I’ve submitted this elsewhere, but maybe this will turn some people on to blues here:
Charlie Patton, Founder of The Delta Blues 1929-34
This is not an album of music so much as it is a compaction of one man’s trials and tribulations into a package stained with alcohol, cigarette burns, and the strife of African-Americans in the south facing floods, drought, and crop pests. This is Charlie Patton’s ticket to an elite ring of America’s musical forefathers, and some thirty odd years before the rise of Hendrix, Patton had long pioneered the art of behind-the-back and under-the-legs guitar playing antics, but most importantly he pioneered the art of soulful expression. Blues, a vocal music at its very core and spawned in the fields of plantations in the American south, was the medium in which Patton chose for his passionate evocations of strife and suffering, and this is coincidently the same medium that serves to heal and reflect. The blues is “lookin’ up at lookin’ down,” and these words will never be as relevant as when you plow through this twenty-six track blues mission statement.
Charlie Patton was born in April 1891 in a time of racism, despise, and indentured servitude, and many of his songs echoed these themes. He was the scrawny child of sharecropper parents Bill and Anny Patton. The American south had not solved its problems some forty years after the civil war set blacks “free.” Land was rented out to blacks for them to farm and in turn hand over a hefty portion of proceeds to landowners who found shifty ways of driving blacks into inescapable debt. This sharecropper’s lifestyle of despair and mentality of oppression is what bred Charlie Patton, is what bred the blues.
Around 1900 he moved with his parents north to the Mississippi Delta, Will Dockery Plantation. At this time Patton developed an interest in music and took up playing guitar during his teenage years, blues followed. He became a travelling musician and played in parts of Georgia, Texas, Missouri, Tennesse, and Illinois. By 1910 and two decades before he would even get the chance to record, he was a proficient performer and songwriter already having composed notable tracks such as “Down The Dirt Road Blues,” “Banty Rooster Blues,” and his theme song “Pony Blues.” Patton traveled around the enormous Dockery plantation in the Mississippi Delta and gained considerable fame, eclipsing the small fame of other musicians.
In June of 1929 Patton went through an audition at Dockery for a certain record store owner named H.C. Speir, and won. Patton recorded forty-three songs in the span of one year over two session, more than any blues musician preceding him. Shortly thereafter Patton became a minor celebrity and relocated to Holly Ridge, Mississippi, where he stayed in various plantation towns. Patton had played dance halls and gatherings for the majority of his life, and at one Holly Ridge dance in 1933 his throat was slashed right down to the vocal chords. This incident severely affected Patton’s singing and along with his poor heart condition, marked the beginning of the end.
Charlie Patton died on April 28, 1934, having recorded his third and final session eighty-five days earlier, just in time to secure a place in the blues collective mind forever and influence the music of generations whether they know it or like it, or not. Luckily, in 1926 a young man by the name of Chester Burnett, better known as Howlin’ Wolf, had moved to the Dockery and at the Drew town square not far from the plantation he saw Patton perform, the rest is history.
By the time Patton recorded his first of three sessions in 1929 his voice had long been scarred by a lifetime of heavy drinking and smoking. To a pair of virgin ears his voice may sound harsh, but even the most unwilling are soon won over by the subtlety and care of its delivery. His rust and nails voice is contrasted by sweet and gliding acoustic slide playing accompanied by the percussive thumps of his hand against the guitar. Patton played dance halls and various dance associated gigs around the Mississippi Delta for years, so it was only natural that his playing adapted to include driving rhythms and popped n’ thumped bass strings. Apparent is a rhythmic quality that nearly forces you to sway to and frow as if under an hypnotic audio spell. His voice is a cryptic exploration into the most sought after subtleties of blues vocals, his guitar playing dances with his voice in a waltz of celebration. Rumor has it that Patton’s voice on a still night could carry near five hundred yards, but no matter how exaggerated this claim is his voice will, by sheer force of personality, jump from your speakers and hand feed you soul.
Patton’s music was rather chordally progressive compared to other Mississippi Blues and could feature four (Down The Dirt Road) or even seven (A Spoonful Blues) chords. His voice was infused with a 1-2 beat which at the time and for his early audiences was probably quite rare. It could be argued that this raw, driving, rhythmic sound was in fact rock and roll in its earliest of stages. Though the lyrical content of his songs is heavy, Patton maintains a sense of drama and comedy. For example, “A Spoonful Blues” features Patton humorously immitating various voices to craft a story about the evils of cocaine whilst responding to his vocals with upeat yet melancholy tinged slides. “Mississippi Bo Weavil” is about the bo weavil attack on crops in his native Sunflower County, crippling the local economy. You would not be able to guess that such events could be so devestating to so many the way that Patton sings it. There is a air reassurance and of coming to terms with these devastating themes that haunted his and others’ lives. Such a perspective as amplified by the blues outlet is unimaginably captivating and leaves no question of Patton’s importance as a musician and human being as he call and responds his way into our hearts.
Now, if you’re not familiar with pre-war blues recordings, just be aware that you will not find traditional albums of twelve songs and a single, and maybe a binding concept thrown in for good measure. Many blues songs were not recorded until years after they were written, when somebody finally decided to record them with white backing money. The music of these early bluesmen was recorded rather crudely and often with the intention of historical preservation, so twenty or more track compilations are common. This “album” should be approached with a curious mindset, and you should not expect catchy pop songs and cheap thrills. Do not expect these types of recordings to hand you something on a silver platter, or owe you anything for that matter. As such, this album represents some of Patton’s best performances and full range of his repetoir, which included rags, gospel songs, ballads, and traditional blues.
Pros
-The epitomy of blues
-A soulful foundation
-The genuine article
-Rewarding
Cons
-Bad recording quality
-It’s really old music
*These things only serve as
a litmus test for the worthy
Track List
- Down The Dirt Road Blues
- Mississippi Bo Weavil Blues
- Screamin’ And Hollerin’ The Blues
- Stone Pony Blues
- It Won’t Be Long
- Shake It and Break It
- Magnolia Blues
- Dry Well Blues
- High Water Everywhere Part I
- High Water Everywhere Part II
- Green River Blues
- Bird Nest Bound
- High Sheriff Blues
- A Spoonful Blues
- Moon Going Down
- Pony Blues
- Elder Green Blues
- Banty Rooster Blues
- Some Of These Days
- Tom Rushen Blues
- 34 Blues
- Going To Move To Alabama
- Hammer Blues
- Poor Me
- When Your Ways Get Dark
- Devil Sent The Rain