CHARLEY PATTON. Father of the DELTA BLUES. Part 2

Continued: In 1900 Charley and his family moved 100 miles from there former home in the Hill country of Mississippi, to the large Dockery Plantation near Ruleville, a legendary location in the annuals of the Blues. It was at Dockery's that young Patton fell under the spell of Henry Sloan, a near mythical Bluesman who was never recorded ( oh if only I had a Time Machine! I would have loved to have heard HIM... ) It was Sloan's instruction that he developed his amazing style. That style consisted of a gravely, gin soaked 500 yard voice, a guitar that would seem to follow along with his vocal line, using the guitar as a ''drum'' to bang out percussive rhythms, and a 'singing', stinging slide guitar that goes right to the core of you when you hear it. 50 years before Rock and Roll Charley Patton was playing the guitar between his knee's, over his head, or behind his back. Writer Robert Palmer describes Patton as a "jack-of all-trades bluesman" who played "deep blues, white hillbilly songs, nineteenth-century ballads, and other varieties of black and white country dance music with equal facility". This is true. Patton traveled all over the south with his amazing abilities, astonishing everyone who heard him. From NPS.Gov: ''After the turn of the decade Patton began playing music with Willie Brown, a guitarist who would later appear on many of his recordings. Patton's music began to exert a considerable influence; guitarist Tommy Johnson had moved to the Dockery vicinity circa 1913 and was soon playing Delta blues including Patton's "Pony Blues." Around 1914, Patton began playing his guitar with members of the Chatmon family, working picnics and frolics. Bo, Sam, and Lonnie Chatmon and guitarist Walter Vinson later would gain fame as the Mississippi Sheiks. Bo Chatmon also recorded many titles as soloist Bo Carter. Patton continued playing and rambling around the Delta, going north to Memphis and as far west as Arkansas and Louisiana. By 1926, a young Robert Johnson had begun following Patton and Brown to gigs trying to learn from the veteran guitarists''. All the above mentioned are great Bluesman in there own right. In 1928 or so Patton was heard by talent scout/furniture store owner H.C. Spear. Then things really got interesting...to be continued!