Charley Patton. The Voice of the Delta (en Inglés) - Simon Godfrey

HE DIDN’T INVENT DELTA BLUES-BUT HE WAS THE FIRST TO MAKE IT LOUD.

Long before rock ’n’ roll turned up the volume, Charley Patton was filling Mississippi juke joints with a percussive, thumb-thumping guitar style and a roaring baritone that defied the limits of early recording horns. Howlin’ Wolf learned from him. Son House played beside him. Pops Staples took his rhythm to church. And decades later, a generation of blues-rockers built an entire genre on the foundations he laid down on noisy Paramount 78s.

Charley Patton: The Voice of the Delta traces the tumultuous life, times, and afterlife of Delta blues’ founding force. Moving from the cotton rows of Sunflower County to forgotten studio sessions in Indiana and Wisconsin-and onward to the obsessive 1960s collectors who rescued his legacy from oblivion-Simon Godfrey delivers a definitive, clear-eyed, and lively account of a true American original.

Turn the volume up. He would have.