Albert Luandrew, better known as Sunnyland Slim, was born in Vance around 1906 and became a central figure in Chicago blues from the 1940s until his death in 1995. Regarded for decades as a patriarch of the Chicago blues scene, he was a bandleader, label owner, gambling house operator, and mentor to younger artists. As a boy he played organ in local churches, and in his mid-teens he played behind silent films at a theater in nearby Lambert before moving to Memphis around 1925, where he performed on Beale Street and accompanied blues stars including Ma Rainey and Blind Blake. He arrived in Chicago in the early 1940s, worked at parties with John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson, and made his first solo recordings in 1947 for Aristocrat with Muddy Waters as guitarist; that same year he also recorded as "Doctor Clayton’s Buddy" in tribute to a mentor whose falsetto style he had adopted. Though he had few major hits, he recorded extensively for several labels, including his own Airway Records, and helped other musicians after they reached Chicago, including Lambert native James "Snooky" Pryor, a pioneer of post-World War II electric Chicago blues. Quitman County also produced or was home to many other blues figures, including Snooky Pryor, Jimmy Rogers, Earl Hooker, Big Jack Johnson, James "Super Chikan" Johnson, Johnnie Billington, Big John Wrencher, Maxwell Street Jimmy, Provine Hatch Jr., Tony Hollins, and David Brinston, while Lambert's 8th Street was once a hub of juke joints and blues activity.