In Clinton, the blues has long been intertwined with Black church life across generations of musicians and writers. Renowned blues artists Eddie Cotton, Jr. and Jarekus Singleton both began playing guitar in church, and award-winning blues poet and educator Sterling Plumpp drew on his religious upbringing in Clinton to create work in Chicago shaped by the spirit and rhythms of blues, gospel, and jazz. Cotton and Singleton emerged as two of Mississippi's most acclaimed musicians, linked by an intertwined family history rooted in the teachings and celebratory music of the Church of God in Christ, while Plumpp was raised in the Baptist church and educated in Catholic schools. Born in Jackson on April 11, 1970, Eddie Cotton was trained from childhood to play guitar and become music director at his father's Christ Chapel True Gospel Church of God in Christ in Clinton. Inspired by blues on WMPR radio and by performances of Jackson bluesman King Edward, he became one of the area's top blues acts while continuing to play in church services, performing at international blues festivals, recording albums independently and for other labels, earning several Jackson Music Awards, and winning the International Blues Challenge in Memphis in 2015. The Cotton family's earlier ties to Jimmie Shearry's True Gospel Church of God in Christ in Jackson connected Cotton to Jarekus Singleton's family: Jimmie Shearry's grandson Jarekus Singleton first played bass there before switching to guitar under his uncle Tony Shearry, while Emment Shearry, Jimmie's brother, taught guitar to Eddie Cotton, who later instructed Tony Shearry. Born in Jackson on July 11, 1984, and raised in Clinton, Singleton had been a rapper and poet and pursued basketball until an injury after college ended that path; while still playing gospel in church, he turned professionally to the blues and quickly gained recognition after a self-released 2011 CD of original songs led to Jackson Music Awards honors, festival appearances, an album with Alligator Records of Chicago, and several Blues Music Award nominations in 2015 and 2016. Sterling Plumpp, born on a plantation outside Clinton on January 30, 1940, attended Holy Ghost M.B. Church, began school at Sumner Hill, graduated as valedictorian from Holy Ghost High School with the help of an aunt who paid his tuition, studied at St. Benedict's College in Kansas, then in Chicago became deeply devoted to blues and jazz, wrote lyrics for Billy Branch and Willie Kent as well as books of poetry, and taught at the University of Illinois-Chicago and later at Mississippi Valley State University. Among earlier local blues musicians, guitarist Andrew "Bobo" Thomas, born near Clinton about 1914, recorded "Catfish Blues" in 1951 and performed for years in Jackson clubs, while George Myrick, born in Clinton on September 10, 1950, played guitar with many bands on the Jackson blues scene and toured with Benny Latimore for fifteen years. Clinton's musical legacy also included the Grits and Gravy recording studio in the 1960s, where Bob McRee and brothers Clifton and Ed Thomas wrote and produced several national R and B hits, including "Pickin' Wild Mountain Berries" by Peggy Scott and Jo Jo Benson.