Oktibbeha County produced several blues artists who achieved fame through recordings and live performances in Chicago, California, and elsewhere. Big Joe Williams, born near Noxubee Swamp on the county’s southern edge, recorded the classic "Baby Please Don't Go" and remained closely tied to Oktibbeha County throughout his life; a longtime resident of the Crawford area, he recorded hundreds of tracks between 1935 and 1980 and also worked as a session producer and talent scout, leading to recordings at a Starkville radio station by Shortstuff Macon, Glover Lee Connor, Williams, and his uncles Bert and Russ Logan in 1965 and 1971. Tony Hollins, from the Starkville-Osborn area, and Sturgis native Lou Thomas Watts, known as Kid Thomas, also left small but significant recorded legacies. In 1941 Williams and Hollins became the first artists to record "Crawlin' King Snake," later covered by John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Bob Dylan, and the Doors, and Hollins also made the earliest recording of the blues standard "Cross Cut Saw"; during the 1930s and 1940s he lived and performed in the Delta and was regarded as a major influence by Hooker. Watts left Sturgis early when his family moved to Chicago, said he taught drums to schoolmate Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, who later joined the Muddy Waters band, and that Smith in turn taught him harmonica; his records ranged from Little Richard-style rock 'n' roll to Chicago harmonica blues, and after moves to Wichita and Los Angeles he was gaining international blues attention when he was shot to death by a distraught father whose son had been struck and killed by Watts in an auto accident. Other local performers included Starkville musicians Willie Harrington and Raymond Doss, who founded the Flames in 1972, a popular soul, funk, and blues band that broke up in 1978 and revived in 1997, and Emmett "Piano Red" Hudson of Clay County, who performed for college crowds and area clubs. Starkville natives also included guitarist Big John Henry Miller, who recorded in Chicago in 1965, and Little Robert Weaver of St. Louis, while Social Security files suggest blues guitarist Lonnie Williams may also have been born in Starkville. Blues performers in Oktibbeha County have appeared at clubs, restaurants, juke joints, festivals, and Mississippi State University events, and related musical activity has included the Osborn Blues Festival in the 1980s, the Down Home Blues Festival near West Point, and the Ragtime Jazz Festival sponsored by the Mississippi State University Library and the Charles Templeton Sr. Music Museum.