In this week’s installment of The Language of the Blues, we dig into the word “Captain”—once a title for plantation overseers, later adopted by white employers and prison wardens in the Jim Crow South. Through blues lyrics from Big Bill Broonzy to Son House, Debra Devi traces how this word carried the weight of control, resistance, and survival.
Browsing: Son House
Waterman was in the NBC studios with Son House in 1965 when Howlin’ Wolf became the first African-American bluesman to perform on national TV with the Rolling Stones on ‘Shindig!’
The perfect setting for two undisputed blues legends of their generation, both of whom had been ‘the lost kings’ dragged from their 1930s obscurity.
“Upon hearing it, I was haunted by this particular Son House song and lyrics and thought about rumination, being a trace of one’s self lost in the eroded and overgrown lands of the past.” – Video Director Robert Schober
‘Forever On My Mind’ by Son House was recorded in the fall of 1964 (ahead of 1965 “rediscovery” album) and never released. Features first-time-on-record title track “Forever On My Mind,” plus never-heard recordings of “Death Letter” and “Preachin’ Blues”
Ted Estersohn reflects on a lifetime immersed in the blues—from studying with Jerry Ricks to playing alongside Fred McDowell and Son House—while forging a distinctive guitar voice that bridges blues, folk, and jazz.
Like Forest Gump, Dick Waterman has always been where the tipping points are in blues.
Award winning director, Sam Pollard, and producer/writer, Benjamin Hedin, give life to two stories that many of us know, but have never put together.
Now, in the 21st century, these early players are recognized as founding fathers of the blues genre. These musicians are the pillars upon which the houses of folk, rock, and blues have been built.
When young sportswriter and photographer Dick Waterman discovered the man known as Son House on a porch in Rochester, New York in 1964, he had no idea what he would find…