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1929 studio portrait — the only known photograph of Charley Patton (public domain, Wikimedia Commons)

Delta

Charley Patton

This artist is no longer with us.

Born: c. April 1891 (exact date disputed — some sources cite 1881, 1885, or 1887), Hinds County, Mississippi · Died: April 28, 1934, Heathman-Dedham Plantation, near Indianola, Mississippi (heart failure / mitral valve disorder), age 42–43• United States• Active: c. 1910–1934

Delta BluesCountry Blues

Instruments

Vocals, Guitar

Labels

Paramount Records, Vocalion Records

from

Dockery Plantation, Sunflower/Bolivar County, Mississippi

Born

c. April 1891 (exact date disputed — some sources cite 1881, 1885, or 1887), Hinds County, Mississippi

If this site has a patron saint, it's the man on this page. Every artist I write about here, in one way or another, owes something to Charley Patton — and most of them would tell you so themselves, if you asked. Patton was born around April 1891 in Hinds County, Mississippi, near the town of Edwards, to Bill and Annie Patton — though even that date is debated; some accounts put his birth as early as 1881 or as late as 1887, since nobody thought to write it down at the time. In 1897, when Charley was still a boy, the family moved roughly a hundred miles north to Dockery Plantation, a sprawling 10,000-acre cotton operation near Ruleville that would become, almost by accident, the single most important address in the history of American music. It was there, sometime in the early 1900s, that young Charley fell in with an older Dockery sharecropper and musician named Henry Sloan, who was already playing an early, unrecorded form of the blues. Sloan taught him. Nobody ever recorded a note of what Sloan played, but everything Patton became started at that lesson. By the time he was a grown man, Patton — a small, wiry figure at around five foot five and maybe 135 pounds — had turned himself into the loudest, most theatrical performer the Delta had ever produced. Witnesses described a voice loud enough to carry 500 yards across a plantation without any amplification, and a stage act that, four decades before Jimi Hendrix, already included playing the guitar behind his head, behind his back, between his legs, on his knees, and throwing it in the air and catching it mid-song without missing a beat. He'd slap the body of the guitar like a drum between phrases — one of the very first recorded uses of what guitarists now call a body slap. He wasn't just a musician. He was the whole show. Word of Patton eventually reached H.C. Speir, a Jackson, Mississippi record store owner who moonlighted as a talent scout for the "race records" business. Speir auditioned Patton at Dockery in the spring of 1929 and was impressed enough to send him straight to Paramount Records. On June 14, 1929, Patton travelled to Richmond, Indiana, and recorded fourteen sides in a single day at the Gennett/Starr Piano Company studio — among them "Pony Blues," the record that made him a star across the Delta, along with "A Spoonful Blues" and "Down the Dirt Road Blues," both cut that same afternoon. Paramount's A&R man Arthur Laibly brought him back twice more that year, to the label's own studio in the small town of Grafton, Wisconsin, where in November and December 1929 Patton recorded more than twenty additional sides — including the two-part "High Water Everywhere," his devastating first-hand account of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, which had drowned the Delta he called home and displaced hundreds of thousands of people, Patton very likely among them. He went back to Grafton one more time, on May 28, 1930, and this session became almost as legendary as the man himself: Patton travelled up with Son House, Willie Brown and a young pianist named Louise Johnson, all recording for Paramount over the same handful of days — by most accounts the closest thing the acoustic Delta blues era has to a single defining recording session. In 1933, Patton was nearly killed when someone — accounts differ on exactly who, though a jealous husband is the most commonly cited culprit — cut his throat in an altercation near Holly Ridge. He survived, but it left a visible scar from ear to ear and, by most accounts, permanently changed the texture of his voice on the recordings that followed. By then he'd settled in Holly Ridge with Bertha Lee, a much younger singer who became his last common-law wife and closest musical partner. Early in 1934, the two of them were arrested and jailed in Belzoni, Mississippi after a violent argument. They were bailed out by W.R. Calaway of the American Record Corporation, who brought them to New York City for what turned out to be Patton's final recording sessions, on January 30, 31 and February 1, 1934. Bertha Lee sang alongside him on several of those sides, including the haunting "Oh Death." Patton died on April 28, 1934, on the Heathman-Dedham plantation near Indianola, of a mitral valve disorder. He was somewhere around forty-two or forty-three. His death wasn't reported in any newspaper, and he was buried at Holly Ridge Cemetery without a headstone — for 56 years, one of the most important musicians America ever produced lay in an unmarked grave, until 1990, when Creedence Clearwater Revival's John Fogerty paid for a proper memorial stone through the Mount Zion Memorial Fund, with the epitaph written by blues historian Jim O'Neal. None of Patton's own children went on to become known blues musicians. But almost everyone else did. That's the story that matters most, and it's the one I want to tell next.

