Charley Patton
| Charley Patton | |
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Only known photograph of Patton
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| Born | April 1891 (probable) Hinds County, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Died | April 28, 1934 (aged 43) Sunflower County, Mississippi |
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| Years active | 1916–1934 |
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Charley Patton (died April 28, 1934), also known as Charlie Patton, was an American Delta blues musician. Considered by many to be the "Father of the Delta Blues", he created an enduring body of American music and inspired most Delta blues musicians. The musicologist Robert Palmer considered him one of the most important American musicians of the twentieth century.
Patton (who was well educated by the standards of his time) spelled his name "Charlie", but many sources, including record labels and his gravestone, use the spelling "Charley."
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 April 1891, but the years 1881, 1885 and 1887 have also been suggested. Patton's parentage and race also are uncertain. His parents were Bill and Annie Patton, but locally he was regarded as having been fathered by former slave Henderson Chatmon, several of whose children became popular Delta musicians, as solo performers and as members of groups such as the Mississippi Sheiks. Biographer John Fahey described Patton as having "light skin and Caucasian features." Patton was considered African-American, but because of his light complexion there has been speculation that he was Mexican or Cherokee (a theory endorsed by Howlin' Wolf). It is now generally agreed that Patton was of mixed heritage, with both white and black ancestors, as well as a Cherokee grandmother. In "Down the Dirt Road Blues", Patton sang of having gone to "the Nation" and "the Territo'", referring to the Cherokee Nation's portion of the Indian Territory (which became part of the state of Oklahoma in 1907), where a number of Black Indians tried unsuccessfully to claim a place on the tribal rolls and thereby obtain land.
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