WILLIE B. COCHRAN
KEEPER OF STORIES
Preacher. Blues historian. Porch philosopher. For 50 years, Willie B. Cochran has carried the songs, sermons and survival wisdom of the Mississippi Delta — from cotton fields to Chicago churches to festival stages around the world.
A life tuned to truth, testimony & twelve bars
Born in a shotgun house outside Clarksdale, Mississippi, Willie B. Cochran learned guitar on a broom wire, scripture on his grandmother's knee, and survival watching sharecroppers turn sorrow into song.
Willie B. Cochran is not a celebrity in the Hollywood sense — he is something rarer: a memory keeper. Baptized in the Sunflower River, raised on cornmeal and spirituals, called to preach at 17, he spent his twenties picking cotton by day and playing juke joints by night.
By the 1970s he was riding Greyhounds between Mississippi pulpits and Chicago blues clubs, recording elders on a reel-to-reel tape machine: former sharecroppers, midwives, Pullman porters, gospel mothers, and forgotten bluesmen who never made a record but made a community.
Today his front porch in Mississippi is part church, part classroom, part studio. Children come for guitar lessons. Scholars come for oral history. Neighbors come because somebody's got to tell it like it was — with humor, with fire, and with love.
His work bridges faith and folklore: Sunday morning he preaches on Exodus; Thursday night he explains how that same Exodus runs through Charley Patton, Muddy Waters and Mahalia Jackson. For Willie, blues and gospel are not opposites — they are two wings of the same bird trying to get home.
Preserve 500+ hours of Delta voices, teach youth to play, preach and remember.
“Tell it true. Tell it funny. Tell it so the babies remember.”
Three chords, one calling
The Unsung Strings
Willie tracked down 87 musicians who never recorded commercially. He teaches their tunings, their jokes, their walking bass lines — so a 12-year-old today can play like 1932.
Faith That Works
50 years in the pulpit across Mississippi and Chicago. His sermons mix King James, street wisdom and song — food pantries, freedom schools and second chances built sermon by sermon.
Porch Sessions
Every Thursday, folding chairs, sweet tea, and whoever shows up. Ghost stories, migration tales, civil-rights testimonies — recorded, transcribed and shared free in this archive.
Neighbor First
From voter registration in the 60s to youth guitar giveaways today, Willie believes memory must move feet. His motto: archive with action.
From cotton field to cornerstone
Eight decades, one long song. Follow the road Willie walked — and the people who walked with him.
A shotgun house, a storm, a song
Born during a thunderstorm outside Clarksdale. Grandmother Lizzie sings “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” while rain drums the tin roof — his first memory is music.
Learning on nothing
Builds his first diddley-bow from broom wire, a 2x4 and a bottle. Learns Son House licks by ear from a neighbor's wind-up phonograph.
Exodus at 17
Preaches his first sermon at New Hope M.B. Church. Half the congregation cries, half shouts. He realizes words can do what music does.
North to Maxwell Street
Follows the Illinois Central north. Pastors a storefront church by day, sits in with blues bands at night, starts taping elders' stories.
300 tapes in a closet
Formalizes the collection: 300+ hours of interviews, sermons and songs. Starts “Porch History” classes for kids who'd never heard of sharecropping.
Back to Mississippi soil
Returns to Clarksdale, restores family homeplace into a free community space — lessons, meals, recording booth open to all.
williebcochran.com
The digital front porch. Every sermon note, song lesson and story, digitized for grandchildren everywhere. You are standing on it now.
Take Willie home with you
Four works distilled from fifty years. Humor, scripture and string-bending wisdom you can hold.
Porch Wisdom: Sayings My Grandmama Meant
212 proverbs, each with a story and a scripture. Funny, sharp, unforgettable.
The Unsung Strings of the Delta
Portraits of 40 forgotten bluesmen, with tunings, photos and QR lessons.
Sermons & Strings Vol. II (Vinyl + Book)
Six sermons interleaved with solo guitar. Pressed for front-porch listening.
Faces, places, grace
What neighbors say
“Reverend Cochran married my parents, buried my granddaddy, and taught my son his first G chord. He's our family album with legs.”
— Denise W., Clarksdale“I came for blues research, stayed for church. Nobody connects Patton to Psalms like Willie. My dissertation owes him everything.”
— Dr. Alan P., Historian“He gave my boy a guitar when we couldn't afford one. Said 'pay me back by teaching somebody else.' That's church.”
— Marcus T., ChicagoFresh from the porch
Sermon notes, song lessons, memory pieces and announcements. Click any story to read the full page — each lives at its own address like williebcochran.com/my-story/.
No stories yet — but the kettle is on.
The archive is being transcribed. Check back soon for sermons, song lessons and porch tales. Meanwhile explore Willie's life.
Invite Willie to your church, school or festival.
Sermons, workshops, concerts, oral-history trainings. Willie travels with a guitar, a Bible, and a hundred stories — and leaves a recording for your archive.
Pull up a chair
Letters answered on Thursdays. Prayer requests anytime. For bookings, include date, place and what kind of gathering — church, classroom or juke joint, Willie adapts.
Front Porch Mail
Cochran Heritage House
1420 Sunflower Ave
Clarksdale, MS 38614
Open Thursdays 2–6pm for visitors.
Guitar lessons for youth — always free.
House rules
1. Everybody eats. 2. Everybody sings at least one verse. 3. What’s said on the porch stays in love, but good stories may be recorded — with permission — for grandchildren yet unborn.