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Deep in the Mississippi Delta
region is Dockery Plantation in Ruleville where the blues as we know
it came alive.
Charley Patton, the
original bluesman and rock-n-roll inspiration, lived here.
Robert Johnson visited here often as did Howlin' Wolf when he was a
child. I felt a shiver run through me when I thought "This is
where Charley Patton first performed...where Howlin' Wolf, here with
his family visiting relatives, used to learn the blues from Charley
Patton, and where Robert Johnson first played his guitar."
Dockery Plantation is to the blues
what Jerusalem is to religion, what New Orleans is to jazz, what
Philadelphia and Boston are to freedom, the place where blues
music's greatest influences grew and flourished.
And if you look
closely at this picture, you can see where Bluejeans made his
pilgrimage to this birthplace of blue music!
A special thanks to William Dockery Jenkins of
Philadelphia, MS who provided this photograph of Great-grandfather
Will Dockery's painting.
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