warrior. He hits the bloody thing like a man, nothing like the sissy's who play guitar today all slowly and softly with their soft fingers and hands.

    A real man Son House and a guitar God.

  • Look at his right hand....

  • Comment removed

  • Son House is the greatest of all time. He is the reason I am the singer of our band. -Chris Casso - STD

  • Check out Bjørn Berge version, unforgettable cover

  • love his music...!!

  • i dont even know how anybody can sing and play the guitar at the same time... and this song looks a little complex too

  • Everybody should check out Bjørn Berge's version!

  • God Bless Son House

  • the way he plays the guitar is soo cool!!!! hahaha!xx

  • didnt the white stripes do a cover of this. if so, double sick!

  • @luvdaworldplz They did.

  • @luvdaworldplz

    yeah they did, its a brilliant cover

  • @ActiveStateOfMind And it's insane live.

  • @luvdaworldplz ya they did.

  • I think the white stripes cover this.

  • @akbill2

    They cover a load of songs because it's Jack's favorite blues guitarist.

  • Impagable.

  • WYATTKOPP-You made some interesting observations. Among the other guitarists for whom House was the mentor, was Robert Johnson, if my memory serves. I think I read that in Lomax's excellent book, "The Land Where the Blues Began."

  • whats the year????

    whats the guitar tunning????

  • @ovelonse I'm not sure about the year (around 66, likely), but Son House played in Open G.

  • @ovelonse 1960's i think..

    and i heard somewhere that it was open G

  • @shutup69er just played along by myself, pretty shure this song is a G# scale, so iI'd guess its an open g# tuning

  • @BeastFTW

    I believe it's in open C, I could be wrong, but thats the tuning/key I play it in.

  • @cockardo I tried playing it in open E tuning...I fail...just need to relate more...

  • @shutup69er I concur it's open G,

    it's a lot like Robert Johnson's Walkin Blues,

    or Walkin blues is like it I should say, the riff and some lyrics

  • One of the things that really amazes me is how lucky we are that this music was discovered by people who had the foresight to preserve it. Imagine all the beautiful music that was lost to the ages before Alan Lomax went all the way out into the Delta to record these artists. The Blues Hall of Fame really paid Lomax quite an honor by entering him into the Hall of Fame, this is an honor he rightly deserves was saving this music for us.

  • Son House is one of the best guitarists of all time. This is the man who taught Muddy Waters and I think Muddy Waters is who influenced artists such as Jimi Hendrix. These guitarists from the Mississippi Delta like House and McDowall are the top guitarists of all time. Hendrix, Clapton, Dylan and any other guitarist you could think of would all likely tell you that these are the true masters of the guitar....

  • @WYATTKOPP

    Robert Johsnon watched Son House a lot while learning,.....very cool

  • anybody else notice that the spacing on the top string is closer than the rest? i wonder if that was a feature of those old steel resonators or if the bridge of his guitar was just fucked up.

  • What key is he in???

  • Wow! man!! why, as a black man, whos dad is a blues man, did I play rock music?

  • this is what you call: music...

    (what happened to music the last 25 years? ;-(

  • LEGENDARY

  • Coming of age in the 60's was very exciting, almost half the rock shows I went to had an old bluesman on the bill. Got to see Son House, Big Mama Thornton, Furry Lewis and many other of the great blues artist's that have had a continuing influence on the Blues Genre. Keep the blues alive. Go to your local clubs that have blues nights or just to a blues club.

  • Breathtaking.

  • PURE SOUL AND EMOTION!!!

  • Where did you got this footage from?

  • My fucking idol

  • IS SO COOL,HE'S PLAYING IN OPEN TUNING,THINK RY COODER BORROWED LOTS OF SON'S SOUND! VERY COOL!

  • Really well written JoeBlue727.

  • My friends make fun of these old blues players because in interviews they don't have good speaking skills and sometimes don't use words correctly but thats just how they were raised. Go to school for a few years, then learn to work a farm. They probably make fun of us because we piss away most of our youth sitting in a classroom listening to someone talk.

  • @Gageisrasta Yeah, old bluesmen were more sage than all schoolshildren together. Your friends are ridiculous.

  • @Gageisrasta Sounds like you need to find some better friends...

  • @Gageisrasta As long as the point gets across, who cares? They usually have more emotion than the average white kid...who wastes his youth in a classroom, but he's too dumb to learn anything anyway

  • @Gageisrasta Amen!

  • Man I dig Son, he's the man!

  • Son is the man! I love this troop.

  • A dobro is played with a slide and has very high action. Here he's playing a resonator guitar. They look similar and one could be setup as the other, but they are different.

