Bill Lester

Biography

Bill Lester is an artist, retired art lecturer, and local historian and, since 1986, Director at the Dockery Farms Foundation on what used to be the Dockery family plantation in Cleveland, Mississippi, USA. Dockery Plantation became famous for Blues music from the 1920s onward as Charley Patton lived and worked there before becoming a legendary blues musician who inspired blues stars including Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, B.B. King, and Elvis Presley. Lester bought some land from the Dockery family in the 1970s and learned the local history from people who grew up at Dockery and knew Patton personally. Lester tells the Dockery story to the bus loads of Blues fans who make pilgrimages to Dockery Farms each year.