Death Letter Blues


Son House - Death Letter Blues

Related Lessons

lesson:
The Blues: The Sound of Rural Poverty

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: Social Studies/History

How do the Country Blues reflect the challenges of sharecropping, racial injustice, and rural poverty in early 20th-century African-American life?

Related People

people:
Son House

(1902 – 1988) A onetime preacher who turned to secular music, Son House ranks among the most influential Country Blues singers of the prewar era. He had two distinct periods as a performer – in the South during the 1930s, and then in the North beginning in 1964, where he was embraced as part of the Folk revival. Eddie James “Son” House Jr. was born in Mississippi, where his parents worked the cotton fields. As a youngster House was drawn to religion and was said to loathe secular music; in his teen years House found regular work preaching sermons. He did...