Jones County Blues

Johnny Vincent started out selling used 78s from the jukebox of his parents' Laurel restaurant, then founded Ace Records in Jackson in 1955. Sam Myers made his first record for Ace in 1957. Albennie Jones, from Errata, sang in church in Gulfport before starting a blues career in New York in the 1930s, and on some 1940s records Dizzy Gillespie accompanied her. Roland Hayes, called Boy Blue and the son of local musician Doc Hayes, moved to Arkansas and recorded for Alan Lomax in 1959. L. C. Ulmer settled in Ellisville in 2002 and began recording late in life.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lauren Rogers Museum of Art — 0.4 mi
  Mississippi's oldest art museum, a 1923 memorial to a timber heir in Laurel, with a major Native American basket collection and no admission fee since it opened.
• Amos Deason House — 7.0 mi
  A Greek Revival house in Ellisville where a Confederate major was shot in 1863, tied to the history of the Free State of Jones.
• African American Military History Museum — 27 mi
  The wooden USO club that opened in March 1942 for Black soldiers training at Camp Shelby, now a museum of African American military service from the Revolutionary War to Iraq.
• Longleaf Trace — 27 mi
  A 44-mile paved rail-trail from Hattiesburg to Prentiss on the old Pearl & Leaf Rivers and Mississippi Central line that hauled the Piney Woods timber.

More markers nearby

• Hotel Pinehurst — steps away
• Laurel City Hall — 0.2 mi
• Triangle Homes — 0.3 mi
• Dr. King Visits Laurel — 0.5 mi