London: Studio Vista Limited, 1970. First edition. 112pp., with selected discography and bibliography. Small 8vo. Brown textured paper boards; silver spine lettering; dust jacket. Light, inoffensive foxing to textblock top, slight musty odor. Else fine in a fine, price-clipped jacket with a tiny surface abrasion to the front bottom tip. A nice example of the uncommon hardcover issue.
First edition of this biography and musicological analysis of the Mississippi guitarist Charley Patton (1891–1934), known as the "Father of the Delta Blues" for the enormous influence he exerted on succeeding generations of blues musicians. Fahey (1939–2001) was himself an enormously influential steel-string guitar player, generally recognized as the progenitor of the "American Primitive" fingerstyle genre, whose technical lexicon drew heavily on the country blues model. Charley Patton was originally written as Fahey's 1966 master's thesis in folklore at UCLA, and includes transcriptions and textual analyses of all of Patton's extant songs. The book is rooted in Fahey's deep appreciation for—and understanding of—the Delta blues tradition, and stands as one of the more impressive examples of an American musician reflecting on the history and lore of their own craft.
