Bertha Lee Pate, known more commonly as Bertha Lee (June 17, 1902 – May 10, 1975) was an American

classic female blues Classic female blues was an early form of blues music, popular in the 1920s. An amalgam of traditional folk blues and urban theater music, the style is also known as vaudeville blues. Classic blues were performed by female singers accompanied by ...

singer, active in the 1920s and 1930s. She recorded with, and was the

common-law wife Common-law marriage, also known as non-ceremonial marriage, marriage, informal marriage, or marriage by habit and repute, is a legal framework where a couple may be considered married without having formally registered their relation as a civil ...

Charley Patton Charley Patton (April 1891 (probable) – April 28, 1934), also known as Charlie Patton, was an American Delta blues musician and songwriter. Considered by many to be the "Father of the Delta Blues", he created an enduring body of American mus ...

Biography

When she was young, Lee's family moved to Lula,

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

. Lee met Patton in 1930 and remained his partner until his death in 1934. During this time, she sang on twelve of Patton's recordings, which resulted in the recording of three of her own songs, "Yellow Bee", "Dog Train Blues", and "Mind Reader Blues". Patton accompanied her on guitar on these records. In 1933, the couple settled in

Holly Ridge, Mississippi Holly Ridge is an unincorporated community in Sunflower County, Mississippi. It is located in the Mississippi Delta, approximately five miles west of Indianola. Blues history The early Delta blues guitarist and singer, Charley Patton (1891–193 ...

. Her relationship with Patton was a turbulent one. In early 1934, both of them were

incarcerated A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correcti ...

in a

Belzoni, Mississippi Belzoni ( ) is a city in Humphreys County, Mississippi, United States, in the Mississippi Delta region, on the Yazoo River. The population was 2,235 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Humphreys County. It was named for the 19th-centur ...

jailhouse after a particularly harsh fight. W. R. Calaway from

Vocalion Records Vocalion Records is an American record company and label. History The label was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Company, a maker of pianos and organs, as Aeolian-Vocalion; the company also sold phonographs under the Vocalion name. "Aeolian" was ...

bailed the pair out of jail, and escorted them to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, for what would be Patton's final sessions (on January 30 and February 1). They later returned to Holly Ridge and Lee saw Patton out in his final days, as he died, according to his death certificate, of a

mitral valve The mitral valve (), also known as the bicuspid valve or left atrioventricular valve, is one of the four heart valves. It has two cusps or flaps and lies between the left atrium and the left ventricle of the heart. The heart valves are all one-w ...

disorder on April 28, 1934. Little else is known of Lee, and her recordings with Patton are the only documents of her

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in ...

. The album, ''Masters of the Delta Blues : The Friends of Charlie Patton'' contains some of her work. She died in 1975 in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

References

1902 births 1975 deaths American blues singers People from Lula, Mississippi Blues musicians from Mississippi 20th-century American singers 20th-century American women singers {{US-singer-stub