YEAR
2021
INDUCTED BY
Gary Clark, Jr.
CATEGORY
Early Influences
Before Jimi Hendrix mastered the guitar, before Chuck Berry pioneered rock & roll, before Robert Johnson strummed a single chord – Charley Patton did it all.
Charley Patton
Gary Clark, Jr. tribute to Charley Patton
HALL OF FAME
ESSAY
By Ashley Kahn
“The blues, apparently, began in the mists.” So wrote music historian Luc Sante in a brilliant essay on the folk style from which so much American music, and now worldwide expression, has grown. One of the very first stars of the country blues – the OG of Delta blues, to be specific – was Charley Patton.
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