Charley Patton, often called the Founder of the Delta Blues, emerged as the music’s preeminent entertainer and recording artist during the first third of the 20th century. Born between Bolton and Edwards, Mississippi, in April 1891 and of mixed black, white and native American ancestry, he moved with his family to the Dockery plantation in the early 1900s. His travels took him from Louisiana to New York, but he spent most of his time moving from plantation to plantation, entertaining fieldhands at jukehouse dances and country stores, and his emotional hold over audiences was so strong that workers sometimes left crops unattended to hear him play. Though roughly five feet, five inches tall and only 135 pounds, his gravelly, high-energy singing made him sound like a man twice his size. He was an accomplished and inventive guitarist and lyricist, a flamboyant showman who spun his guitar, played it behind his head, and slapped it for rhythmic effect. He also preached in local churches, played for the deacons of New Jerusalem M.B. Church, and recorded religious songs, folk ballads, dance tunes, and pop songs. His most popular and influential record paired "Pony Blues" with "Banty Rooster Blues," and songs such as "High Water Everywhere," a two-part account of the death and despair caused by the great 1927 flood, brought social commentary and vivid references to Delta people, places, and events into propulsive music for dancing. Sometimes using multiple spoken voices to create his own cast of characters, he inspired many musicians, including Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson, Tommy Johnson, Willie Brown, Roebuck "Pops" Staples, Bukka White, Honeyboy Edwards, and Bob Dylan, yet his singing and playing were so individualistic that few blues artists tried to record his songs. His last wife, Bertha Lee, lived with him in Holly Ridge and recorded with him at his final session in New York for Vocalion Records in 1934, and he died of mitral valve disorder at age 43.
