Houston Stackhouse – A Complete Biography
Introduction
Houston Goff (September 28, 1910 – September 23, 1980), better known as Houston Stackhouse, was a Mississippi Delta blues guitarist, singer, and mentor whose fingerprints are all over mid-century Southern blues—even if his own name seldom topped the bill. A steady presence in juke joints and on Delta radio from the 1930s through the 1960s, he worked alongside—and often coached—players who became far better known, including Robert Nighthawk, Jimmy Rogers, and Sammy Lawhorn. He recorded sparingly under his own name, but his 1972 Adelphi sessions (issued later as Cryin’ Won’t Help You) preserve a repertoire steeped in Tommy Johnson, Robert Johnson, and the Mississippi Sheiks.
Childhood
Stackhouse was born Houston Goff on the Randall Ford plantation near Wesson, Mississippi. Raised by James Wade Stackhouse (from whom he took his surname), he grew up around live string music—fiddler Lace Powell on the plantation and musical uncles—absorbing sounds that would anchor his style. He later learned that “Goff” was his birth name and Garfield Goff his father, a detail he only discovered decades later when applying for a passport.
Youth
Around the mid-1920s the family moved a few miles to Crystal Springs, Mississippi, where Stackhouse’s education accelerated. He listened to local players (notably the Johnson brothers, including Tommy Johnson) and devoured records by Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson, and Blind Blake. By the late 1930s he was performing across Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana with members of the Mississippi Sheiks and crossing paths with Robert Johnson, Charlie McCoy, and Walter Vinson. During this period he began his most consequential musical partnership—teaching guitar to his (often described) cousin Robert Nighthawk (Robert McCollum).
Adulthood
In 1946 Stackhouse moved to Helena, Arkansas, to work with Nighthawk, playing dances and broadcasting on KFFA radio. After parting with Nighthawk in 1947, he became a familiar figure on King Biscuit Time alongside drummer James “Peck” Curtis, guitarist Joe Willie Wilkins, and pianists Pinetop Perkins and Robert Traylor; Sonny Boy Williamson II soon rejoined the program and the band’s radio presence fueled gigs across the Delta.
Through the late 1940s and early 1950s, Stackhouse balanced music with day work at the Chrysler plant in West Memphis, Arkansas. He mentored future Chicago stalwarts Jimmy Rogers and Sammy Lawhorn and continued to work locally with Frank Frost, Boyd Gilmore, Baby Face Turner, and others. In 1965, he accompanied Sonny Boy Williamson II on a live recording captured by Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie (King Biscuit Time, issued under Williamson’s name).
Field researchers documented his music during the blues revival: in 1967 George Mitchell recorded Stackhouse with Curtis and Robert Nighthawk as the Blues Rhythm Boys in Dundee, Mississippi—among Nighthawk’s last sides—and David Evans recorded Stackhouse in Crystal Springs soon after. In 1970 Stackhouse moved to Memphis to live with Joe Willie Wilkins and joined the Memphis Blues Caravan, touring festivals throughout the decade; he made his lone European trip to Vienna in 1976.
Major compositions (recordings & signature repertoire)
While not widely recognized as a songwriter, Stackhouse’s importance rests on his recorded repertoire and interpretive style. His February 1972 studio sessions at Adelphi Studios (Silver Spring, Maryland), engineered by Gene Rosenthal, surfaced in 1994 as Cryin’ Won’t Help You (Genes Records), and later selections reappeared in the Fat Possum/Worried Blues series. The tracks spotlight the canon he carried from Southern juke joints to festival stages: numbers associated with Tampa Red (“Cryin’ Won’t Help You”), Robert Johnson (“Kind Hearted Woman Blues”), Tommy Johnson (“Big Road Blues,” “Maggie Campbell Blues,” “Bye Bye Blues”), and Charley Patton (“Pony Blues”), among others.
Beyond the studio, contemporaries and historians credit Stackhouse with teaching and reinforcing slide and accompaniment techniques in the Delta—particularly to Robert Nighthawk—bridging prewar acoustic styles to postwar electric aesthetics.
Death
After largely retiring from the road in the late 1970s, Stackhouse returned to the Helena/Crystal Springs orbit. He died on September 23, 1980; authoritative regional sources place his death in Helena, Arkansas, and he is commemorated by a Mississippi Blues Trail marker unveiled on September 26, 2012 in Wesson. Some sources list Houston, Texas, as the place of death, but most local documentation supports Helena, Arkansas, as the more reliable location.
Conclusion
Houston Stackhouse embodied the working Delta musician: present everywhere, recording seldom, and shaping the scene from within. His life connects the prewar songbook to the postwar circuit, from plantation gatherings and KFFA’s King Biscuit Time to revival-era festivals and a late career studio date that finally captured his sound. More than a discography, his legacy lives in the players he taught, the bands he steadied, and the regional tradition he kept vital for nearly half a century.
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