Son House

Son House defined the Delta blues with a raw, emotionally devastating bottleneck slide guitar style that captured the genre's sacred-secular tension. His 1930s recordings of "Death Letter Blues" and "Preachin' Blues" showcase a vocal intensity that has rarely been matched. House mentored both Robert Johnson and Willie Brown, and after decades of obscurity, his rediscovery in 1964 sparked a revival that influenced a new generation of rock musicians, including the Rolling Stones.