“...You might say it all started right here.” - B.B.King

Dockery Farms was established in 1895 to produce cotton, America's biggest export at the time. African Americans who worked at Dockery, including blues pioneer Charley Patton, created a culture that inspired the music we know as the blues. Their songs influenced the development of popular music all over the world. more

Notes from Dockery Farms
News, music, and musings from the foundation and the farm.

Give My Poor Heart Ease: An oral history of the blues as heard by folklorist William Ferris

Noted historian and folklorist, William Ferris, who serves as the Chair of the Dockery Farms Foundation advisory board, has published a new book called Give My Poor Heart Ease. The book, which includes over 20 interviews from the 1960s and 70s with Mississippi blues musicians, comes with a CD of original music and a DVD documentary. Each story is supported by photos and sound recordings, some of which can be found on the book’s web site.

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January 6, 2012

We want your old pictures and videos!

Our new site allows you to participate in recording the history of the blues. If you have visited us at Dockery and have photographs, videos, or even audio recordings from your trip, please share them with us and become a part of our history.

If you post your photos and videos to Facebook, Flickr or YouTube, just be sure to make them public and tag them Dockery Farms and we’ll automatically find them within a few days. You can also send us a direct link to your photos and we’ll make sure to include them in our photo sets.

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January 6, 2012

Welcome to the new DockeryFarms.org

Welcome to the brand new Dockery Farms Foundation web site. We hope this new site gives you a better window onto who we are and what we do here at the foundation as we try to promote the history of the blues and its recognition in the American story.

You can learn more about the musicians who lived here and the context in which they lived by visiting our history or the blues. In our history, you’ll see a timeline that begins just as the as the American Civil War ends, and which ends just as World War II begins. This period, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, proved to be...

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December 6, 2011