SIGNIFICANT DELTA BLUESMEN
Compiled by the Smoky Mountain Blues Society
Blues in the Schools Progam
 
 
 
W.C. Handy (St. Louis Blues) 
The African American songwriter William Christopher Handy 
(1873-1958), known as the father of the blues, 
was the first person to notate and publish blues songs. 
He wrote over 60 blues, spirituals, and popular tunes.
On Nov. 16, 1873, W. C. Handy was born in Florence, Ala., 
the son of two Methodist ministers. He studied at 
Kentucky Musical College, to the dismay of his father, 
who regarded secular music as a branch of the devil's 
activities. At an early age he left home to tour with a 
minstrel show. As a bandleader for Mahara's Minstrels for
much of the period between 1896 and 1903, he first 
made contact with early blues and jazz. He moved to 
Memphis, Tenn., and led a band that featured his attempts 
to incorporate blues tunes and jazz motifs into 
written arrangements.
 
In 1909 he and his band moved to Memphis, Tennessee and established their presence
on Beale Street.   The 1912 publication of his "Memphis Blues" sheet music introduced
 his style of 12-bar blues to many households. Some consider it to be the first blues song.
 
 
 
Leadbelly (Eddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly) 

Eddie Leadbetter was born in January of 1888,

near Shreveport, Louisiana.

He grew up in Louisiana and Texas.

One of the early Delta Bluesmen, he became known

as "King of The Twelve-String Guitar”. Ledbetter helped

to inspire the folk and blues revivals of the Fifties and

Sixties. Leadbelly was one of the first traditional folk

musicians to perform for a city audience Traveling

around in his early teens, Leadbelly picked up music

that dated back to slave days. He absorbed all kinds

of music he heard and made it his own.

His mother sang spirituals and children's play songs,

from wandering piano players he adopted the bass

figurations of boogie woogie, and in barrelhouses

and prison he heard songs that came straight from

the heart. Leadbelly sang with a powerful, rough voice.

In 1933 folklorists John A. and Alan Lomax found Leadbelly, and recorded his songs for

the Library of Congress.

Charlie Patton

Charlie Patton was one of the first mainstream stars 
of the Delta blues genre. Patton, who was born in 
Hinds County, Mississippi near Edwards, lived most 
of his life in Sunflower County, in the Mississippi Delta. 
Most sources say he was born in 1891. In 1900, his 
family moved 100 miles north to the legendary 
10,000-acre Dockery Plantation sawmill and cotton 
farm near Ruleville, Mississippi. It was here that both 
John Lee Hooker and Howlin' Wolf learned from Patton. 
It was also here that Robert Johnson played and was 
given his first guitar.
 
He was extremely popular across the Southern United States, 
and — in contrast to the itinerant wandering of most 
blues musicians of his time — played scheduled 
engagements at plantations and taverns. Patton gained 
notoriety for his showmanship, often playing with the 
guitar down on his knees, behind his head, or behind 
his back. Although Patton was a small man at about 
5 foot 5 and 135 pounds, his gravelly voice was rumored to have been loud enough to carry 500 
yards without amplification. 
 
He often played slide guitar and gave that style a position of prominence in Delta blues.   
Patton’s standing in blues history is immense; no country blues artist, save Blind Lemon 
Jefferson, exerted more influence on the future of the form or on its succeeding generation 
of stylists than Patton.  Everyone from Son House, Howlin' Wolf, and Robert Johnson to Muddy Waters, 
John Lee Hooker, and Elmore James can trace their blues styles back to Patton.
 
 
Skip James
 
Nehemiah "Skip" James was born on Woodbine Plantation
outside Bentonia, Mississippi on the ninth of June, 1902. 
Skip James' sound was very distinctive and although he 
has influenced other blues musicians, very few have been 
able to recreate his style. His voice was very high pitched 
and seems very frail, even in his early recordings. He is 
said to have had a 'preaching' style of singing because 
every line seems to stretch out forever and because he 
was one of the rare bluesmen to also sing 'spirituals'. 
He was a gifted and distinctive guitarist. He used an open D 
minor tuning and his playing, which was entirely finger picking, 
was very fast and clean. He also used the whole register 
of the instrument, creating heavy and almost hypnotic bass 
lines using the lower strings.
 
