Pledge your support and get bonus lessons! Not enough can be said about the influence of Charley Patton, a musician who is widely considered the father of the Delta blues. It was during a tour with Stewart that the Oceanside, California-raised Salas began to wonder about other Native American rock musicians who came before him. Patton was in the middle of this and his musical abilities were steeped in these backgrounds. Some folks use a .015 or even .016 for string 1 and adjust accordingly for strings 2 and 3. Charley Patton was the “grandfather of Delta blues,” a true legend–and part-Native American. “Tom Rushen Blues,” “High Sheriff Blues,” and “Hammer Blues” share this same rhythm. – 1934), American musician Charley Pell (1941 – 2001), American gridiron football coach Charley Pettys (born 1990), American-born, Filipino footballer A recent morning while listening to the radio, the DJ referred to a movie on Amazon called “Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World.”  I have Amazon. 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. Howlin’ Wolf was a student of Patton’s. While certainly an African-American, it is likely that he had other ancestry, including American Indian. Learn more about him in this clip from RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked the World. "People need to know about Link Wray. It is not far out to say that Charley Patton (1891? I watched the movie that day. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? The film also explores the career of Robbie Robertson, a Canadian musician of Mohawk and Cayuga descent, who performed with Bob Dylan in the mid-1960s before forming his own group called The Band. After the Collapse of Paramount records Charley went to Vocalion records. One of the keys to Patton’s slide playing is to leave open spaces where the slide notes are not accompanied by the bass. You can hear the Native music influence in his sound. Patton is believed to have played both lap-style slide (with a knife over the strings) and bottleneck. "RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked the World," a new PBS Independent Lens documentary set to air Monday, Jan 21, 2019, shows how Native Americans laid the foundations to rock, blues and jazz. He achieved a bold sound by tuning his guitar up a step and a half, which gave his slide playing a bright and articulate panache. Charley became well known for his gravel like voice and guitar playing which would give him a deal with the Legendary Paramount Label. ", Associated Press Writer Russell Contreras is a member of the AP's race and ethnicity team. Richie Havens Memorial Service 2013-08-18, http://woodstockwhisperer.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Rattlesnake-Blues-Charlie-Patton-1.mp3. She sang perfect, for me.". Bridging past and present, The First Rainbow Coalition examines how an unlikely coalition defied racial divisions. The Brodies retrace routes and reconnect with family members gone but not forgotten in Mandeville and Montego Bay. The hobby searching for Native American rock musicians eventually launched an exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, then a film. Wray is one of many Native Americans musicians whose stories are featured in a documentary set to air on the PBS series " Independent Lens " showing how Native Americans helped lay the foundations to rock, blues and jazz and shaped generations of musicians. Patton’s recordings can be a bit challenging because they suffer from the poor quality of the times. The succeeding single-string slide notes played on string 3, fret 7 imply a V chord (D). So I came to Patton’s material not from the original sources but through modern players like Alvin Youngblood Hart, whose rendition of “Pony Blues” on his Big Mama’s Door album captures the dynamics and rhythmic propulsion of the playing with much improved audio.