The roots of blues and gospel music run deep in the African American culture of the Black Prairie region and in Noxubee County, where African American music reaches back to antebellum days when slaves sang spirituals and work songs on local cotton plantations and some who learned banjo or fiddle also entertained at white social affairs. That musical legacy continued into the 20th century through African American family string bands featuring fiddle, guitar, and mandolin that performed for both white and black audiences, including the Duck Brothers, the Salt and Pepper Shakers, and the Nickersons. Among performers born near Macon, Eddy Clearwater, Carey Bell, and Jesse Fortune later achieved renown in Chicago blues, while Brother Joe May moved to East St. Louis and became a gospel star, and Robert Blair also built a successful gospel career after leaving Macon. Houston H. Harrington, a Macon fiddler, part-time preacher, and inventor, guided his family, including sons Joe and Vernon Harrington and nephew Eddy “Clearwater” Harrington, toward blues careers after relocating to Chicago in the early 1950s, made recordings in Macon with a portable disc-cutting machine, and later produced records there for his Atomic-H label. Clearwater, born east of Macon in 1935, became known worldwide for a flamboyant blues and rock 'n' roll act, while Macon native Carey Bell, whose real surname was also Harrington, gained worldwide fame in Chicago after playing with Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon, among others, and fathered a family of blues musicians that included guitarist Lurrie Bell and harmonica protege Steve Bell. Jesse Fortune, born near Macon in 1930, also pursued a long blues career in Chicago in the 1950s. Though professional musical opportunities were limited, blues singers continued to perform at house parties and juke joints around Macon, Brooksville, Shuqualak, Mashulaville, and Prairie Point, where Willie King later sparked a new blues movement as the political prophet of the juke joints and drew acclaim for political struggling songs shaped by his civil rights work in Alabama. Big Joe Williams, one of the most prominent blues artists from the Black Prairies, came from Crawford to perform in Noxubee County at times, and Williams, John Wesley “Mr. Shortstuff” Macon, and Elijah Brown were also linked to the local scene. In Brooksville, performers on the local music scene included Robert Earl Greathree and Brown Sugar.