All language subtitles for BBC Arena 2017 American Epic 2of4 Blood and Soil_Subtitles01_Unnamed

In the 1920s, record companies
went out into America

and, for the first time, recorded
music of everyday working people.

Some of those artists,
like The Carter Family

and The Memphis Jug Band,
became popular stars

and are remembered as pioneers of
blues, country and R&B.

Others are remembered only
as names on old record labels.

Here are some of THEIR stories.

# Up above my head
I hear music in the air

# Up above my head

# There is music in the air

# Up above my head

# Music in the air

# And I really do believe
really do believe joy somewhere

# All in my room
Music everywhere

# All in my home
Music in the air

# Up above my head
there is music in the air

# And I do believe
I do believe joy somewhere

# Well, well, well
above my head

# Thank God Almighty
music everywhere

# Music everywhere
up above my head

# Don't you know
Music in the air

# Up above my head
There is music in the air

# You know, I really do believe
I really do believe joy somewhere. #

African-American Spirituals and
gospel have shaped

every style of American music.

In the 1920s, the first wave of
black recording stars included

dozens of religious singers and
fiery preachers who inspired

listeners to uplift their spirit
and find freedom in song.

One of these pastors was an obscure
figure named Elder Burch,

who brought his church choir to
Atlanta in 1927

and, in a single session with
Ralph Peer,

recorded nine passionate sermons
and one haunting hymn.

WOMAN: # Ever since my sin... #

CHOIR: # Ever since my sin

# Been taken away
Been taken away... #

ALL: # My heart keeps singing,
singing, singing

# Lord, all the time

# Then Jesus wants
Then Jesus wants

# Me in his love
Me in his love... #

ALL: # My heart keeps singing
Singing, singing all the time

# I'm sanctified
I'm sanctified

# By the Holy Ghost
By the Holy Ghost

# My heart keeps singing,
singing, singing all the time

# Then Jesus wants
Then Jesus wants

# Me in his arms
Me in his arms

My heart keeps singing

# Singing, singing
Lord, all the time. #

VOICES PRAISING, OVERLAPPING

The power of those voices
captured our imagination...

..and set us on a quest to solve the
mystery - who was Elder Burch?

Our first stop was the current
home of Victor Records,

the basement of the Sony
Building in New York City.

We just wanted to try and find
anything about Elder Burch.

We knew he had been recorded by
Victor, so Sony, who own that label,

allowed me to come down into this
basement here and look

through their records, which have
every Victor recording from

the turn of the last century to
the present day.

And these are the sheets that the
recording engineers would

type up, listing what songs were
played, what instruments were used.

You can see here
Edith Piaf, Elvis Presley...

I mean, every act you can think of.

Here it is - BU.

And in it, the folders are filled
with these smaller brown folders.

Julie Budd, whoever she was.

The Buffalo Bills,
Bumble Bee Slim...

..The Bummers.

Here he is.
Elder JE Burch.

Here is the original sheet from 1927
that was recorded when

Ralph Peer went to Atlanta, Georgia
to make this record.

So this is the actual thing that was
in the engineer's typewriter

the day of that recording session.

And these are all the songs that
Burch recorded on this day -

look at the number of them here.

Address - Cheraw, South Carolina.

Maybe that's where he was from.

So we travelled to a town
we had never heard of,

known as
the Prettiest Town In Dixie.

It was springtime as we drove
through Cheraw with its

historic old houses and quiet roads
dappled with blossoming trees.

Apparently little had changed
over the past century.

We talked to many people in Cheraw,

but none of them remembered
Elder Burch.

Eventually we were told to cross the
tracks and visit one of

the town's elders, Ted Bradley.

Very few people know anything
about Elder Burch.

He was a tall, good-looking man,
I would say.

He would stand there kind of rocking
respect,

someone whose shoes
were always shined,

he was well-dressed,
vest, gold chains.

MAN: # I'm gonna sing
Lord, can you hear?

# Right down here

# I'm going to sing, Lord
God, can you hear?

# Right down here, Lord...#

His voice was not...
It wasn't one of those hard...

It was more...a little soft,
so to speak.

MULTIPLE VOICES SINGING AND PRAISING

And I just wanted to be like him!

Elder Burch was born in 1876
just outside Cheraw.

