THE SUBJECTIVE GUIDE TO THE BLUES - SON HOUSE

Son House is the next stop in Delta Blues. Actually, if you’re interested in what Delta blues sounds like, Son House ought to be the first stop. His early work is like a beginners' guide to the Delta style: one of those really good beginners’ guides that have cartoons in them. All that stuff I was talking about before: the slide, the pumping rhythm, it’s all there in its most obvious form in Son House’s music.

His music also has a really strong rhythmic feel that I can only describe as ‘propulsive’: like he really felt it. It just keeps lurching. He likes to howl too. It’s a real manly howl, not a falsetto or anything. The howl doesn’t sound like Howling Wolf (who I love too), it’s all passionate and primal, like listening to some sort of earth elemental. The other Joe, my co-writer, gets bombarded with a lot of blues, what with knowing me, and he’s kind enough to tolerate most of it, but Son House is the only one he clearly feels in his gut.

And whereas almost every bluesman nods every so often, there’s not a single weak early Son House track. That said, there are only six early Son House tracks. One of the greatest bluesmen ever had only six tracks to his name. Oh yeah, and of those six, three of them are just continuations of the first: pt 2s (a 78 only allowed you about 3 minutes per track, so having continuing sides is really common). So really, if you want the blues at its most primal, just hit up his three songs, in this order: ‘My Black Mama, pt 1’, ‘Preaching the Blues, pt 1’ and ‘Dry Spell Blues, pt 1’. Actually, when you hear the recordings he made after he was rediscovered, when he could play as long as he liked, you realise that he only really had the one song. It was just him pumping away at his guitar and shouting whatever lyric popped into his head at the time for as long as you gave him.

House toured with Patton, which was an interesting combo. Like I said before, Charley was a coked up midget loud mouth who’d do anything for attention. Son House was a different kettle of chitlins. He was tall and scraggly, and pretty gloomy when not in drunk. Legend states that he had been a preacher in his early life, before taking up the blues. Could be true, after all, this was before XBoxs and internet memes, so there wasn’t much to do except for play blues and testify to God. Anyway, at a certain point, he gave up preaching and took up blues, which at this point was considered sinners’ music. He doesn’t sound too torn up about it though (check ‘Preaching the Blues’ for some genuine cynicism). In fact, he gives almost no musical time to God, unlike Patton, who liked to play at being the sinner.

Shortly after taking up the blues full time, he killed a man in some juke joint. ‘Killed a man’ is bad blues journalism for murdered, by the way. Loads of the blues greats were murderers, but it doesn’t do to dwell on it. For some reason in the 60s people felt that bluesmen had valuable life experiences that we could all learn from: that’s why they always dwell on the poverty and the racism that they suffered – it makes it look like these musicians overcame their surroundings to become great souls or some such fuckshit, beatnik nonsense. That’s why no bluesmen ever ‘murdered’ anyone, they all just ‘killed a man’. For some reason, that's okay. Anyway, Son House killed his man and served time, and when he got out he hoboed round Mississippi, teaming up with Charley Patton and Willie Brown. This was probably pretty lucrative for House, because Patton was a big enough draw to actually sell gig tickets, unlike practically every other Delta bluesman whose function was providing background music in dive bars.

They played together for a while, bickering the whole time. Son House got to record his absolutely demonic music off the back of the Patton connection, but the music didn’t really sell. It was too much even for blues fans at the height of the rural boom, back when the blues fans still liked it really raw. Then the depression hit and, if no one was recording Patton, no one would touch House. After Patton’s death, Son House packed it in and disappeared.

In 1964, Son House was unearthed by researchers as part of the blues revival. He was working in New York, and had no idea that anyone was still listening to country blues. He certainly wasn’t at this point. He claimed to have not touched a guitar in years, but Son House liked to tell stories. When given a guitar, he played a little jump blues, which didn’t impress the researchers. So Alan Wilson from 60s white boy blues band Canned Heat was brought in to teach Son House how Son House really played. Pretty cynical stuff, but unlike every other blues cadaver unearthed in the 60s, Son House’s later work is really good. Death Letter Blues, recorded in 1965, is just about my favourite blues track ever. It’s really a rehash of his earlier three songs, but with actual production and the sort of blundering raggedness that only an elderly alcoholic can really pull off. By this point, he’d really learnt how raw slide guitar can sound. Late-period House is perfect if you’re a John Lee Hooker fan or if you like your blues to sound African.

House lived for another ten years, during which he had plenty of time to fill researchers’ heads with all kinds of made up nonsense, chiefly about Robert Johnson, whom he’d met once or twice when Johnson was very young. In fact, Son House is the source for the famous myth that Robert Johnson sold his soul at the crossroad in exchange for musical genius.

Where did House get the Johnson/Devil myth? From another Johnson. Tommy Johnson, the third person of the holy trinity of Mississippi Delta blues. Stay put.

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WHAT'S WORSE: PEOPLE WHO LOVE THE BEATLES OR PEOPLE WHO HATE THE BEATLES?

Picture the scene. You're at a party. The organisers didn't order enough beer and you forgot to bring your whiskey flask. The iPod Shuffle that has about 20 songs on it keeps playing All These Things I've Done by the Killers.

The only attractive person in the room is about to go home because there are no other attractive people (including you, you ugly person). Then suddenly the iPod Shuffle stops playing the Killers and Think for Yourself by the Beatles comes on.