Musical Influence

Charley Patton's most direct student was Chester Burnett — Howlin' Wolf — who met him at Dockery around 1930 and, by his own account for the rest of his life, learned not just guitar technique from Patton but the whole idea of a blues performance as a piece of theatre: the growl, the floor-crawling, the guitar tricks, all of it traces straight back to what Wolf watched Patton do on that same plantation. John Lee Hooker also came up under Patton's shadow at Dockery, absorbing the same driving, hypnotic single-chord grooves that would define his own sound decades later on records like "Boogie Chillen'." A teenage Robert Johnson watched Patton perform around the Delta before he'd recorded a single note of his own, and Son House — Patton's contemporary, sometime travelling companion, and probably the second-most important Delta bluesman on record — carried Patton's raw, percussive attack directly into the style he would later teach to a young man named McKinley Morganfield, better known as Muddy Waters. Bukka White, another Delta contemporary who knew Patton's records inside out, passed that same tradition on to his own cousin — B.B. King. It's a straight, unbroken line: Patton to Wolf, Patton to House to Muddy, Patton to White to King. Musicologist Robert Palmer, who studied this lineage as closely as anyone, called Patton "one of the most important American musicians of the twentieth century" — and every time I put on a Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf record, I'm reminded he wasn't exaggerating.

Influences

Henry Sloan

Family and personal life

Partner

Bertha Lee Pate

Patton's last common-law wife and closest musical partner in his final years; she sang alongside him on several 1934 Vocalion recordings, including "Oh Death."

Children

No known children in music

None of Patton's children are documented to have become known blues musicians.

Formative experiences

•Moved with his family to Dockery Plantation in 1897, where he met Henry Sloan, the older musician who taught him the rudiments of the blues.
•Auditioned for talent scout H.C. Speir in Jackson, Mississippi, in early 1929, leading directly to his first Paramount recording session.
•Recorded 14 sides in a single day at Gennett Studios in Richmond, Indiana on June 14, 1929, including his breakout hit "Pony Blues."
•Lived through the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, an experience that became the basis for "High Water Everywhere."
•Nearly killed in 1933 when his throat was cut in an altercation near Holly Ridge — he survived, but his voice was permanently changed.
•Escorted to New York City in early 1934 by producer W.R. Calaway for his final recording sessions, after being bailed out of a Belzoni, Mississippi jail.

Instruments & Equipment

Guitar

Stella Grand Concert (Oscar Schmidt)

c. 1920s–1934

According to an account researcher Gayle Dean Wardlow recorded from the Reverend Pearly Brown, who knew Patton personally, his regular working guitar was a black Stella with a white neck — the cheap, mass-produced flat-top that talent scout H.C. Speir said "all" the Delta bluesmen he auditioned played.

Stromberg-Voisinet parlor guitar

1929

The guitar visible in the single surviving photograph of Patton — the 1929 Paramount publicity portrait — has been identified by guitar historians as a Stromberg-Voisinet parlor model rather than a Stella, though it's unclear whether this was his usual instrument or one borrowed for the photo session.

Unknown model (New York, 1934)

1934

No photograph survives from Patton's final Vocalion sessions in New York, so the guitar he used there is undocumented. We could not verify claims of a specific Gibson model from any reliable historical source, so we're not asserting one here.

Other

Glass bottleneck slide

Used across his recordings for the whining, vocal-like slide lines that became a Delta blues signature, most audible on tracks like "High Water Everywhere."

Guitar-body percussion

Patton's recordings contain some of the earliest documented uses of a body slap — striking the guitar's top with the palm or thumb between vocal lines to keep rhythm, decades before it became a standard technique.

Vocals

Vocals

Contemporaries described a voice loud enough to carry roughly 500 yards across open ground without amplification. The 1933 throat-cutting incident permanently altered its texture on his final 1934 recordings.

Stories & Anecdotes

"Patton's stage act — playing the guitar behind his head, behind his back, between his legs, and tossing it in the air without breaking rhythm — predates Jimi Hendrix's showmanship by roughly four decades, and directly shaped how his student Howlin' Wolf performed for the rest of his career."

""High Water Everywhere" wasn't hypothetical: the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 devastated the Delta plantations Patton lived and worked on, and his two-part recording is now regarded as one of the most vivid first-hand musical accounts of the disaster."