He became a turpentine harvester,
travelling to Mississippi

where he became a minister and
a disciple of ED Smith,

founder of the Triumph Church
movement,

whose congregations channelled
the word of God

in a rapturous frenzy known as
speaking in tongues.

Charismatic preachers like Elder
Burch rose up at a time when

popular movements for civil rights
were spreading across the South.

Triumph in the other
African-American churches were

at the heart of the struggle for
equal rights,

dignity and self-respect.

And music became a vehicle
for liberation.

At the library of Congress,
we found a panoramic photograph of

the 1919 gathering of
Triumph Churches.

We asked Ted Bradley if he
recognised Elder Burch

in the photograph.

Bradley searched for a face
he last saw as a child.

Oh, man...

Mm...

Man, you know how long that's been?

70 years ago!

70 years ago.

When Burch returned to his hometown,
he bought land and

opened a store, a boarding house,
a barbershop and a restaurant -

all remarkable achievements

for an African-American in the South
at that time.

In 1924, he built a church in Cheraw
with his own hands,

gathered a fervent congregation,
and formed a thunderous choir.

CHOIR SINGS

We find the Triumph Church
still standing,

and meet Elder Burch's modern
successor, Pastor Donnie Chapman.

In the '20s, Triumph Church -

church in general, period -
was everything.

Because everything was segregated,

and the blacks went to THEIR
churches,

whites went to THEIR churches,

and black people back in that day
didn't have much.

The only thing that they had
was...

by the church,
was hope for the future,

hoping that there would be a better
day coming than what they were

experiencing at that very
present time.

But Elder Burch really did a very
important thing for Cheraw.

He started their local branch of the
NAACP with Mr Levi Byrd.

And every day they put their lives
on the line for the black community,

and Elder Burch tried to
make this world

a better place for all of us
to live.

We sang those old gospel songs to
get relief from the burdens

of the day, from the cotton fields,
from cropping tobacco,

from all of those hard tasks.

And when you hear one singing
a song across the field,

the whole field would take it up.

It would go across the field
just like a wave, you know?

# Amazing grace. #

Then you hear it picked up on
that side...

# How sweet... #

Then after they sing, they hum.

HE HUMS

And that just makes you just forget
about that hot sun on your back.

Down on your knees,
in that 85 degree weather,

picking that cotton.

VOICE ECHOES: # Amazing grace

# How sweet... #

At the Triumph Church, we find
another of the town's elders,

Ernest Gillespie.

In Cheraw at that time,
the Triumph Church started their

services on Sunday nights.

Sunday nights
was the big service time.

You could hear it
a number of blocks away.

Elder Burch was just one of those
people that attracted people

because of the music that he played,

and a lot of people would go by just
to see people being

really spiritually moved and dance
or shout, if you will.

And we would just listen to
the singing,

the music and everything else,
and enjoy it.

A lot of people looked down on
the Sanctified church cos

they just were getting loose.
You could hear the sensuality and

the fervour happening in what
they were doing.

They wanted those churches to be
more staid and steady and,

you know, it was like...

Well, yeah, but boring.

MAN LEADS CHOIR:
# Yes, love is my wonderful song

# I'm singing it all day long

# Since the family came in

# Yes, love is my wonderful song. #

When night come,
and during the service,

all of those people would come
so they could hear that music,

hear that singing, hear that
stomping,

hear those people jumping
and praising the Lord and

having a wonderful time.

# Yes, love is my wonderful song
I'm singing it all day long. #

The fervour of Elder Burch's
congregation

inspired local youngsters,

one of whom became
a giant of modern jazz -

Ernest's cousin, Dizzy Gillespie.

Let me read you this out of
Dizzy's autobiography.

"Like most black musicians,
much of my early inspiration,

"especially with rhythm and
harmonies, came from the church.

"Not MY church, though.

"The Sanctified church stood down
the street from us.

"The leader of the church's name was
Elder Burch,

"and he had several sons.

"Johnny Burch played the
snare drum,

"his brother Willie beat the cymbal.

"Another one of the Burch brothers
played bass drum.

"They used to keep at least four
rhythms going,

"and as they congregation joined in

"the number of rhythms would
increase,

"with foot stomping,
hand clapping

"and people catching the spirit

"and jumping up and down on the
wooden floor,

"which also resounded like a drum.

