Little Milton Campbell, born on the George Bowles plantation near Inverness on September 7, 1933, became one of the world’s leading performers of blues and soul music over several decades. Acclaimed as both a singer and guitarist, he was a longtime crowd favorite at Mississippi festivals and nightclubs, with hits including “We’re Gonna Make It,” “The Blues Is Alright,” and “That’s What Love Will Make You Do.” His nickname distinguished him from his father, “Big” Milton Campbell, rather than reflecting his stature. Raised largely by his mother in Magenta in Washington County, he built a one-stringed guitar on the side of his home and, at about age twelve, bought his first real guitar with money earned in the cotton fields. He sometimes stayed with his father in Inverness and later performed at the Harlem Club there, but he credited Leland bandleader Eddie Cusic as the first to give him experience before audiences. By his late teens he had moved to Greenville, where he performed with Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2, Joe Willie Wilkins, and Willie Love, hosted a radio program on WGVM, and first recorded in Jackson as a sideman with Love in 1951. In 1953 Ike Turner helped him secure a contract with Sun Records in Memphis. After moving in the mid-1950s to East St. Louis and later Chicago, he developed his distinctive style, recorded for Bobbin Records, recruited talent including Albert King, then joined Checker in Chicago, where he blended blues with soul and rose to national prominence with a long string of hits. He later recorded for Stax in Memphis beginning in 1971 and for Malaco in Jackson beginning in 1984, a long association that produced fourteen albums. A demanding bandleader and savvy businessman, he produced many of his own records and, with his wife Pat, booked other artists through Camil Productions while insisting on professionalism and a consistent musical identity throughout his career. Though he moved to Las Vegas and kept an apartment in Memphis to remain close to the Southern soul and blues circuit, he continued as a major attraction. Over the course of his career, he placed twenty-nine singles and seventeen albums on the Billboard charts, was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1988, suffered a stroke on July 27, 2005, and died in Memphis on August 4, 2005.