Laurel and the surrounding Jones County area became a major center of blues and related music in southeast Mississippi, producing and attracting performers such as Sam Myers, Albennie Jones, Blind Roosevelt Graves, the Nelson brothers, Arnett Nelson, Andrew “Goon” Gardner, Roland “Boy Blue” Hayes, Tommie “T-Bone” Pruitt, Lee “Tennessee” Crisp, and L. C. Ulmer. Blind Roosevelt Graves of Summerland was among the first local musicians to record, making records with his brother Uaroy in 1929 for Paramount Records and in 1936 for A.R.C., and the two often played for tips on Laurel’s streets. Laurel musicians also traveled widely, from minstrel and early touring shows before World War I to blues and jazz recording work in Chicago, performances in New York, Arkansas, Milwaukee, England, Europe, Dallas, and across the country. Johnny Vincent, who founded Ace Records in Jackson in 1955 under the name John Vincent Imbragulio, began by selling used 78s from his parents’ Laurel restaurant jukebox, and Sam Myers made his first record for that label in 1957 after performing in Jackson with Elmore James and others. The region also sustained a strong local blues culture through venues such as the Cotton Bowl, Paradise, Top Hat, Blade’s, Playhouse, Skylark, Elks Club, American Legion, Civic Center, and Navy Yard dance hall, and through events including the Laurel Mother’s Day Blues Festival, which began in 1987 and became one of Mississippi’s most popular blues events.