"Even white people would come down
and sit outside in their cars

"just to listen to people getting
the spirit inside.

"Everyone would be shouting and
fainting and stomping.

"The Sanctified church rhythm got
to me

"as it did anyone who came
near the place.

"People like Aretha Franklin and
James Brown owe everything

"to that Sanctified beat."

HE SCREAMS

# Please...#

"I received my first experience
with rhythm and spiritual transport

"going down there to Elder Burch's
church every Sunday,

"and I have just followed it
ever since."

If you listen to Diz's music
you hear Triumph.

They lived right up the street from
the church, and he heard every note,

every downbeat, every drumbeat,
he could hear it from his bed.

If you walk up the street from
Elder Burch's church a few houses,

you'll arrive to where Dizzy lived.

They made it into a park now.

Standing in the park, you can still
hear the music

from Elder Burch's church.

It's amazing that the music on this
record,

recorded in the '20s by Elder Burch,

influenced so many people around
Cheraw.

It's a thrill to see the members of
the Triumph Church choir,

composed of people throughout the
United States, arriving here in

Cheraw to sing,
all in tribute to Elder Burch.

We would like to welcome you to our
wonderful city of Cheraw,

South Carolina, to a church that
Elder John Burch built

back in the 1920s.

Amen. Amen
ALL: Amen.

You know, in Psalm 149, it says,
"Sing a new song unto the Lord."

Sing a new song,
and that song that he sung,

I will sing unto the Lord.

My heart just keeps right on
singing and praising

Almighty God. Amen. All right.

APPLAUSE

MAN: # Come sanctify... #
CHOIR: # Come sanctify

# With the Holy Ghost
With the Holy Ghost

# My heart keeps

# Singing, singing, singing
all the time... #

BAND STARTS

# I'm singing
I'm singing

# Because I'm free
I'm singing

# You help me
I'm singing

# I'm singing
I'm singing

# Oh...
Singing, singing all the time

# I'm singing
Cos he brought me

# I'm going to sing
I'm singing

# I'm going to sing
I'm going to sing, I'm going to sing

# Oh, yes, I'm singing
I'm singing

# Can you help me sing?
I'm singing

# I do for him
I'm singing

# I sanctify God
All the time. #

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

BAND PLAYS

MUSIC FADES

MAN: # Get down, get down
little Henry Lee

# And stay all night with me

# The very best lodging I can afford

# Will be fare better'n thee

# I can't get down and I won't
get down

# And stay all night with thee

# For the girl I have
in that merry green land

# I love far better'n thee...#

Some of the more striking music of
the early recording era

came from the coal mines of
Logan County, West Virginia.

These gritty songs capture stories
of hard lives, hard deaths,

hard luck and hard labour.

The men of Logan County spent
their days underground,

scratching a living out of
solid rock.

Three of them were also
exceptional musicians.

Frank Hutchison,
Dick Justice and Ervin Williamson.

My father was a musician,
Ervin Williamson,

who founded the group
the Williamson Brothers & Curry

back in the '20s.

They were very, very good

and they had a good following,

but he chose to come to Logan County

and have a family and to work in the
coal mines and make money that way.

They went in the coal mines at
daylight

and they didn't get out
until after dark,

and I remember
my dad telling me that they

hand-loaded coal with a shovel,

and they got paid $0.50 a carload.

And the only people who prospered
and got better off

were the coal companies themselves.

That's what my dad told me
the way it was, you know.

My name is Eugene Justice,
my father was Dick Justice.

Dad worked in the coal mines
all his life,

and what I heard, he started,

like, when he was 13 years old.

One time Dad took me down in one,
maybe two miles,

and I didn't want no more.

I said, "Get me back out of here."

It's an eerie feeling, man,
all that dirt overhead.

# Old black dog
when I'm gone, Lord, Lord

# Old black dog when I'm gone

# When I come back with a $10 bill

# And it's
Honey, where you been so long?... #

It was dangerous just to go in,
let alone work in it, you know.

There was a lot of mining accidents
back then, my dad told me

that every time you go down -
at that time -

you were just taking
your life in your hands.

There wasn't very much to do,
really.

Dad, he'd work all week,

and on the weekends he'd have
his beer, play his guitar.

