Bobby Blue Bland (1930-2013)

Bobby Bland was born Robert Calvin Brooks in Barretville on January 27, 1930. He moved to Memphis in 1947 and joined the Beale Streeters, a circle that included B.B. King, Rosco Gordon, Junior Parker and Johnny Ace. At Duke Records, run by Houston's Don Robey, he was paid half a cent a record against an industry standard of two cents, and arranger Joe Scott shaped his big-band blues sound. Farther Up the Road reached number one on the R&B chart in 1957. He entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and died in 2013 in Germantown.

What the plaque says

Bobby Blue Bland (1930-2013) Robert Calvin Bland enjoyed a long and highly successful career as blues singer and songwriter "Bobby Blue Bland." He spent his childhood in the community of Barretville. By age 11, he was singing for drivers of mule-drawn cotton wagons at the Barret Company gin (northeast of this site), thus earning as much as 50 cents for each rendition of country and western tunes. In less public settings, and away from his disapproving grandmother, he sang the blues, a musical genre not widely accepted at that time. At age 17, Bland moved with his family to Memphis. He performed the blues on Beale Street and in juke joints before having his first hit single, "Farther on Up the Road," on rhythm and blues charts. Bland received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Pillow State Historic Park — 19 mi
  A National Historic Landmark on the Chickasaw Bluffs where, on April 12, 1864, Confederate troops massacred Black Union soldiers who were trying to surrender.
• Hampson Archeological Museum State Park — 21 mi
  A free state museum on the town square in Wilson that holds the Nodena collection, one of the best Late Mississippian pottery collections known, from a palisaded village on the Mississippi occupied from A.D. 1400 to 1650.
• Sun Studio — 22 mi
  The small Union Avenue room where Sam Phillips recorded Rocket 88, Howlin' Wolf, Elvis Presley and the Million Dollar Quartet, now a National Historic Landmark.
• Elmwood Cemetery — 23 mi
  Memphis's oldest active cemetery, a rural garden cemetery of about 1,500 trees opened in 1852, with Black civic leaders, yellow fever victims and the city's whole history in its lots.

More markers nearby

• Paul W. Barrett — steps away
• Randolph — 5.1 mi
• Sgt. Walter K. Singleton — 10 mi
• Davies Manor — 11 mi