PERNELL CHARITY

Born 20 November 1920, Waverly, Virginia, USA, d. 12 April 1979, Waverly, Virginia, USA. Although Charity’s guitar playing and singing show many and varied influences, he appears to have spent most of his life in the town where he was born. His compositions, such as all the tracks on his 1972 album, suggest an awareness of the wider world, even if it was one in which he chose not to travel, and of the history of the blues and its practitioners as well as of the culture of the deep south: ‘War Blues’, ‘Pig Meat Mama’, ‘Mamie’, ‘Richmond Blues’, ‘Blind Man’ and ‘Blind Lemon’s Blues’.