Several times here and on the Woodshed I've had occasion to mention that I'd been told on good authority that after his rediscovery, some ethnomusicologist played a Patton record for Son House and asked him to decipher the lyrics, only to have Son tell him you could be in the same room as Charley and not be able to understand him.
Well, my fingers got tired so I came here to see what was new, and in the Quote Oracle near the top of the screen, I read this:
When I asked Son House to listen to a particular line from a song by Charley Patton that I could not make out, House laughed. He said "You could sit at Charley's feet and not understand a word he sang." - Jeff Todd Titon, Early Downhome Blues
