McMurry, Lillian Shedd (c. 1922–1999)

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McMurry, Lillian Shedd (c. 1922–1999)

American blues producer . Born Lillian Shedd in Purvis, Mississippi, around 1922; died of a heart attack in Jackson, Mississippi, on March 18, 1999; daughter of itinerant Southern musicians; studied law in Jackson, Mississippi; married Willard McMurry (a store manager), in 1945 (died 1996); children: daughter Vitrice McMurry .

Founded Trumpet Records (c. 1950); discovered and promoted numerous African-American blues musicians; inducted into Blues Hall of Fame (1998).

As a Southerner and a white woman in the 1950s, Lillian Shedd McMurry was an unlikely pioneer in the popularization of black music, but as a devotee of Southern black blues, she founded Trumpet Records around 1950 and produced the first recordings of two major Delta blues musicians, Sonny Boy Williamson and Elmore James, as well as recordings by such leading figures as Willie Love, Big Joe Williams, and Jerry McCain.

Although born around 1922 in Purvis, Mississippi, to a musical family who moved from town to town, in the first decades of her life McMurry was never exposed to the evocative, local blues music that became her passion. During the 1940s, she took a position as a state secretary in Jackson, Mississippi, and began taking law courses. In 1945 she married Willard McMurry, a manager of several furniture stores in Jackson. One day in 1949, while helping her husband clean out a building at 309 Farish Street, McMurry found a stack of old records. Upon listening to "All She Wants to Do Is Rock," a song by Wynonie (Mr. Blues) Harris, she was transfixed. She called it "the most unusual, sincere and solid sound" she had ever heard, and was entranced by the rhythm and freedom in the music.

McMurry opened a record department in her husband's furniture store, specializing in African-American music, particularly blues and gospel. The record department grew in popularity following her use of radio advertising, and soon became an independent store. Less than a year later, McMurry turned the store into a recording studio and began recording local gospel groups under the newly created Trumpet label. She then sought out Sonny Boy Williamson, a harmonica player who had performed for 20 years in the Delta without receiving a record contract. Williamson, whose real name was Alex "Rice" Miller, was an escaped convict, and thus was forced to hide his identity under an alias. He had chosen the name of another popular blues singer called Williamson, performed on radio station KFFA in Helena, Arkansas, and built up a devoted following in the area. (McMurry did not learn about Williamson's past until later.) With a tendency to curse and to carry both a gun and a knife, Williamson could be cantankerous when he drank too much, which was often, and tended to engage in fisticuffs which frequently landed him in jail. McMurry regularly paid his bail. According to legend, one day he was spouting expletives in the recording studio when McMurry instructed him to stop. When he refused, McMurry took his own pistol (which she had previously required him to check), pointed it at him, and marched him outside, telling him not to return. Two weeks later, Williamson reappeared to apologize, and McMurry allowed him back. When he died in 1965, she paid for his tombstone.

With McMurry's production skills, Williamson produced a number of blues classics, including "Eyesight to the Blind," "Nine Below Zero," "Mr. Down Child," "Mighty Long Time," and "Red Hot Kisses," written by McMurry. "Pontiac Blues" is Williamson's tribute to McMurry's car. Williamson's friend, slide guitarist Elmore James, also recorded a major hit, "Dust My Broom," on the Trumpet label. But the label went out of business in 1955, unable to compete with bigger record companies. McMurry, unlike many producers of her generation, nonetheless continued to ensure that her recording artists received residuals from Trumpet songs that were re-released throughout the years. She was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1998, and died of a heart attack in Jackson the following year, at the age of 77.