Narmour and Smith

Narmour and Smith's records traveled farther than the men did. Willie Narmour and Shell Smith farmed in Carroll County, yet between 1928 and 1934 they recorded in Memphis, Atlanta, New York and San Antonio, and their 78s sold best in Texas, Mexico and the West. Carroll County Blues was one of the biggest-selling records of 1929. Their three Charleston tunes took the name of the Tallahatchie County seat, not the South Carolina city. OKeh also placed them in its 1929 Medicine Show series beside Fiddlin' John Carson and Frank Hutchison. Narmour later ran a garage in Avalon.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Carroll County Courthouse — steps away
  The courthouse in Carrollton where, on 17 March 1886, armed white men fired into a courtroom and killed about two dozen Black people, and no one was ever charged.
• Winona: Fannie Lou Hamer and the Montgomery County Jail — 11 mi
  Two Freedom Trail stops in Winona for 9 June 1963, when Fannie Lou Hamer and other voting-rights workers were arrested at the bus depot and beaten in the Montgomery County Jail.
• Bryant's Grocery — 19 mi
  The ruin of the Money store where Emmett Till was accused in August 1955, on private land beside the railroad, with a Mississippi Freedom Trail marker at the corner.
• Grenada Freedom Movement Marker — 20 mi
  The Mississippi Freedom Trail marker at Line and Green streets for the 1966 Grenada movement, when Black children entering white schools were beaten by a mob and 13 white men were arrested.

More markers nearby

• Malmaison — 0.7 mi
• Carrollton — 0.7 mi
• Ensign William Devotie Billingsley — 10 mi
• Pops Staples — 11 mi