Gospel music and the blues, often seen as Sunday morning church music and Saturday night juke joint music, share roots, influences, and musical traits, and many African American singers have worked in both traditions. Spirituals and hymns preceded gospel, which evolved through the work of Thomas A. Dorsey and others, while the influence between religious music and blues remained mutual as songs moved between gospel, blues, and soul by changing only a few words. Numerous performers began singing in church and later recorded across sacred and secular styles, including Mississippi artists such as B.B. King, Denise LaSalle, Charley Patton, Son House, Muddy Waters, Bukka White, Memphis Minnie, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Lonnie Pitchford, Otha Turner, and Leo “Bud” Welch. Sam Cooke moved from gospel with the Soul Stirrers into rhythm and blues and pop, while Gatemouth Moore and Pops Staples left the blues for preaching or gospel, and Otis Clay continued singing both sacred and secular music. Gospel and blues singers often recorded for the same labels, socialized together, performed in the same communities, and during segregation faced similar touring conditions when many accommodations and facilities were closed to African Americans. Reverend C.L. Franklin, who preached at St. Peter's Rock M.B. Church here, influenced gospel, R&B, and blues artists; Bobby Bland especially credited Franklin’s vocal style and his recorded sermon “Eagle Stirreth Her Nest” as a major inspiration. Franklin officiated at B.B. King’s wedding in 1958, and King called him “my main minister.” Born in Sunflower in 1915, Franklin moved with his family to the Cleveland area in the mid-1920s, heard both religious and blues records at home, preached his first trial sermon at St. Peter’s Rock in 1931, served churches in the Delta, Memphis, and Buffalo, New York, and moved to Detroit in 1946, where many of his sermons at New Bethel Baptist Church were recorded. His daughters Erma, Aretha, and Carolyn, who began singing in church, became noted soul singers, and Franklin himself said, “I always liked the blues.”