Your favorite music more likely than not owes a debt to the Delta Blues tradition of the 1920s and ‘30s. Its original form is by and large dead, embedded only vestigially in classic rock, alt-rock, rap/hip-hop, and metal. But very few songs – laid bare in their earliest renditions with steel strings and copper slides – survive.

“Death Letter Blues” is easily the darkest, most authentic, and most compelling of them. Dozens of artists, spread across cultures and decades, have covered the song, breathing new life into it each time. Here are some of the best versions of “Death Letter Blues.”

1. Son House, 1930

Eddie James "Son" House was a preacher-turned-bluesman from Mississippi, whose great innovation was supplanting the fiery energy from his sermons onto his music. He wrote "Death Letter Blues" in 1930 but was kept from recording it until decades later, in 1965.

He was an old man at that point, and the resulting record - filled only with his voice, his slide guitar, and the static of the recorder - is truly haunting. Son House inspired nearly every musician he met, and his work became a rare constant of the ever-evolving blues movement. His "Death Letter Blues" is the stuff of legends.

2. Ida Cox, 1961

Ida Cox put a vaudeville spin on the original "Death Letter Blues," adding a bass player, a piano, and a horns section. Her commercial success with the song broke it out of its prior relegation to "race record " status. Her vocal performance alternates beautifully between Son House's depression and her own energetic jazz style.

3. Grateful Dead, 1969

The Grateful Dead never recorded "Death Letter Blues" in a studio setting, but it became a staple of their live performances at the tail end of the '60s. In their typical free-form style, most of their renditions ran upwards ten minutes long, with wild, effusive guitar and bass solos. The Grateful Dead maintained a more relaxed air than was the norm for a blues song at the time, but they did so while also invoking the tension that drove Son House.

4. Cassandra Wilson, 1995

Cassandra Wilson recognized that jazz and the blues have always ran hand in hand, and fused them seamlessly in her adaptation of "Death Letter Blues." A powerful electric baseline keeps the listener rooted in Son House's anxieties, but an array of new percussion techniques give it an entirely different feel than other versions. And, at least in terms of raw talent, Cassandra Wilson is probably the best singer ever to take on "Death Letter Blues."

5. The White Stripes, 2004

This blowtorch of a record does its damnedest to tear down the alt-rock artifice and evoke some raw emotion in the listener. Large sections are improvised, and its interlude is lifted from another Son House classic, "Grinnin' in Your Face." The high-octane electric aesthetic of the White Stripes' cover breaks sharply from other artists' interpretations, but nonetheless strikes a chord with almost everyone who's heard it.