Influence
House was the primary influence on Muddy Waters and also an important influence on Robert Johnson. It was House who, speaking to awe-struck young blues fans in the 1960s, spread the legend that Johnson had sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for his musical powers.
More recently, House's music has influenced the blues rock group The White Stripes, who covered his song "Death Letter" (also reworked by Skip James and Robert Johnson) on their album De Stijl, and later performed it at the 2004 Grammy Awards. The version on De Stijl contains five of the verses from the Son House original. The eighth verse (one of the ones that was left off) was added to the song "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" on their third album White Blood Cells.
The White Stripes incorporated sections of a traditional song Son House recorded—"John the Revelator"—into the song "Cannon" from their eponymous debut album The White Stripes. Jack White of The White Stripes has cited House's a cappella song, "Grinnin' in Your Face", as his favorite song.
Another musician deeply influenced by Son House is the slide player John Mooney, who in his teens learned slide guitar from Son House while House was living in Rochester, New York.
Several of House's songs were featured in the motion picture soundtrack of Black Snake Moan (2006).
Read more about this topic: Son House
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“The improvements of ages have had but little influence on the essential laws of man’s existence: as our skeletons, probably, are not to be distinguished from those of our ancestors.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“No power on earth or above the bottomless pit has such influence to terrorize and make cowards of men as the liquor power. Satan could not have fallen on a more potent instrument with which to thrall the world. Alcohol is king!”
—Eliza “Mother” Stewart (1816–c. 1908)
“The purifying, healing influence of literature, the dissipating of passions by knowledge and the written word, literature as the path to understanding, forgiveness and love, the redeeming might of the word, the literary spirit as the noblest manifestation of the spirit of man, the writer as perfected type, as saint.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)