Welcome to five minutes in church history hosted by Dr Stephen Nichols, where we take a little

break from the present to go exploring the past. Travel back in time as we look at the people,

events, and even the places that have shaped the story of Christianity.

This is our story, our family history.

Let's get started.

Welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history.

On this episode, we're going to be visiting a place that I don't think we visited before.

We're going to the Mississippi Delta. And there, in the middle to the Mississippi Delta.

And there in the middle of the Mississippi Delta is a place called

Dockery Farms, and there was the Dockery Plantation.

In 1891, born on the Dockery Plantation was Charlie Patton.

His father, Bill Patton, had hoped that his young son would grow up to be a pastor.

And Charlie Patton's grandmother wanted

above all for her grandson to be a pastor too. But early on, Charlie

Patton picked up a guitar and he was very good at the guitar, and so he set out to be a blues man.

He ended up recording a number of songs.

He traveled up to Grafton, Wisconsin, and there he recorded songs for Paramount Records. He made his way

over to New York and recorded for Columbia and had quite a repertoire of blues songs

recorded under his name. But he always wanted to be a

pastor. He struggled with this idea of being a blues man and felt like his calling

was actually to be a preacher. From time to time he would not

only record blues songs, but he would also record gospel songs. In fact, one of the songs he

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