It was just to get together
and play their instruments.

Dad loved music, and people done
a lot back then, like a hobby.

They just had the music in them
and they enjoyed it.

They didn't plan on making a career
or making big-time money

like they do now with music.

It was just something that
neighbours and people got together

and they done. But that's the way
it was.

That's the way life was back then.

It was pretty rough on people
working in the coal mines,

half killing themselves,

and the coal companies taking most
of their money back.

That's what Dad did - every penny
he got went right back to them.

Back in 1921,
miners started marching,

and they was trying
to get unions formed.

The coal companies didn't want the
union to come in, because if

they did, that meant the coal miners
would get better pay and everything.

Well, the sheriff back at the time
had an army of deputies

to meet him at the top
of Blair Mountain.

They had guns all over the place,
you know.

Of course, the coalminers, they were
armed too, but they were outnumbered

by five or ten to one, and several
people were killed.

It's believed that some people's
remains might still be

laying on the mountain up there.

The mine wars and the hellish
working conditions inspired

the Logan musicians to find
a way out through music.

Back then Dick Justice and Frank
Hutchison, they were very good,

and they all knew each other, they
played music together many times.

Frank Hutchison was the first Logan
County artist to make a record.

He travelled to New York in 1926 to
record for the Okeh company,

and when they invited him to another
session in 1927, he arranged

for some friends to secretly
audition on their lunch break.

Now, when Dad made some recordings,

Frank Hutchison and him, they helped
him set up an audition,

and they auditioned over the
telephone.

The Okeh scouts liked what they
heard,

and they wired the Williamson
Brothers & Curry train fare

to come record in St Louis.

They went on down,
and they went down on the train.

It was in 1927,
during the biggest floods

on the Mississippi River ever,

and Dad had told me stories about
when he would look out the train

all he could see was water and
see housetops sticking up

out of the water, it was that bad.

When you made recordings back then,
you recorded one time.

You didn't get that take one,
take two and take three

and take four
until you got it right.

Whatever happened on the first
recording, that is what went out.

# I'm going down this road
feeling bad

# Oh, I'm going down this road
feeling bad

# Oh, I'm going down this road
feeling bad, Lord, Lord,

# And I ain't going to be treated
this a-way... #

They recorded six songs and they
got paid $25 a song,

and that was all,
no royalties or anything,

they just got paid $25 a song
and that was it.

That's a lot different from getting
paid $0.50 a coal car, you know.

Dick Justice was the third Logan
mine worker

to win a recording contract.

Brunswick Records paid his fare to
Chicago to record in their

brand-new studio on the 21st floor
of the American Furniture Mart.

# Some take him by his
lilywhite hand

# Some take him by his feet

# We'll throw him in this
deep, deep well

# More than 100 feet

# Lie there, lie there
loving Henry Lee

# Till the flesh drops from
your bones

# I'd fly away
to the merry green land

# And tell what I have seen. #

After his recording session,
Dick Justice returned to the mines

and waited for a phone call
that never came.

He never spoke a word about his
recordings, even to his own son.

He never talked about it.

I never heard him mention ever
recording songs.

You would think if he recorded songs
at one time or another,

I would have heard him sing one of
them. I never did.

The Logan musicians received little
recognition for their records.

But decades later, three of their
songs were revived on the

Anthology Of American Folk Music -

an album that became the Bible for
a new generation of musicians.

The anthology opened with
Dick Justice's Henry Lee,

and included Frank Hutchinson's
Stackalee,

and the Williamson Brothers'
Gonna Die With A Hammer In My Hand.

I'm holding in my hand here one of
the original old 78 records -

Gonna Die With My Hammer In My Hand.

That was a story about John Henry.

Companies at that time,
they brought in a steam machine

to beat the steel and whoop it in
the ground, is what they called it.

But John Henry, according to the
legend,

he was not going to be beaten
by a steam machine,

that he could outdo it, and he just
worked so hard trying to

beat the steam machine that he just
laid down his hammer and died.

# John Henry told his captain

# Man ain't nothing but a man

# Before I'd be beaten by this old
steam drill

# Lord, I'll die
with my hammer in my hand

# Lord, I'll die with a hammer
in my hand. #

I can listen to his songs,
and get them on the computer,

on YouTube, and I listen to them
sometimes and it chokes me up

because I know what it
would do for him.

