Charley Patton, the most important figure in the pioneering era of Delta blues and often called the Founder of the Delta Blues, helped define both the music and the image and lifestyle of the rambling Mississippi bluesman. Born in April 1891 between Bolton and Edwards, Mississippi, and of mixed black, white and native American ancestry, he moved with his family to the Dockery plantation in the early 1900s. He roamed the Delta with Dockery as his most frequent base, traveled from Louisiana to New York, and spent most of his time moving from plantation to plantation, entertaining fieldhands at jukehouse dances and country stores. The emotional power he held over audiences was so strong that he was thrown off more than one plantation because workers 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 much larger, and as an accomplished and inventive guitarist and lyricist he was also 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 was the Paramount release pairing "Pony Blues" with "Banty Rooster Blues," and his songs often referred to specific people, places, and topical events in the Delta; "High Water Everywhere," his dramatic two-part account of the death and despair caused by the great 1927 flood, is often regarded as his masterpiece. His songs offered social commentary and propulsive dance music, and he sometimes used 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 individual and inimitable that relatively few blues artists tried to record his songs. Patton lived his final year in Holly Ridge with his last wife, Bertha Lee, recorded with her at his final session in New York for Vocalion Records in 1934, and died of mitral valve disorder at age 43. Patton, Willie James Foster, and Asie Payton are buried in this cemetery.
