A Mississippi Blues Trail marker was unveiled on Nov. 17 at the former downtown Jackson site of Trumpet Records.
Willard F. and Lillian S. McMurry launched the label from their retail store, the Record Mart, in 1950. The first releases by Mississippi blues legends Sonny Boy Williamson II, Elmore James, and Willie Love appeared on Trumpet. Trumpet also recorded gospel and country music.
The label used several different studios for recording sessions, including Diamond Recording Studio, housed in the back room of the store.
The McMurrys entered the record business by chance, when they acquired a stock of blues and rhythm & blues 78-rpm discs as part of an inventory of a hardware store they purchased in 1949.
The McMurrys main trade, before and after their venture into music, was in retail furniture sales.
The McMurrys' State Furniture Company store at one time served as a makeshift recording studio, with mattresses lined on the walls to soundproof the room.
In 1949, they opened the Record Mart in the former hardware store building as an outlet to service what they had discovered was a ready-made market for blues records, centrally located on Farish Street.
The next year, they expanded their musical venture to recording, and brought the St. Andrews Gospelaires into a local radio station (WRBC) for their first session. Other sessions at various studios followed as the company added the Southern Sons Quartette, Sonny Boy Williamson, Kay Kellum, Willie Love, Big Joe Williams, Jerry McCain, Jimmy Swan, Luke McDaniel, Arthur Crudup and others.
Trumpets biggest hit was "Dust My Broom" by Elmore James, recorded in 1951.
The operation, which included the Globe publishing company and record label, held its final sessions in 1956. Lillian McMurry continued decades after Trumpet folded, paying artists and songwriters royalties from reissues and rerecording of the songs they had recorded for Trumpet.
Lillian McMurry was elected to the Blues Hall of Fame in 1998. She died on March 18, 1999. Her husband Willard, who provided the backbone of support for their business ventures, died on June 7, 1996.
[ via The Associated Press ]
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