He wouldn't know what to
think about it.

It would just be amazing to him
that his music was being

recognised,
him being gone since 1972.

He would have really been
overwhelmed with it,

he really would have.

One, two...

One, two, three!

# John Henry, well,
he told his captain

# "Captain, a man, he ain't nothin'
but a man

# "Before I let your steam drill

# "Beat me down, I'm gonna die with
a hammer in my hand, Lord, Lord

# "I'll die with a hammer
in my hand"... #

Come on!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

BLUES MUSIC PLAYS, CROWD SCREAMS

# I'm the little red rooster, baby

# Too lazy to crow for day... #

I was in Chicago a little while ago
and I found a chap singing

the blues and it turned out to be
somebody you know about...

In fact, he's quite famous,
isn't he, in Britain?

Yes, well, he was the first one that
recorded Little Red Rooster! Was he?

When did he...?
Tell us something about him, Brian.

Well, when we first started
playing together, we started playing

because we wanted to play
rhythm and blues and

Howlin' Wolf was one of our
greatest idols,

so I think it's about time you shut
up and we had Howlin' Wolf on stage.

I agree, OK!

Howlin' Wolf!

INDISTINCT LYRICS

# You couldn't believe
a word I'd say... #

INDISTINCT LYRICS

# You couldn't believe a word
I'd say...

# And you'd better pray

# But I can't let you have
your way. #

And I'm starting to make ready,
it was ploughing -

ploughing four mule
on the plantation.

And a man come through picking
a guitar called Charley Patton

and I liked-ed his sound.

Every night that I'd get off
of work,

I'd go over to his house and he'd
learn me how to pick the guitar.

Then I went to playing from there.

# There's a little bo weavil keeps
movin' in the evening, Lordie!

# You can plant your cotton and you
won't get a half a bale, Lordie

# Bo weavil, bo weavil,
where's your native home, Lordie

# Bo weavil meet his wife, "We can
sit down on the hill," Lordie

# Bo weavil told his wife,
"Let's trade this 40 in," Lordie

# Bo weavil, bo weavil,
"Outta treat me fair," Lordie

# The next time I did you had
your family there, Lordie. #

Patton was a mythic figure
and his first three records were

released under three
different names - Charley Patton,

Elder JJ Hadley
and the Masked Marvel.

There is no film footage of him,
and only one known photograph.

Patton lived in a plantation
culture that had hardly

changed since the 19th century.

But a music store owner named
HC Speir

in Jackson, Mississippi, was excited
by Patton's raw sound and cut

an audition record in his makeshift
recording studio.

Uh, this is HC Speir.

I opened up the first recording

station for making trial records.

That was in 1926

and I made a test
for Charles Patton.

Patton was good.

As a rule, the best talent for
the blues singing came from

the Mississippi Delta and
that's due to hard times and

it gave them more incentive to
put more into blues, you see.

In other words,

if he were sitting around at night
and hear an owl sing,

then he would kinda feel lonesome,

and when they would sing,
late in the evening,

it was a lonesome sound, too.

And that's what made those
records sell better, too.

I have to say Charley Patton was one
of the best talents I ever had

and he was one of the best
sellers on record.

Charley Patton's songs were often
intensely personal,

reflecting the harsh
realities of his life.

In High Water Everywhere,

he recalls the devastation of the
great Mississippi Flood in 1927.

# That water was rising up

# At places all around

# Waters all around

# It was 50 women, children

# Tough luck, they can drown

# Oh, Lordie

# Women groaning down

# Oh

# Women and children
sinking down... #

Lord have mercy.

# I couldn't see nobody home
and was no-one to be found. #

Well, the significance
of Charley Patton...

cannot be understated.

Charley was just a force of nature.

Incredible voice.

It's kind of like a masking style,
where you create

a character with a voice

and then you comment on what
this character's doing.

You know?

# High water everywhere, baby
drove poor Charley

# Drove Charley down... #
"What you think of that?"

# Oh

# Women, children sinking down... #

Lord have mercy.

He was like, he was playing all
the parts, everything,

it was almost like a musical play,
you know?

Where he was singing all the
different parts of the characters.

Or side comments.

