Willie Dixon

Willie Dixon was a businessman before he was a bassist. In fourth grade he wrote, printed and sold thousands of copies of poems such as "The Signifying Monkey" to Vicksburg bands. He won the Illinois State Golden Gloves heavyweight title in 1937, then met guitarist Leonard Caston at a gym and began singing and playing stand-up bass on street corners. In 1941, as a conscientious objector to World War II, he served ten months in prison for draft evasion. The Chess brothers hired him in 1948.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Court House Museum — 0.4 mi
  Vicksburg's Greek Revival courthouse of 1860, raised on a hilltop with the labor of enslaved artisans and now a private local-history museum heavy on Confederate relics.
• Vicksburg National Military Park — 1.9 mi
  A 16-mile tour road through the trenches of the 47-day siege of 1863, with a national cemetery and the story of the thousands of enslaved people who reached freedom behind Union lines.
• USS Cairo Gunboat and Museum — 2.1 mi
  The raised hull of a Union river ironclad sunk by a mine in the Yazoo in 1862, displayed at Vicksburg National Military Park with the artifacts the river mud preserved.

More markers nearby

• Frank Crump, Jr. — steps away
• Dabney and Dabney — steps away
• Red Tops — steps away
• C.S.S. Arkansas — steps away