  • @Dronemaker I think - could be wrong - but 'Dobro' was one of the first companies to make resonator guitars, hence the term 'Dobro' being used as a catch-all for that style of guitar. However, Dobro-style resonators are more often played with the guitar flat on the player's lap and the left hand holding the slide/bottleneck over the top of the neck, as you might expect of a country player. (You can even get resonators designed specifically for this style, with a square neck!)

  • I think its D O B R O not drobo.

  • Anyone know if this live version ever made it to an album?

  • what kind of guitar is that? i want one...

  • @shanerob01934 it's a drobo.

  • @yogialb thanks

  • Son House was major influnce on the blues, it's a shame there aren't more videos of him. thanks for sharing this treasure.

  • Happy birthday Son House!

  • amazing song. really opened my eyes to where all the music i've loved over the years has come from.

  • Hypnotic i love this song

  • how old is this video?

  • @yayadenial It's probably from 1967.

  • son house...its as if ur song was made for me...no...it was made for blues...for those feelin blue, hence the name. blues aint JUST for mellow an sulky type of fellings, its blue because of how raw it is.

    the raw emotion this song has...no surprise its epic.

  • es increible como canta son house!!! porque escuchando los covers cantados de este blues que hay en youtube todas las personas que se atreven a cantarla lucen realmente disminuidas

    y es que al escuchar a son house este suena como si realmente estuviese recibiendo en ese mismo instante la carta y estuviese sintiendo con todas las fibras de su cuerpo la muerte de su amada

    es una voz que suena a muerte y dolor expresadas de forma brutal ... supongo que eso es el blues ...

  • God, this is so amazing.

  • The way he sets his guitar down so gingerly at the end of the song, after just banging it to death, says all you need to know about how the Blues helped many blacks escape the Delta's sadistically harsh lifestyle down on Stoval Farm. (even if only temporarily)

  • Such a great song.

  • This guy's voice always amazed me. Like Howlin' Wolf, his singing is like something from another world.

  • It don't get any realer than this . . . .

  • unbelievable.

  • no nuh awe ah fool? i dont undstand anything

  • Try Googling "Son House Death Letter". there are some fairly accurate lyrics there. Some of the words are a bit strange sounding to contemporary ears, but it's worth putting in the time to become familiar with the style. this is some of the world's great music and it's purely American. Happy listening.

  • @gone555 You know, I don't have a bit of trouble hearing the words he's singing; is it because I'm Southern, or because I'm old?

    "I'm gonna change my way of living, so I don't have to cry no more"

    Can you get any plainer than that?

  • both. :D

  • I reckon you're right.

  • @Gageisrasta You folks that are negging Gagelrasta ain't really READING his comment, the upshot of which is 'when you turn the volume ON, he sounds like he plays for the angels'

  • Killer

  • great video!!!and i think that the white stripes made very nice cover of this song

  • Eddie "Son" House on " DEATH LETTER BLUES" absolutely proves beyond a shadow of a doubt , WE don't come up with these incredible ideas that happen. Sometimes though WE are blessed enough to be the conduit or medium through which they flow. The raw emotion & real conviction in his voice has and will continue to make me believe when you get it "right" , MUSIC CAN BE MAGIC, sometimes haunting, but STILL MAGIC!

  • I also believe that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Most people dont though, even many musicians, i know.

  • This is Robert Johnson's area, but you don't hear enough about him. I heard him first through of all people, Eric Clapton. He's been long gone. Time takes all of us at some point. The research shows him being born early 20th century. Probably be well over 100 if alive today...At any rate. Great roots/blues music.

  • this guy is a god

  • I play it in open G

  • actually, I think it's an open A, but you can get the same sound with an open G and capo up to the 2nd fret

  • Low to high, DGDGBD is how I play it.

  • That's all right, man!

  • what strumming technique is that??

  • its his technique.

  • P

    E

    R

    F

    E

    C

    T

  • Butterfly don't need no little propeller

    snake don't need no legs

    Blues don't need no drums.

  • LOL :)

  • @raiun42 Blues just needs, the blues

    dont need no microphone, dont even need a guitar, just a man with the blues, DEFINATLY dont need no autotue bullSHIT

  • Son House seems to accomplish the same warbling punctuation with his voice as he does on the guitar at the end of each musical phrase. Amazing blues artist, a real national treasure.

  • Maybe sombody could tell me what tunning hes in?

  • GBDGBD I think!

  • Could be DADF#AD

  • It could be, but it's very unlikely, most delta blues was played in GBDGBD. DADF#AD is more of a contemporary tuning. Plus, he plays a b root, and it looks like it's on the open string, so.... One of the lower strings needs to be tuned to a b.

  • Thank you.... I used to use DGDGBD for Open G and wsa never really happy with it.

  • Its DGDgbd a.k.a Spanish tunning, your describing a normal G chord (exept for the D on the trebble string) how you would make it when playing in standard tunning but thats not open G tunning.

  • open g