In Cleveland, Mississippi, W.C. Handy experienced a turning point that helped lead him toward composing and publishing blues. Although he had heard early forms of the music in Alabama and during his travels, he later said that Mississippi was where it began to affect him most deeply. Handy recalled conducting an orchestra at a dance in Cleveland when requests came for native music and then for a local Black band to play. After Handy's trained musicians gave way, a ragged three-piece group with guitar, mandolin, and bass took over and thrilled the dancers, who showered the musicians with silver dollars. In early manuscripts of Father of the Blues, Handy identified the trio's leader as Prince McCoy, but McCoy's name was removed when the book was published in 1941. McCoy, born about 1882, later led a popular orchestra in Greenville but never received public recognition for inspiring Handy, who called this night in Cleveland his own enlightenment and the moment when a composer was born. Stack Mangham, a member of Handy's Clarksdale band, said Handy had once aimed to become a writer of marches like John Phillip Sousa and later recalled that Handy's Memphis Blues grew from what they heard that night in Cleveland. Handy also pointed to hearing a lone guitarist at the Tutwiler train station as another key influence. Later accounts introduced uncertainty about the Cleveland trio's exact identity, as some local people remembered a different young trio featuring Willie Webb on guitar with musicians called Sherman and Snow.