And if you listen to the music,
it always has that lope, you know?

You look at some of these
guys and go, "OK,

"so what is this guy do
all day long?

"All day long he's got two mules

"and they just go up and down
the field, ploughing."

That was the only way they did it,
they didn't have a tractor. But...

all of that's in the music.

# I'm goin' away

# To a world unknown

# I'm goin' away

# To a world unknown

# I'm worried now, but I won't be
worried long

# My rider got somethin'

# She's tryin'a keep it hid... #

Charley Patton lived on a vast
plantation known as Dockery Farms.

Like many black Delta dwellers,

his family would later leave
for the North,

but we brought two young relatives
back to explore their roots.

It was the first time they'd
visited Dockery.

I'm Kenny Cannon.

My grandfather, John Cannon,

was born on this plantation and

told me I have a very famous uncle
who invented blues.

My Aunt Bessie would say that...

Charley Patton was the ultimate
showman.

I'll say it like she said it -
he could pick the guitar.

With his mouth, with his hands,
behind his back...

Crawling, laying on the floor,

simulating different acts on stage.

He was like a one-man band.

To come here to Dockery
and look around

is a very humbling experience.

To know that a woman
that I know and love,

as a child, picked cotton on this
plantation,

to know that there were thousands of
African-Americans enslaved

against their will, sharecropping
for a meagre existence,

I get new insight, and I'm really
grateful for the struggles

and the sacrifice that my
ancestors made before me.

My name is William Lester.

I moved here over 40 years ago

and I'm the Executive Director of
the Dockery Farm Foundation. OK.

I am just tickled pink for you to be
here and for me to get to meet you,

because I had no idea when I started
my career that Charley Patton

would be so important to me.

Back then, the workers built
a 12-mile long railroad from

Dockery all the way to Boyle,
and so that train brought all that

food here and kept those
people alive.

But what it did was, it brought all
the blues singers here.

And back then, they had no fans,

no electricity, no running water,

no nothing, and so they wouldn't
have heard anything all week long

while they were working except
the wind in the leaves and

all of a sudden,
these guys would show up,

they'd come in on the train, can you
imagine what that did to them?

Mm-hm. They'd been working
so hard all week long, and wow!

People would show up playing metal
acoustic National guitars,

loud and brassy.

# He got a letter this morning

# How do you reckon it read?

# It said, "Hurry, hurry, yeah,

# "Your love is dead"

# He got a letter this morning

# How do you reckon it read?

# It said, "Hurry, hurry

# "Cos the gal you love is dead."

# He grabbed up his suitcase

# Took off down the road

# When he got there
she was laying on the cooling board

# He grabbed up his suitcase... #

This Dockery commissary drew a lot
of people like Son House,

all kinds of blues singers.

Almost all of them back in the '20s
and '30s came here because of

the isolated group of people, and
they could perform in front of,

so they had a captive audience,
almost. Mm-hmm.

But then they could play their
form of the blues. Yeah.

In that era,
music was a break from reality.

The reality was you're a
sharecropper,

you're working hard every day
of your life.

And it gives you an opportunity to
get a break from

that hard day-to-day work.

That's why it's so impactful,
even to this day.

The reason Dockery is considered to
be the birthplace of the blues

is because of all the
education that went on here.

Howlin' Wolf came here as about
a ten-year-old.

And, you know, I mean,
Howlin' Wolf's a big bluesman.

He couldn't do anything when
he came here with a guitar.

Charley taught him how to play the
guitar.

When he was about 18, he left.

At the same time, Pop Staples
came here, Willie Brown came here.

Tommy Johnson.
Robert Johnson came here to play.

He's considered the best
guitar player of the blues.

But Charley taught all of them
how to play here,

and Honey Boy Edwards,
he was probably one of the last

original blues singers to
actually play here.

This previously unseen footage
includes the earliest filmed

performance by a Dockery musician.

Honey Boy Edwards, playing on a
street corner in 1942.

# ..when I'm down

# I'd be the same as when I arrive

# Cos I see my woman, baby

# Oh, she's standing on the side

# Lord, I'm working in New York
City... #

HARMONICA PLAYS

When we interviewed Honeyboy,
he was 91 years old,

one of the last musicians with
direct links to Charley Patton.

This is Honeyboy Edwards.

