Photo via Bill Johnson/Delta Democrat Times
Elmore James is the latest musician featured on a marker along Mississippi's growing blues trail. On July 17, officials gathered in Canton to unveil the Elmore James/Hickory Street Blues Trail Marker.
The Elmore James Marker is the 14th one unveiled. The Mississippi Blues Commission hopes to have 130 markers across the state by the end of 2008. The trail's path will stretch from Memphis Minnie's grave in Walls (near the Tennessee border) to Farish Street in downtown Jackson.
James died of a heart attack in Chicago in 1963, but his music has inspired artists that include Jimi Hendrix, Allman Brothers Band, Fleetwood Mac and "almost anybody who plays slide guitar," blues historian Jim O'Neal said.