After learning piano in high school he dropped out to hobo 
around and began earning a living from music around 1918. He worked parties, roadhouses, jukes, 
and barrelhouses in the South and Midwest, notably Memphis into the 1920's. He attended divinity 
school and became active in ministry work from the mid-twenties. He was ordained a Baptist minister 
in 1932, then ordained a Methodist minister in 1946 and worked outside music preaching until 1964 
when he started working the folk festival and college circuit riding the blues revival wave.

 
Son House

Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. was born March 21, 1902.

He was an American blues singer and guitarist. House

pioneered an innovative style featuring strong, repetitive

rhythms, often played with the aid of slide guitar, and his

singing often incorporated elements of southern gospel

and spiritual music.House was an important influence on

Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson. A seminal Delta blues

figure, he remains influential today to this day..

Son House was born in Riverton, two miles from Clarksdale,

Mississippi. Around age seven or eight, he moved to Tallulah,

Louisiana, after his parents separated. The young Son House

was determined to become a Baptist preacher, and at age 15

began his preaching career. Despite the church's firm stand

against blues music and the sinful world which revolved around it,

House became attracted to it and taught himself guitar in his

mid 20s, after moving back to the Clarksdale area, inspired

by the work of Willie Wilson. He began playing alongside

Charley Patton, Willie Brown, Robert Johnson and Fiddlin’ Joe Martin

around Robinsonville, Mississippi, and north to Memphis, Tennessee,

until 1942.

After killing a man, allegedly in self-defense, he spent time at Parchman Farm in 1928 and 1929. Son House

recorded for Paramount Records in 1930 and for Alan Lomax from the Library of Congress in 1941 and 1942.

He then faded from public view until the country blues revival in the 1960s. He was "re-discovered" in June 1964

in Rochester, New York, where he had lived since 1943. He had been retired from the music business for many

years, working for the New York Central Railroad, and was completely unaware of the international revival of

enthusiasm for his early recordings. He subsequently toured extensively in the US and Europe and recorded

for CBS records. Like Mississippi John Hurt, he was welcomed into the music scene of the 1960s and played

at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964, the New York Folk Festival in July 1965, and the October 1967 European

tour of the American Folk Festival along with Skip James and Bukka White.

Bukka White 
 

Born Booker T. Washington White near Houston, Mississippi, he gave

his cousin B.B. King, a Stella guitar, King's first guitar. White himself

is remembered as a player of National steel guitars.

White typically played slide guitar, in an open tuning. He first recorded

for the Victor Records label in 1930. His recordings for Victor, like

those of many other bluesmen, fluctuated between country blues and

gospel numbers. Nine years later, while serving time, he recorded for

folklorist John Lomax. The few songs he recorded around this time became

his most well-known: "Shake 'Em On Down," and "Po' Boy." His 1937

version of the oft-recorded song, "Shake 'Em On Down," became a hit

while White was serving time in Parchman Farm.. Bob Dylan covered

his song "Fixin' to Die Blues", which aided a "rediscovery" of White in

1963 which propelled him onto the folk revival scene of the 1960s.

White died in February 1977, at the age of 70, in Memphis, Tennessee.

In 1990 he was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame

(along with Blind Blake and Lonnie Johnson).

Elmore James 
 
Elmore James was born on January 27, 1918 in Richland, Mississippi.  
Encouraged by his mother, Elmore James adapted to music at an early 
age, learning to play bottleneck on a homemade instrument fashioned 
out of a broom handle and a lard can, until he purchased his first guitar 
as a teenager. By the age of 14, Elmore James was already a weekend 
musician, appearing at house parties and juke joints under the names 
"Cleanhead" or "Joe Willie James". 
 