Now the universe splits in half. Let's explore both of these sub-universes. In the first instance when Think for Yourself comes on, you smile. You like this song. You like the fuzz bass and the way it goes "doop, boom-bom". A balding, late-twenty-something you hadn't noticed sat next to you sees you smile.

Let's have a peek at universe number two. Think for Yourself has just come on. You don't like this song. The chorus sounds cheesily, overtly sixties-ish. And George Harrison can't really sing. A hirsuite, late-twenty-something you hadn't noticed sat next to you tuts.

Back to the first universe. "You know George Harrison said this song was about the government?" he says. "And most people think that the fuzz bass is the bassline. But it's not. There's another bass. A normal one. And that's playing the bass line. You can't really hear it though."

Even though you like the Beatles you don't really feel like talking about the Beatles. But you nod politely. The man continues.

"Rubber Soul is probably their most experimental album in some ways," he says flatly. "Sure, Revolver has all the backward masking but when did the sitar first appear on a pop record?"

You shrug.

"Exactly. Norwegian Wood."

In the second universe the hirsuite twenty-something has started talking to you. He's wearing a band t-shirt. It's some guitar group who sing in a regional accent. "Fucking Beatles," he says. "This is the biggest overrated pile of shit in the world."

You nod.

"All that Sgt Pepper bollocks," he continues. "Can't stand it." He then makes a mime of playing an acoustic guitar in a fey manner.

Then, in both universes, the house catches fire and everyone in it dies. Including you.

So which of these parallel universes represents a worse way to spend the last minutes of your life? Chatting to a Beatles-bore or a Beatles-phobe? I can't decide.

On one hand the Beatles are without question the best band that ever came out of Britain. Maybe the best band from any country ever. Every (proper) album they released would be any other band's "masterpiece". The Beatles released an album or two of that standard every year they were around. A bit like Cannibal Corpse's first ten years.

Unlike Cannibal Corpse however, the Beatles wrote songs that everyone could enjoy. The defining feature of pop music is that it taps into something which people recognise and understand. It shouldn't be an effort to "get" pop music because the music itself should be a reflection of everything that surrounds the consumer. That does not mean pop songs should be simple, or focused on the lowest common-denominator. A pop song can contain diminished chords, tempo changes and ten-minute instrumental outros as long as the songwriter is canny enough. John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison were clearly capable of doing this. And unlike everyone else they did it over and over and over again.

However when somebody asks you "do you like the Beatles?" it's not a question in the traditional sense of the word. When somebody asks you "do you like the Beatles" they are in fact inviting you to a private, two-person party. The only other two questions like this in the English language are:

(1) Do you watch football?
or
(2) Have you seen The Wire?

If you are ever asked one of these three questions be aware that by answering "yes" you are entering into a contract with the conversation's initiator. The contract states that you are required to sit and converse for possibly hours - sometimes days - about the topic. Did you know that McNulty was British? Who will get the fourth spot in the Champions League this year? Why do you think John Lennon played a Rickenbacker instead of a Fender? Fascinating.

What makes these particular questions special is the fact that they never needed to be asked in the first place. When one Beatles fan asks another about John's guitar they both already know the answer. The question is asked simply to keep the insular, blue flame of conversation alive. Outside of our tiny, inward-looking world there may be war, rape and famine, but as long as we can talk endlessly in circles about the Leslie speakers at Abby Road and the stereo mastering of Please Please Me everything seems just fine.

It would be nice to imagine that somewhere there is a conversation about the Beatles which has yet to take place. Sadly, I do not believe this could be the case. Revolution in the Head, Ian Macdonald's well-written, exhaustive reference guide to the band's work, systematically goes through every song the band ever recorded, faithfully pulling together trivia about broken guitar strings, accidental harmonies and inter-band rivalries. It is an amazing book, but it is also the full-stop at the end of the Beatles' legacy. The liner notes to the liner notes.

Lennon, like a lot of worthwhile musicians, hated complacency, nostalgia and above all the mythologising of pop artists. To continue to write books, television programmes and films about the Beatles is to repeatedly dig up Lennon's corpse and attempt to felate its decaying member.

However, to stomp and squeal about how bad the Beatles are is worse. It is worse because anybody who makes a point of telling you they dislike the Beatles is not talking about music. They are simply boasting. They are boasting about how they refuse to get on the same bus as everyone else. They are boasting about their critical faculties. They are boasting about their individuality.

What a despicable, perverse contrivance.

The next time somebody makes a point of rubbishing the Beatles in front of you, make a point of setting fire to their balls (or vagina). Then, while their genitals are ablaze, stand over them and tell them this in a level voice:

"Is it not enough for you that every facet of popular culture is dumb? When I walk down the street I am attacked on all sides by dumbness. I have to make a concerted effort to phase it all out. But Ant and Dec are always there. Dan Brown is always there. The Black Eyed fucking Peas are always there, laughing and spitting at me. This will never stop. But I can endure it because once in a blue moon something like the Beatles happens. And now you want to take the Beatles away from me? You want to create a consensus that they were crap, just so people take notice of you? What have you done recently that is worthwhile? Where are your albums?"

I'm not suggesting that the Beatles' music is above criticism. It's not. However, when was the last time you heard someone who disliked the Beatles accurately criticise their music? It's never about the music. It's invariably about someone's vague, misguided notion of what the Beatles stand for (peace/love/moptops/Yellow Submarine).

I hope I have answered the original question. In case there's any doubt just remember that I'm not alone in any of this. The Big Gay Boss Man himself, Rob Halford agrees with me. And what he says goes around these parts.

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