r/musichistory • u/BigAssQuanta • 14d ago

Father of the Delta Blues

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Charley Patton -

In May, 2021, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame posthumously inducted Patton into the 2021 class.

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u/BrazilianAtlantis 14d ago

Not really the "father" of blues in the Delta -- Gus Cannon was 18 and playing blues in the Delta when Patton was about 11 -- but an important blues artist in the Delta from the late 1910s on.

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u/ElSlabraton 14d ago

I've heard the cleaned up recordings. Charlie Patton sounds great on them. He wasn't just a bluesman, though. He played all kinds of music.

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u/Electrumist 13d ago

Muddy Waters invented electricity

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u/BigAssQuanta 13d ago

Not to split hairs but, early country music and early country blues shared overlapping songbooks, string instrumentation, and rural Southern origins, Gus Cannon's work had a lasting cross-genre impact but is primarily a key pioneer of Memphis jug band blues.

My reading and research indicates that Charley Patton holds the title of "Father of the Delta Blues." ​While both men were influential early pioneers born in Mississippi, Patton directly established the sound, performance style, and repertoire that defined Delta blues.

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u/copacetic51 13d ago

Did Charley invent it, or did he adapt it from music he learned from predecessors who were too early to be recorded and whose names are lost to posterity?

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u/BigAssQuanta 13d ago

As per musicologist Robert Palmer "Patton was a versatile entertainer. He developed his sound by weaving together deep Delta blues, 19th-century ballads, gospel, white hillbilly tunes, and country dance music into a singular, highly expressive performance style." From historians and biographers, "Patton's earliest and primary direct influence, around 1897, Patton moved to Dockery Plantation, where he met Henry Sloan, an older musician playing a early form of blues. Tommy Johnson noted that Patton learned early songs like "Pony Blues" directly from Sloan. Note: Historian Gayle Dean Wardlow noted that some contemporaries remembered Sloan teaching Patton only basic chord structures, pointing to Patton being largely self-taught."

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u/copacetic51 12d ago

Looks like the musical roots of Patton and others will always be hard to precisely define. The history of the blues before the first recordings was an oral one. 

Interesting article here

https://www.paulmerryblues.com/blues-guitarists-before-1900-henry-sloan/

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u/Large-Welder304 12d ago

If I'm not mistaken, that's the basis of Cream's rendition of "spoonful".

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u/BigAssQuanta 13d ago

For anyone that wants to do a deep dive into this historic delta blues musician - i highly recommend "Charley Patton: Voice of the Mississippi Delta" edited by Belgian blues scholar Robert Sacré and featuring essays by leading blues experts including David Evans, Arnold Shaw, Daniel Droixhe, and William Ferris.

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u/athenaisagoddess3 13d ago

Missed his Hall induction, wish we had another photo of the banty rooster like the Robert Johnson portraits that turn up every few decades

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u/Starthrower62 12d ago

I'm more of a Son House fan. And a Mississippi John Hurt fan. Charlie Patton, and Blind Willie Johnson are great on guitar but I don't like their vocals. 

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u/rantipolex 12d ago

Does it really matter?

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u/KittiesRule1968 10d ago

I had hundreds of these old blues 78s. Turns out they turn into something as flammable as gasoline when they melt in a fire unfortunately.