Mississippi folksinger and guitarist. Of mixed Negro, White, and Indian ancestry, Patton
was born in the Mississippi hill country between Vicksburg and Jackson. He was brought
north to the Delta shortly after 1900 by his family, who settled on the large Dockery
plantation east of the town of Cleveland, Mississippi. He began to learn guitar from
neighbors near his birthplace, but he perfected his skills on Dockery’s, learning to
perform blues and a variety of other types of folksong from local musicians. By 1910 he
was performing locally as a paid entertainer. His territory grew to encompass the entire
Delta, and by the early 1920s he was the most popular blues performer from this region, a
position he retained until his death. He performed all over the Delta, across the
Mississippi River in Arkansas and Louisiana, and in places as far away as New Orleans,
Memphis, St. Louis, and Chicago, making a substantial income as a working folk
entertainer. He also served as a preacher from time to time. His music was equally
popular with White and Black audiences.
Patton was married at least eight times and was known as a ladies’ man, a braggart and
a clown, and a frequenter of rowdy places, yet he was also highly admired for his musical
talents, his charisma, and his ability to live well within a physical and social environment
characterized by racial and economic oppression and limitation of opportunity Patton
made three recording sessions for Paramount Records in Richmond, Indiana (1929), and
Grafton, Wisconsin (1929 and 1930), and one session for Vocalion Records in New York
City three months before his death in 1934. He died of heart disease in the Delta town of
Holly Ridge, where he had been living for approximately the last two years of his life.
Patton made fifty-six extant recordings under his own name, including alternate takes
and rerecording of several pieces, and he played guitar on additional blues by his last
wife, Bertha Lee, and fiddler Henry Sims. He was accompanied on second guitar by his
longtime partner, Willie Brown, on four pieces, and on fiddle by Sims on several others.
About two-thirds of his recorded repertoire consists of blues, but the remainder represents
a large cross section of African American folksong. Within this group are ten spiritual
recordings, including a sample of his preaching, folk ballads, ragtime tunes, and versions
of popular songs. He sang in a heavy, rough voice and often played the guitar in slide
style.
Patton’s blues are his most famous and influential pieces. They draw musical and
lyrical material both from the folkblues tradition and from Patton’s fertile imagination,
usually conveying a great sense of conviction, immediacy, and spontaneity. Most of his
themes are about the standard blues subjects of man-woman relationships and travel, but
they also include prison, violence, bootleg whiskey, and magic. Some of his most
remarkable pieces are grounded in personal experience, in which he mentions local
people and events, often in a critical manner. These include accounts of the 1927
Mississippi River flood, a dry spell two years later, two jailhouse experiences, his
tribulations during a railroad strike in Chicago, and his expulsion by an overseer from
Dockery’s plantation.
Charlie Patton was probably the first regional role model of the successful blues
entertainer in the Delta, a region that has become almost synonymous with the blues. He
was multitalented, mobile, independent, outspoken, famous, and respected, by far the
most influential Delta blues performer in his lifetime. Beyond the Delta blues tradition,
his musical influence gready affected such diverse figures as Howlin’ Wolf, a patriarch of
electric Chicago blues; Roebuck “Pops” Staples, a creator of gospel “message” songs;
and guitarist John Fahey, often credited as the progenitor of New Age music.
David Evans
References
Calt, Stephen, and Gayle Wardlow. 1988. King of the Delta Blues: The Life and Music of Charlie
Patton. Newton, NJ: Rock Chapel.
Fahey, John. 1970. Charley Patton. London: Studio Vista.
Patton, Charley. 1992. The Complete Recorded Works. Peavine PCD-2255/6/7. Compact Discs.
Sacre, Robert, ed. 1987. The Voice of the Delta: Charley Patton and the Mississippi Blues
Traditions: Influences and Comparisons. Liège: Presses universitaires de Liége.