I was born in Shaw, Mississippi,
1915.

And I played the guitar. My father
played guitar and violin.

And my mother played harmonica.
And my name is Honeyboy Edwards.

And that's, right, whatever.
This is me.

Charley Patton, he was Indian.

He dressed clean.

Wore his hair out, curled to the
side. He was Indian.

Yeah, he had some good-looking
women.

I used to go with one of his
women.

Well, he was attractive
at the time because

he'd made calls that didn't too
many people make.

With Charley Patton you called him
the Father of the Delta.

He was a good blues player
back at the time.

And his name was ringing all
through the desert,

"Charley Patton, Charley Patton."

He played
for all the country dances.

# I'm gonna move to Alabama

# I'm going to move to Alabama,
make Georgia be your home... #

The 96-year-old guitarist Homesick
James had vivid memories of

Patton's performances.

He...

HE LAUGHS

How did you manage to be heard with
just guitar and voice?

HE LAUGHS

Well, Charley...

He drank a lot of whisky,
a lot of white whisky.

And he'd break up his own dances.

Yeah, broke up his own, he'd fight.
He'd get to play on the guitar

and somebody would say,
"Do you want to fight?"

He'd break up his own dances.

Charley died in '34.

He had got to fighting at Holly
Ridge and some guy had cut him here

on the throat.

Two years after Patton's death,

Robert Johnson blended his style

with the latest sounds from Chicago
and St Louis,

and made the most famous Delta blues
recordings of all time.

He too was discovered by HC Speir,

and is now considered
a forefather of rock and roll.

His most direct musical
descendant was his stepson,

91-year-old Robert Lockwood Jr.

# The train left the station

# With two lights on behind

# When the train pulled away
from the station

# With two lights on behind

# The blue light was my blues

# And the red one was my mind

# All my love in vain. #

Oh, that was one of
Robert Johnson's tunes.

And the name of it is Love In Vain.
Yeah.

When did you learn that song?
Oh, Jesus Christ.

I learned that song a long,
long time ago.

Oh, I learned that song when
I was about, er...

..about 16.

Who taught it to you?

Robert Johnson.

I was on his case.

Everything that I learnt
from him at that time,

he showed me about twice.

I'm known as somebody who can
play his material.

Everybody else messes it up.

The blues is supposed to be made to
play slow like Charley Patton,

but a lot of the boys are playing
the blues now and some of

them are playing their blues first,
and it sounds all right.

And you'll be going over and over
and not hitting on

nothing, you know what I mean?

Rab-rab-rab-rab.

There's a few can sing.

Then you start out...
HE WAILS

They can't sing, but they can play.

I'm not a doctor,

but what I think, their voice
cords is not like ours.

Know what I mean?
Their voice cord is not like ours.

That's when they can't control it.

They can play, but they can't...

You catch some...can sing good,

but just a few of them now,
just a few.

THEY LAUGH

THEIR LAUGHS ECHO

Charley Patton was able to share his
experience in his music.

And what it represented was
one person on a platform,

representing a whole environment

of African-Americans being
underprivileged.

African-Americans
being disenfranchised.

African-Americans not having
an opportunity,

an equal opportunity in
this country.

So I think the translation from
blues, all the way to rock,

now to hip-hop,
was just a metamorphosis and

a culmination of the entire
African-American experience

that was rooted in slavery.

And we've always found
a way to scream through the music.

# I told my baby

# That you had never done me wrong

# Oh, I could tell you, honey

# Oh, you're going to take off
from me some day

# I said, then you going to be sorry

# That you treated poor old me
this way. #

In the years following
Charley Patton's death,

the Mississippi Delta was
transformed.

The mechanised machinery came in.

So instead of using mules and
people, they just used tractors.

And one man on a tractor could do
what 100 men with a mule could do.

It changed the whole labour
workforce completely.

And the people all left.

Sharecroppers,
mule drivers and cotton pickers

streamed up Highway 61 on the
great migration north,

to industrial cities
like Chicago and Detroit.

They took only a few possessions,

their stories and their music.

It's really hard to know how
far-reaching

the influence of Charley Patton is.

I mean, he influenced the first
generation of Delta guys.

You know, guys like Muddy Waters,

BB King and John Lee Hooker.

