Son House Birthplace — Riverton, Mississippi

Son House — Eddie James House Jr. — was born on March 21, 1902, near Riverton in Warren County, Mississippi, and became one of the most powerful and influential Delta blues musicians ever recorded. House came to the blues late — he was a Baptist preacher first and didn't start playing guitar until his mid-twenties — and the tension between spiritual calling and earthly sin runs through all his music. His recordings for Paramount in 1930 ('Preachin' Blues,' 'My Black Mama,' 'Dry Spell Blues') and his Library of Congress sessions with Alan Lomax in 1941 and 1942 are among the most emotionally devastating documents in American music.

Son House was a direct influence on Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, both of whom sought him out and absorbed his slide guitar technique and his raw, anguished vocal style. He disappeared from music in the early 1940s, moving to Rochester, New York, where researchers found him in 1964 — he had essentially no memory of his recordings. His rediscovery and subsequent performances at folk festivals, including Newport, introduced him to audiences who had never heard of him but immediately recognised the depth of what he carried.

Riverton is a small community in Warren County, near Vicksburg. A Mississippi Blues Trail marker acknowledges Son House's birth in the area. He died in Detroit in 1988 at the age of 86. His recordings from both eras — the 1930 Paramounts and the 1940s Lomax sessions — remain in print and are considered essential listening.