Charley Booker was a blues singer and guitarist from the Mississippi Delta, who recorded in the early 1950s for Modern Records.
Background
Charley Booker was born in 1925 on a plantation between the Mississippi communities of Moorhead and Sunflower, the son of Lucius Booker. There is some doubt about his date of birth: in interviews, Booker stated that he was born in 1925, but Social Security records give the date as September 3, 1919.
Career
Booker stated that as a child he had himself seen Patton perform near indianola, Mississippi. He worked occasionally as a musician from the late 1930s. By the early 1940s Booker had moved to Leland, Mississippi, and in 1947 he moved to Greenville, Mississippi, where he worked with pianist Willie Love and also met or worked with musicians such as Elmore James, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Little Milton, Ike Turner and Houston Boines.
By 1951 he had his own radio show (possibly on station WDVM), and in 1952 he was approached by Ike Turner to record for Modern Records.
Early in 1953 Booker moved to South Bend, Indiana, and ceased music as a full-time occupation. He continued to play locally, but his only further recording was a live appearance with Joe Willie Wilkins at a 1973 blues festival at Notre Dame, in South Bend.
He died on September 20, 1989.