Historical Marker
J. B. Lenoir
Monticello, Lawrence County · Mississippi
Erected by Mississippi Blues Commission, 2011
J. B. Lenoir's last recordings were acoustic. After Big Bill Broonzy helped introduce him to Chicago's blues community in 1949, he built a name on sharp topical songs, and in 1965 he toured Britain with the American Folk Blues Festival. Sessions from 1965 and 1966 with drummer Fred Below were later released as Alabama Blues and Down in Mississippi. He died in Urbana, Illinois, in April 1967, aged 38, weeks after a car crash. The marker stands in Monticello on the grounds of the Lawrence County Civic Center and Regional History Museum.
Where it stands
31.55388, -90.10773 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Prentiss Institute — 15 miA school for Black Mississippians founded in 1907 in a former plantation house, with a restored 1926 Rosenwald building that now holds a museum.
More markers nearby
- Cooper's Ferry — steps away
- Gov. A. H. Longino House — 0.3 mi
- A. H. Longino — 0.3 mi
- First Choctaw Cession — 14 mi