Renowned Union County musicians Elder Roma Wilson and Rev. Leon Pinson were evangelists whose down-home gospel music won many admirers among blues and folk audiences, even though they insisted they never played the blues. Their music highlighted both the similarities and differences between gospel and blues: instrumentally it often sounded like blues and was sometimes called holy blues or gospel blues, but their lyrics were sacred rather than secular, and both men remained steadfast in their religion. Early partners in their careers, they reunited in 1989 and performed at festivals around the country to great acclaim. Wilson, born December 22, 1910, near Hickory Flat in Benton County, began playing harmonica in his teens, was ordained by age eighteen, lived around New Albany, worked as a farmer, sawmill hand, railroad worker, foundry worker, and preacher, and formed one of the first African-American gospel harmonica quartets in the 1940s. He taught his three sons harmonica, performed with them in church and on the streets of Detroit, and their distinctive sound appeared on a 1952 recording credited to Elder R. Wilson and Family that later drew strong interest from blues and gospel collectors. He returned to the New Albany area in 1976, later moved back to Detroit, and received a National Heritage Fellowship in 1994. Pinson, born in Union County on January 11, 1919, was left partially crippled and almost blind by meningitis, but built a musical career playing in churches, concerts, and on street corners. He performed with Wilson in Mississippi and Arkansas, played with groups including the Silvertone Quartet in New Albany and the Delta Melodies in Cleveland, Mississippi, trained and played for gospel choirs across North Mississippi, and became known to folklorists and on the folk and blues circuit before rejoining Wilson. Pinson died on October 10, 1998.