Biography
Big Amos Patton entered the world of music bearing an unusually distinguished lineage, being a nephew of the legendary Charley Patton. Born in Sardis, Mississippi, in 1921, he came of age alongside the blues in its emergence as a documented art form, absorbing a style profoundly shaped by Rice Miller, better known as Sonny Boy Williamson II. Following his service in World War II, Patton relocated to West Memphis, Arkansas, where he collaborated primarily with Joe Willie Wilkins on radio broadcasts and performances in neighborhood juke joints. In the early 1960s he began circulating a self-penned composition titled “He Won’t Bite Me Twice,” which he planned to cut himself. After declining a publishing arrangement with Stax Records that would have placed the number with Albert King, Patton signed with Hi Records, remaining there for five years while cutting sides sporadically and touring throughout his regional circuit of the South; his abilities earned him a featured appearance on the mid-1960s television program The !!!! Beat, whose host and creator Hoss Allen held his performances in high regard. Although “He Won’t Bite Me Twice” became the track most closely identified with him, Patton disappeared from recording after the song surfaced on a Hi Records anthology collection issued in the mid-1970s.