Charley Patton’s “High Sheriff Blues,” recorded for Paramount Records in 1934, is about Charley Patton’s incarceration in the old Belzoni* Jail, in Belzoni, Mississippi , circa 1934.
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Charley Patton had been a witness to a murder and was held in the old Belzoni jail as a material witness.
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The lyrics about how “Mr. Will” put Charley Patton “in a cellar, just as dark as it could be…” and how “Mr. Purvis told Mr. Will to, let poor Charley down” doesn’t suggest Patton had any feelings of good will toward “Mr. Will.” “Mr. Purvis,” on the other hand, comes across as Charley Patton’s protector or benefactor.

Mississippi Blues