"In 1933, Patton was nearly killed when someone cut his throat in an altercation near Holly Ridge. He survived with a visible scar from ear to ear — and a voice that never fully recovered its old range on record."

"Talent scout H.C. Speir, who first sent Patton to Paramount Records, later said the Delta bluesmen he auditioned "all played the old cheap Stella guitars, across the board" — a detail that matches the black Stella described as Patton's regular instrument."

"Patton lay in an unmarked grave at Holly Ridge Cemetery for 56 years until 1990, when John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival paid for a proper headstone through the Mount Zion Memorial Fund."

Collaborators

Fellow Dockery-area guitarist and frequent travelling companion; accompanied Patton to several recording sessions, including the famous May 1930 Grafton session.

Contemporary and sometime travelling partner; present at the May 1930 Grafton, Wisconsin sessions. House later passed elements of Patton's raw, percussive style on to a young Muddy Waters.

Delta fiddler and songwriter who accompanied Patton on record across several sessions between 1929 and 1934.

Pianist who travelled to the May 1930 Grafton session with Patton, Son House and Willie Brown, recording four sides of her own during the same visit.

Bertha Lee Pate

Patton's last common-law wife; sang alongside him on several tracks from his final 1934 Vocalion sessions in New York, including "Oh Death."

Watch & Listen

Featured

Charley Patton - Pony Blues (1929)

His June 1929 Paramount breakout single, cut at the Gennett/Starr studio in Richmond, Indiana — the record that made him a star across the Delta.

Classic Mood Experience

Charley Patton - High Water Everywhere (Pts. 1 & 2)

Charley Patton - High Water Everywhere (Pts. 1 & 2)

Charley Patton - Down the Dirt Road Blues (1929)

Charley Patton - Down the Dirt Road Blues (1929)

Charley Patton - A Spoonful Blues (Delta Blues) - 1929

Charley Patton - A Spoonful Blues (Delta Blues) - 1929

Charley Patton - The Vocalion Recordings - Oh Death with Bertha Lee

Charley Patton - The Vocalion Recordings - Oh Death with Bertha Lee

Charley Patton – The Father of Delta Blues (1929–1934)

Charley Patton – The Father of Delta Blues (1929–1934)

Watch & Listen

Henter videoer fra YouTube…

Press & quotes

"One of the most important American musicians of the twentieth century."

Robert Palmer · Music critic, The New York Times; author of Deep Blues (1981) · 1981 — Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History of the Mississippi Delta

"All played the old cheap Stella guitars, across the board."

H.C. Speir · Talent scout who recommended Patton to Paramount Records, on the Delta bluesmen he auditioned — What did they play? — Stella Guitars

Discography

Year	Title	Producer	Studio	Label	Chart	Sales	Musicians	YouTube	Notes
1929	Richmond, Indiana session (Gennett / Starr Piano Co. studio)	H.C. Speir (talent scout)	—	Paramount Records	—	—	—		First recording session, June 14, 1929 — 14 sides cut in a single day, including "Pony Blues," "A Spoonful Blues" and "Down the Dirt Road Blues."
1929	Grafton, Wisconsin sessions (Paramount studio)	Arthur Laibly (Paramount A&R)	—	Paramount Records	—	—	—		November–December 1929 — over twenty additional sides, including the two-part "High Water Everywhere," his account of the 1927 Mississippi flood.
1930	Grafton, Wisconsin session (with Son House, Willie Brown & Louise Johnson)	Arthur Laibly (Paramount A&R)	—	Paramount Records	—	—	Son House (Guitar/Vocals), Willie Brown (Guitar), Louise Johnson (Piano), Son Sims (Fiddle)		May 28, 1930 — widely regarded as one of the defining sessions of the acoustic Delta blues era.
1934	New York City sessions (final recordings)	W.R. Calaway (American Record Corporation / Vocalion)	—	Vocalion Records	—	—	Bertha Lee Pate (Vocals)		January 30–31 and February 1, 1934 — Patton's last recordings, made after Calaway bailed him and Bertha Lee out of a Belzoni, Mississippi jail. Several sides feature Bertha Lee's vocals, including "Oh Death."

Famous songs

01Pony Blues

02High Water Everywhere

03Down the Dirt Road Blues

04A Spoonful Blues

05Oh Death

06Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues

External links

YouTube Music Wikipedia Blues Hall of Fame (Blues Foundation)

Sources

Keep SlowBlues independent. Official merch — wear the blues.