Hartsville native connects to Pink Floyd

Hartsville native, Jud Patterson, has an interesting project up his sleeve. Patterson is now a resident of Cary, N.C., where he came upon a unique connection between some Blues music pioneers and the well known band Pink Floyd.

As Patterson tells his story in an article written for “Boom” magazine, a regional publication out of Cary, the Piedmont area of North Carolina has a tremendous musical legacy. Many music greats were either from there or developed their own unique style of music while living there. Two such musicians were Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. The two were Black musicians and played the Blues.

While neither of the men achieved great fame individually, they played and sang with the better known Blind Boy Fuller. Several different musicians played for “Blind Boy” but the last members of the group were Sonny Terry on harmonica, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council on backing guitars and vocals.

If you are a fan of Blues music you may be more familiar with Blind Boy Fuller than most people. Many better known artists such as Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Van Morrison are fans of the Piedmont Blues musicians and their music.

Yet, the two men’s unique contribution to music history has to do with an unknown British rock group called “The Tea Set."

In the early 1960s the group was part of a line up playing a concert. As they prepared to go on stage they realized that the band previous to them had the same exact name, The Tea Set. One member of the band, Syd Barrett, had been looking at a Blues record while waiting to go on stage. On the record were the names of the musicians. Two of those names stood out in Barrett’s mind…Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. It was then that he put the two names together and announced to those present that they were now the band, “Pink Floyd!"

Strange but true!

Patterson lives close to where both Pink Anderson and Floyd Council lived and died and are buried.

That is his real connection to the story.

Patterson is part of a group trying to save, cleanup and restore the cemetery of an old black congregation, the White Oak A.M.E. church in Sanford, N.C. The cemetery holds the unmarked grave of Floyd Council.

He is also the owner of Kreative Concepts. His company makes and sells specialty items. To help fund the drive to save the old cemetery, Patterson has designed a coffee cup with both Pink Anderson and Floyd Council’s pictures and brief histories of each. The generous 15 ounce coffee mug can be purchased by going to the www.KKLLC.com/pf.htm. Proceeds from the sale of the mugs go to the cemetery project, including a proper headstone for Floyd Council!

Many Hartsville residents will recall Patterson and his sister, Jan, from when he grew up here. His mother was a descendent of the Oakley family that for years ran Throp-Oakley Funeral Home, our county’s first funeral home. We congratulate him for his interest in music preservation and in working to save the old cemetery and the graves located there. We encourage you to help Patterson with this project and go online to purchase a mug.