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"Son House was one of the most important blues musicians
in Mississippi before the war. Everything he recorded before the war
is regarded as a blues classic today. He was also a peer and friend of
two of the other most important blues musicians in Mississippi
in that pre-war period; blues greats Charlie Patton and Willie Brown.
And he was a source of information about them at a time,
when he reemerged in the '60s, when very little was known about those men.
So, he was important in multiple ways. He was also an influence --
a major influence on two of the most important blues musicians
who would have enormous influence after the war, Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson.
He was a primary influence on them. And through them, on a whole
generation of rock n' rollers. The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, people like that.
And that influence has continued into another generation of rock musicians.
Son House had a very compelling life story, I thought.
Full of these dramatic reversals; ups and downs. Sudden changes;
he's in prison for killing a man in Mississippi probably in the late '20s
he gets out around late 1929 early '30 and he gets a recording contract
with one of the best record labels in the country. So, his life was
full of these dramatic changes that I thought, apart from simply
his being a blues musician, had a great story quality to it
that made me want to write it." This is the University of Rochester