Leadership topic - Son House

Looking for music that is far from PERFECT, yet transformative, I looked to the Blues – the soundtrack for negative thinking – sorta. There is something about the Blues that makes me at least feel better. And I am not alone – most of the music we listen to at least in America has roots back to this most primitive and most basic style of music. Invented in the deep south by outcasts from society, it has transformed music in a way that most of us never really understand.

Edward James House was born near the turn of the century in the deeply racist Clarksdale Mississippi as the middle child of 3 brothers. His father was a tuba player with his brothers, and they played often in the Church. His parents separated when he was young and he bounced around the south in the early teens of his life and the Century.  He eventually landed near New Orleans where the new “delta blues”  was emerging. Dogmatically focused on religion, he was adamantly opposed to the blues – as the Devil’s music and far from Perfect. How did this start to his life end up with him now being called the Father of Folk Blues – which even precedes Johnson? Will it be the Perfect story to consider “Perfect”? Can we Pause… and engage differently…