plagiarism?
I just listened to this CD. If you listen carefully, you'll notice that this dude stole a lot of riffs from old Led Zeppelin records.

the orignal delta blues /son house
this cd is classic delta blues i feel honored to be able to receive this quality of music john m king thanks for having such great music

Wow!
If you wanna' know where it started, if you wanna' learn to play slide, if you wanna' get chills and fee like you're on a front porch in the delta, get this one...

Early master of the blues
Son House is an early blues singer, who, along with Charlie Patton and Willie Brown, in the words of the liner notes, "helped to shape the music of three younger men who would far exceed their fame"--Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf, and Muddy Waters. The musical progeny of House and his colleagues alone testifies to their significance.

The songs on this CD were recorded long after he had ceased making singing a career. He was in his 60s when these tracks were recorded in 1965. Even at that, the results speak to a master bluesman.

In "Death Letter," he shows a lively acoustic guitar style, well played. Although past his vocal prime, he sings this tune well. One nice line:

"You know it's so hard to love someone
Who don't love you."

"John the Revelator" is a song with religious themes. It is voice only, with only his clapping serving as any sort of instrumentation. The vocalizations are compelling. One recurring set of lines:

"Tell me who's that writin'?
John the Revelator
Wrote the book of the seven seals."

"Empire State Express" features Al Wilson on guitar backing House on vocals and guitar. This is a lively tune. The song focuses on his baby being on board a train, and all that goes with that. Nice blues tune!

So, here is a CD with rather few songs on it, but it is still a nice entrée to the work of Son House.

Mississipi blues by the master
When the Mississippi blues giant, Eddie 'Son' House was rediscovered in 1964 he was 62 years old and had given up music some 16 years previously. Practice soon restored much of his original mastery and he was signed up the following year by John Hammond for a Columbia Records session. The LP that emerged comprised the first nine of these tracks, and represented a powerful come-back, with stand-out numbers 'Death Letter', 'Empire State Express', and 'Levee Camp Moan', as well as the unaccompanied 'John The Revelator'.

In 1992 a double CD was released, with the original nine tracks supplemented by an additional seven unreleased titles as well as five alternate takes. But what should have been an occasion for celebration turned out to be disappointing in the extreme. The new material was a pale shadow of that previously issued, and many critics thought it would have been better left in the vaults.

The present single CD includes just five of the originally unreleased titles, and so offers some kind of compromise, with the worst of the 'new' material being omitted. Of that retained, perhaps 'Pony Blues' disappoints the most. The delivery is extremely hesitant and stumbling, in direct contrast to Son's superb 1942 recording of this classic that he learned from his old friend Charley Patton. 'Motherless Children' suffers in the same way, and Son coughs and wheezes his way through a depressing version of 'Downhearted Blues'. Only 'President Kennedy', to the same melody as his 1942 'American Defense', and 'Yonder Comes My Mother' with, presumably, the added guitar of Al Wilson, in any way compare with the quality and power of the first nine tracks which more than justify the purchase of this mid-price CD.