Dockery: Where the blues took root

Before 1895, Dockery Plantation was, like much of the Delta at the time, a swampy tangle of gum and cypress trees, panthers, wolves and mosquitoes.

To build it into a working cotton plantation with its own gin required labor – and lots of it. Thus began the assemblage of the African-American men who launched the blues: Henry Sloan, Charley Patton, Son House, Willie Brown, Tommy Johnson and, later, Robert Johnson and Chester “Howlin’ Wolf” Burnett.

For a remarkable deep dive into the sounds and history of the blues, download Mike Rugel’s complete podcast collection from the “Uncensored History of the Blues.”

– Chris Schroder, The 100 Companies