The second Blues at Timbuctoo festival will bring four acts to historic John Brown Farm on Saturday, September 16, from 11 am to 5 pm. The event, which is presented by John Brown Lives! and Delta Blue, is free and open to the public.

This year’s performers include: Jerry Dugger, a Bronx-born, Harlem-raised guitar player who frequently plays the Red Lion and Lucille’s Grille at B.B. King’s Blues Club in New York City; Alexis P. Suter, a powerful singer nominated for multiple Blues Music Awards, including Best Contemporary Female Act in 2017; Michael Hill Blues Mob, a Bronx-based trio that blends the blues with rock, reggae, funk and R&B (Hill is a 2011 inductee into the New York Blues Hall of Fame); and the Russ Bailey Trio, a North Country group specializing in blues and boogie.

The festival marries blues music with a conversation about race relations in a place synonymous with the struggle for civil rights. Ellen Rocco of North Country Public Radio, the festival’s media sponsor, will host the event.

In addition to the music, John Brown Lives!’ “Dreaming of Timbuctoo” exhibition will be on display at the farm’s Upper Barn. The exhibition is a detailed exposition of part of the North Country’s abolitionist history, in which wealthy landowner Gerrit Smith helped black New Yorkers gain the right to vote by giving away 40-acre plots of land. The giveaway undercut a ruling that had denied those rights to black New Yorkers who owned less than $250 in real property, and encouraged several families to relocate to the area. The exhibit is on permanent display at the barn.

The John Brown Farm is located at 115 John Brown Rd, Lake Placid.

For more information about John Brown Lives!, visit their website.