Charley Patton was the first voice of the Delta blues. Before Robert Johnson, before Muddy Waters, before anyone plugged in -- there was Patton, a small man with a huge voice, playing guitar behind his head and between his legs, singing the Mississippi Delta into existence on 78rpm records. Pony Blues was the first great Delta recording.

He was a showman before showmanship was a concept in the blues -- playing the guitar upside down, beating it like a drum, hollering lyrics that could be heard over the noise of a juke joint without amplification. He recorded for Paramount, traveled the Delta playing fish fries and barrelhouses, and taught a generation of younger musicians -- Son House, Willie Brown, a young Howlin' Wolf -- what the blues could be.

He recorded about 60 sides between 1929 and 1934, and by the time he died of heart failure at 43 -- or 40, depending on who's telling the story -- he'd established the vocabulary of the Delta blues: the driving rhythms, the impassioned vocals, the slide guitar that would define the genre's next half-century. Everything that came after owes him.

Charley Patton was the first voice of the Delta blues. Small man, huge presence, played behind his head before it was a gimmick. Pony Blues is where the Delta blues begins. Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf -- they all started by listening to him.