About a year and a half ago I started listening to older and older blues music. Mostly through listening to hours of Pandora Radio, which would play related songs and/or earlier versions of songs I already liked. I began to look up these earlier artist and listened to more of their stuff. I started learning the songs on guitar and really got good at “Finger Picking” which is how most of the songs are played. Earlier and earlier down the bloodline of blues I found myself at a died end. Charlie Patton born April 1891 was one of the first solo blues guitarist that recorded a wide range of records. The Father of the Delta Blues, some even call him the first rockstar of america. He lived in the Mississippi delta and therefore later his and his peers’ music was dubbed “Delta Blues”. He was a major part of creating a new, gritty, percussive, music mixed with the deeply soulful, lyrical poems handed down by ancestors.
His parentage and race have been the subject of minor debate which interested me after reading his possible ethnicity. Because of his light complexion there have been rumors that he was Mexican, or possibly a full-blood Cherokee, a theory endorsed by Howlin’ Wolf. (Wikipedia) Howlin Wolf is another one of my musical heros, he was one of the fathers of the later “Chicago Blues” but learned guitar down south in the delta from Charlie Patton and played with Son House the second father of delta blues. The Cherokee part really interested me, I am a registered member of the Cherokee nation and I’m very proud of my ethnicity and heritage . To think that maybe the first popular, recording blues artist wasn’t full African American goes against the notion that the Blues was a purely African American invention and maybe my own ancestors had a small, small part in it. This would be really cool, who knows for sure if its true, either way, I would love the blues just as much.
-Nick Tubbs