In the mid and late 1930s, young Elmore James worked with  other blues 
artists like his cousin Homesick James Williamson (who taught him to 
play slide guitar), Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Johnny Temple, Luther Huff, 
Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf, Robert Lockwood Jr., Eddie Taylor, and 
Sonny Boy Williamson.  Elmore James formed his own band in the late 
1930s
 
In 1951 Elmore James made his debut recording Dust My Broom which 
became a tremendous hit. In 1952, Elmore James moved to Chicago, 
Illinois, where he became a local hero in the clubs with his band, 
The Broomdusters. Elmore James is regarded as one of the most 
imporant blues artists, considered by many to be the King of the 
Slide Guitar. The slide guitar \riff from Dust My Broom is one of the best known openings in all of blues.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robert Johnson
 
Robert Johnson was born on May 8, 1911, in Hazelhurst, Mississippi. 
A singer and guitarist, Robert Johnson is considered to be one of 
the greatest blues performers of all time. But this recognition came 
to him largely after his death. During his brief career, Johnson traveled 
around, playing wherever he could. His wife and child died in childbirth 
around 1930 and he is said to have devoted himself to the guitar.

One of the most well known details of Robert Johnson's life is the

legend that he sold his soul to the devil at a country crossroads.

It's embedded in our popular culture. Almost nobody brings up

the idea of selling one's soul to the devil without mentioning Johnson.

It's been used in movies, in the recent television show Supernatural,

in cartoons, stories and media for years. It's no surprise; the tale is

alluring, packed with magic, the devil, suspense, murder and music.

We'll try to explain the details of the Devil and Robert Johnson.

Blues greats Son House and Charley Patton played house parties

and juke joints around the Mississippi delta for fun and change.

As Son House told it, when they'd stop in between sets, young

Robert Johnson would go play around with their guitars, making a

racket and annoying everybody around him. He simply couldn't play!

Then he disappeared, (which wasn't unusual in those days) and came

back a year or two later a blues guitar master. Nobody could figure out how he learned to play so well in such a short

period of time. Folks said he must've sold his soul to the devil to play that well. The fact that he came back with songs

about going down to the crossroads (to make a deal), walking side by side with the devil, and hellhounds on his trail

only added to the mystery. Not long after that, the devil came to collect. Johnson died mysteriously at age 27.

The acclaim for Robert Johnson's work is based on the 29 songs that he wrote and recorded in Dallas and San Antonio

from 1936 to 1937. These include "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" and "Sweet Home Chicago," which has become a

blues standard. His songs have been recorded by Muddy Waters, Elmore James, the Rolling Stones, and Eric Clapton.

Much of Robert Johnson's life is shrouded in mystery. Part of the lasting mythology around him is a story of how he

gained his musical talents by making a bargain with the devil. While that may be unlikely, it is true that he died at an

early age. Only 27, Johnson died on August 16, 1938, as the suspected victim of a deliberate poisoning.

 
Sources
 
 
 
http://www.una.edu/library/about/collections/handy/biography.html
 
http://www.bookrags.com/biography/william-christopher-handy/
 
http://www.vh1.com/artists/az/leadbelly_1/bio.jhtml
 
http://kirjasto.sci.fi/ledbelly.htm
 
http://www.southernmusic.net/charliepatton.htm
 
http://www.mojohand.com/charliepattonbio.htm
 
http://www.music-city.org/Skip-James/biography/
 
http://physics.lunet.edu/blues/Skip_James.html
 
http://physics.lunet.edu/blues/Son_House.html
 
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/bukka+white/biography.html
 
http://www.bluessearchengine.com/bluesartists/j/elmorejames.html
 
http://www.biography.com/articles/Robert-Johnson-9356324
 
http://www.bluescentric.com/blues/robert_johnson/