Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup — Forest, Mississippi

Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup was born on August 24, 1905, near Forest in Scott County, Mississippi, and wrote the songs that launched Elvis Presley's recording career — 'That's All Right,' 'My Baby Left Me,' and 'So Glad You're Mine' were all Crudup originals that Presley recorded at Sun Studio. Crudup was a sharecropper and itinerant musician who made his way to Chicago in the early 1940s, where he recorded for RCA Victor's Bluebird label and created a raw, rhythmically direct style that was deeply influential on early rock and roll. He returned to Mississippi and farmwork in the 1950s as the music industry moved on.

The bittersweet irony of Crudup's life is that the songs that made Elvis a star were originally registered under someone else's name through industry chicanery, denying Crudup royalties for decades. By the time Elvis recorded 'That's All Right' in 1954, Crudup had essentially retired to sharecropping. A late-career revival in the 1960s and early 1970s — supported by folk and blues revivalists — brought him some recognition, and a legal settlement eventually secured some royalties, but the money came too late and was too little.

Forest, Mississippi, has a Mississippi Blues Trail marker acknowledging Crudup's connection to the area. The Scott County region is in central Mississippi, east of Jackson. Crudup died in Nassawadox, Virginia, in 1974, having spent his final years farming on the Eastern Shore.