Hinds County in the 1890s: the poor families (read: the general population) worked as sharecroppers and the mosquitoes blackened the syrupy air. It was here that Charley Patton was born. While his exact date of birth is unknown, we do know that he died in 1934 in Sunflower, Mississippi in his 40s. While his life is a mystery and his name an obscurity, we all owe him a debt of gratitude for inventing one of the most iconic images in American popular culture: the hard-partying rock star.
From an early age, Patton showed a fondness for music and eventually went on to become the apprentice of Henry Sloan; one of the earliest known blues musicians. It was under Sloan that Patton became a master of the guitar, developing his own brand of percussive, loud blues. His unique music caught the attention of listeners of all backgrounds when he began playing at local bars and plantation parties and he soon landed a recording gig with Paramount.
In a matter of months, Patton was propelled from extreme poverty to relative wealth as his records sold and his performances drew sizable crowds. He drove expensive cars, drank expensive liquor, and kept expensive company. This persona that he had created for himself only added to the attention he received, which owed in part to his onstage antics. He would drink whiskey like water, jump on stage, and flail his guitar about wildly as he played through his varied repertoire. Throwing his guitar in the air and playing it behind his back were also standard stunts for Patton. This, of course, is nothing surprising to us in our modern age. Everyone from The Who to Nirvana have adopted these tricks, to much notoriety, but the astonishment comes with the realization that this was rooted in the early 1900s.
But, as with most hard-living rock icons, Patton burnt out early. At a young age, he suffered a bout of rheumatic fever that left his heart severely damaged. The resulting awareness of his own mortality that plagued him for the rest of his life can hear in songs like “Oh Death” and “You’re Gonna Need Somebody When You Die”. When you listen to these songs, you hear a man with no doubt that he was bound to die young. And he did. In his 40s, Patton’s heart gave out. A lifetime of heart disease and heavy drinking had finally caused the inevitable end that Patton had been anticipating for so long.
A man rises to stardom, creates a stylized caricature of himself, blows his money on luxury items, and drinks himself to death in the process. Sound familiar? That’s because Patton was the prototypical rock icon-- the blueprint for what we know about stars today. Without his influence, blues music might never have gone on to become rock n’ roll and, even if it had, our rock stars would sure live longer.
