Edward James "Son" House Jr. was an American Delta blues singer and guitarist, noted for his highly emotional style of singing and slide guitar playing.
Hinds County is a county located in the U.S. state of Mississippi. With its county seats, Hinds is the most populous county in Mississippi with a 2020 census population of 227,742 residents. Hinds County is a central part of the Jackson metropolitan statistical area. It is a professional, educational, business and industrial hub in the state. It is bordered on the northwest by the Big Black River and on the east by the Pearl River. It is one county width away from the Yazoo River and the southern border of the Mississippi Delta.
Beulah is a town in Bolivar County, Mississippi, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 242.
Delta blues is one of the earliest-known styles of blues. It originated in the Mississippi Delta and is regarded as a regional variant of country blues. Guitar and harmonica are its dominant instruments; slide guitar is a hallmark of the style. Vocal styles in Delta blues range from introspective and soulful to passionate and fiery.
Country blues is one of the earliest forms of blues music. The mainly solo vocal with acoustic fingerstyle guitar accompaniment developed in the rural Southern United States in the early 20th century. It stands in contrast primarily to the urban blues style, especially in the pre-war era.
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in the history of the United States, with 27,000 square miles (70,000 km2) inundated in depths of up to 30 feet (9 m) over the course of several months in early 1927. The period cost of the damage has been estimated to be between $246 million and $1 billion, which ranges from $4.2–$17.3 billion in 2023 dollars.
Charlie Patton, more often spelled Charley Patton, was an American Delta blues musician and songwriter. Considered by many to be the "Father of the Delta Blues", he created an enduring body of American music and inspired most Delta blues musicians. The musicologist Robert Palmer considered him one of the most important American musicians of the twentieth century.
Willie Lee Brown was an American blues guitar player and vocalist. He performed and recorded with other blues musicians, including Son House and Charlie Patton, and influenced Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. Brown is considered one of the pioneering musicians of the Delta blues genre.
Tommy Johnson was an American Delta blues musician who recorded in the late 1920s and was known for his eerie falsetto voice and intricate guitar playing.
Juke joint is the African-American vernacular term for an informal establishment featuring music, dancing, gambling, and drinking, primarily operated by African Americans in the southeastern United States. A juke joint may also be called a "barrelhouse". Juke joints were the first secular cultural arenas to emerge among African-American freedmen.
Henry Sloan was an American musician, one of the earliest figures in the history of Delta Blues. Very little is known for certain about his life, other than that he tutored Charlie Patton in the ways of the blues. There have been suggestions that he moved to Chicago shortly after World War I. He left no known recordings.
Dockery Plantation was a 25,600-acre (104 km2) cotton plantation and sawmill in Dockery, Mississippi, on the Sunflower River between Ruleville and Cleveland, Mississippi. It is widely regarded as the place where Delta blues music was born. Blues musicians resident at Dockery included Charley Patton, Robert Johnson and Howlin' Wolf. The property was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.
The Mississippi Blues Trail was created by the Mississippi Blues Commission in 2006 to place interpretive markers at the most notable historical sites related to the birth, growth, and influence of the blues throughout the state of Mississippi. Within the state the trail extends from the Gulf Coast north along several highways to Natchez, Vicksburg, Jackson, Leland, Greenwood, Clarksdale, Tunica, Grenada, Oxford, Columbus, and Meridian. The largest concentration of markers is in the Mississippi Delta, but other regions of the state are also commemorated. Several out-of-state markers have also been erected where blues with Mississippi roots has had significance, such as Chicago.
"High Water Everywhere" is a Delta blues song recorded in 1929 by the blues singer Charley Patton. The song is about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and how it affected residents of the Mississippi Delta, particularly the mistreatment of African Americans. Patton recorded it during his second session with Paramount, in late 1929; his recordings from this session are frequently considered his best works.
Charley Booker was an American blues singer and guitarist from the Mississippi Delta, who recorded in the early 1950s for Modern Records.
William Alfred Dockery was an American landowner who built from scratch the Dockery Plantation, the famous home of such original Delta blues musicians as Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, Son House, Howlin' Wolf, Willie Brown, Tommy Johnson, and Pops Staples.
Henry "Son" Sims was an American Delta blues fiddler and songwriter. He is best known as an accompanist for Charley Patton and the young Muddy Waters.
Louise Johnson was an American Delta blues singer and pianist, who was active in the 1920s and 1930s. From her brief recording career, Johnson completed four songs during a famed recording session in 1930 which included Charley Patton, Son House, and Willie Brown. Little else is known about her, although Johnson's self-accompaniment during the session is stylistically unique among female musicians of the era.
Walter Rhodes was an American blues musician, who recorded briefly in the late 1920s and was unusual in being a blues accordionist and singer from Mississippi. It was reported that Rhodes may have been the oldest Delta musician recorded. Little is known of his life outside of his recordings.
