Charley Patton
April 28, 1891 – April 28, 1934
Also known as Charlie Patton, he was an American Delta blues of mixed ancestry from white, black, and Choctaw. He is considered by many to be the “Father of the Delta Blues”, and is credited with creating an enduring body of American music and personally inspiring just about every Delta blues man.
Musicologist Robert Palmer considers him among the most important musicians that America produced in the twentieth century. Many sources, including musical releases and his gravestone, spell his name “Charley” even though the musician himself spelled his name “Charlie.”
Patton was born in Hinds County, Mississippi near the town of Edwards, and lived most of his life in Sunflower County in the Mississippi Delta. Most sources say he was born in 1891, but there is some debate about this, and the years 1887 and 1894 have also been suggested.
Patton’s parentage and race have been the subject of debate. Although born to Bill and Annie Patton, locally he was regarded as having been fathered by former slave Henderson Chatmon, many of whose other children also became popular Delta musicians both as solo acts and as members of groups such as the Mississippi Sheiks.
Patton himself sang in “Down the Dirt Road Blues” of having gone to “the Nation” and “the Territo’"—meaning the Cherokee Nation portion of the Indian Territory (which became part of the state of Oklahoma in 1907).
Patton settled in Holly Ridge, Mississippi with his common-law wife and recording partner Bertha Lee in 1933. He died on the Heathman-Dedham plantation near Indianola on April 28, 1934 and is buried in Holly Ridge (both towns are located in Sunflower County).
The Mississippi Blues Trail placed its first historic marker on Charley Patton’s grave in Holly Ridge, Mississippi in recognition of his legendary status as a bluesman and his importance in the development of the blues in Mississippi.
It placed another historic marker at the site where the Peavine Railroad intersects with Highway 446 in Boyle, Mississippi, designating it as a second site related to Patton on the Mississippi Blues Trail.
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