Few people know Blues music and the people who played it as well as the New York Times best-selling author, critic, NPR contributor and musician Tom Moon. Please join us for this free Zoom presentation by Tom Moon on Wednesday, July 10th at 11:00 A.M.

To sing the Blues, you have to live them first.  It is no accident that such pioneering figures as Bessie Smith (1894-1937), Son House (1902-1988) and Howlin’ Wolf (1910-1976) lived lives of desperate poverty,  burning frustration and frequent disappointment. Orphaned at an early age, Bessie Smith and her siblings survived by performing for pennies on the street. The woman who came to be called “The Empress of The Blues,” never saw the inside of a classroom. Even after she became one of the best paid Black entertainers in the U.S., critics complained that she was too “tough,” or “low,” to work in public. Her frank embrace of female sexuality put a target on her back. A great career ended instantly when she was killed in a car crash at the age of 43. 

Howlin Wolf was thrown out of the house by his own mother at an early age because she had too many children to care for. Life with great uncle proved to be worse, because the man was abusive. The young Wolf walked for miles finally finding the peace he sought among his father’s large family.  Wolf would eventually become a key figure in the effort to transform the acoustic Delta Blues to the electric Chicago sound. 

Son House came from a religious background where he and his family despised secular music and House did not embrace the Blues until he was 25.  While he was performing in a juke joint in the late 20’s a patron grabbed his pistol and began firing wildly, ultimately wounding House in the leg.  The performer responded to the situation by killing the gunman---earning himself a 15 year term in the notorious Mississippi prison the Parchman Farm.  Thanks to the intervention of an influential white planter, Son House served just two years. While revered for his musical skills in the Delta,  the records made by Son House simply didn’t sell during the Great Depression. In 1943, Son House abandoned Mississippi---and music for Rochester, New York where he embarked on a career as a railroad porter. House was re-discovered by a determined young fan in 1964. By that time, he had not played in so many years that he had forgotten how. 

Register here for this free and fascinating Zoom lecture.