And the younger Delta guys,
like Robert Lockwood.

But his big thumbprint is
on Howlin' Wolf.

Wolf clearly states that
he went over to Patton and sat down

and Patton showed him his tunes
and the way that he played them.

You can't get that
unless you were right next to him.

You had to be able to watch him
play it every night.

For SEVERAL every nights.

# If you see me running

# I'll come streaking by

# You'd better run

# If you see me running

# I'll come streaking by

# She got a bad old man

# I'm too young to die. #

When you hear
a lot of the early Wolf stuff,

you hear Patton in there.

But Wolf brought it
to a new generation,

and then carried it forward.

# Allons a Lafayette

# C'est pour changer ton nom

# On va t'appeler, Madame

# Madame Canaille Comeaux... #

# Avalon, my hometown,
always on my mind

# Avalon, my hometown,
always on my mind... #

My name's AlyssaBeth K Archambault.

And my great-uncle is Joseph Kekuku,

the inventor of the
Hawaiian steel guitar.

He was only 11 years old,
and that is pretty young to be

so devoted to creating something new

that didn't exist.

He felt so inspired,
because he had a mission.

So he took the mainland,
he took the world.

In the '20s and '30s,

up to the '40s, Hawaiian music
was really kind of the rage.

It's an area that's kind
of cut off to itself.

It has its own weather,

its energy,
its moisture, its pace.

You know, its mixture,
it's a totally different thing.

Cajun music has always been passed
down through the families.

We learned it from our
dad and uncles.

Our grandpa played music, his
dad played music.

This music really resembles the
landscape from which it's born.

The bayous are very crooked

and winding and slow,

just like the music can be very
unconventional. It's not square.

We call it croche,
it means crooked.

And it doesn't resemble any
other music.

# Oh, but you can't move on

# Oh... #

There's definitely
a sense of urgency in Cajun music.

From living where you love to live,
but also a lot of suffering that

goes along with it, because it's a
very intense, harsh landscape.

HE SINGS
IN A THICK CAJUN ACCENT

# Avalon, my hometown,
always on my mind

# Avalon, my hometown,
always on my mind... #

Dick Spottiswood. Dick?
APPLAUSE

I've been asked to say
a few words about John,

so I'll make it as brief as possible
so you can hear him play himself.

When we found him this spring,
he hadn't played guitar for years,

but he picks it up now and
plays like a champ.

It's been quite a while
since I did any of this.

And I'm very happy to
be with y'all.

You know, I can't help but be happy.

Last I remember playing much
of this, why,

I was with the Okeh company,
records for them, '28 and '29.

So, Spottiswood discovered me down
in Avalon, Mississippi.

There was one John Hurt title that
none of the Hurt fans,

such as we were in the late 1950s,
had ever heard.

And the first thing I heard was
the lyric that says,

"Avalon's my hometown,
it's always on my mind."

And so I extrapolated

from that that must be a place in
Mississippi called Avalon,

and we went to the atlas to look it
up, and there it was.

It was clear, by just looking at the
map that it wasn't anything

more than a speck on the road.

# Avalon, my hometown,
always on my mind

# Avalon, my hometown,
always on my mind

# Pretty mama's in Avalon,
want me there all the time... #

WOMAN: People just knew him
as Mississippi John Hurt.

But he was Daddy John.

When another friend decided that
he was going to go down to the

Mardi Gras in New Orleans in 1963,

I looked at the map again and said,

"It's not too far out of your way to
stop by Avalon, Mississippi,

"and see if anybody
has ever heard of John Hurt."

And so he did, and the first person
he asked gave him directions

to John Hurt's house.

And he goes, "Are you the person
that made this sound?"

He goes, "Yeah." And he said,
"Can you play this song?"

And Daddy John responded,
"I could if I had a guitar."

And the guy had a guitar,
so he played this song for him.

And he goes,
"Do you know how famous you are?"

And Daddy John was like, "No."

You know, it was just,
no, he had no idea.

Why, I thought it was real funny.
I said, "Why, what have I did?

"Is the FBI looking for me?"

So the first little number
I might do is Stack O'Lee.

# Police officer, how can it be?

# You can 'rest everybody
but cruel Stack O'Lee

# That bad man,
oh, cruel Stack O'Lee... #