Phil Spiro News Today

Dick Waterman, a beacon in the world of blues who as a promoter, talent manager and photographer helped revive the careers of a generation of storied

A native of Plymouth, Dick Waterman served as a chronicler of the rebirth of the blues and of the resurrection of the careers of aging bluesmen, and as a conduit from the clubs of Boston and Cambridge to the Mississippi Delta.

The Boston-bred agent, promoter, and photographer — a central figure in the city's '60s folk scene who would soon embrace a lifetime in the blues — died Jan. 26 at age 88.

<p>After shifts in African American musical styles, the Great Depression and the Great Migration consigned him to obscurity, Son House recorded live music in the 1960s. </p>

Son House is the most important Delta blues rediscovery of the 1960s, and his Father of Folk Blues LP is the best blues rediscovery studio album.

<p>After shifts in African American musical styles, the Great Depression and the Great Migration consigned him to obscurity, Son House recorded live music in the 1960s. </p>

<p>After shifts in African American musical styles, the Great Depression and the Great Migration consigned him to obscurity, Son House recorded live music in the 1960s. </p>

Son House is regarded as one of the greats of early blues, along with early recording stars like Charley Patton and Robert Johnson. He made 78rpm records in the 1930s but a spell in penitentiary halted his career and by the 1940s he had abandoned recording. It wasn't until 1964 that Nick Perls, Dick Waterman and Phil Spiro "rediscovered" him working at a gas station. He was completely unaware of the interest in folk blues at the time (Skip James and Bukka White were already playin...

On the evening of June 23, 1964, a red Volkswagen Beetle bearing three blues enthusiasts arrived in Rochester, N.Y. The young men were following a trail of clues in their search of a legend, and they found him sitting on the steps of an apartment building at 61 Greig Street. “This is him,” Son House said.

A powerful meditation on the origins of an African-American musical genre and the painful reasons for its existence.