Memphis Minnie Birthplace — Walls, Mississippi

Memphis Minnie — Lizzie Douglas — was born on June 3, 1897, in Walls, Mississippi, just south of Memphis across the state line, and became one of the greatest guitarists of the pre-war blues era, regardless of gender. She ran away to Memphis as a child and spent years playing on Beale Street before recording her first sides in 1929. Her guitar technique — complex, rhythmically sophisticated, and technically precise — astonished male contemporaries; Big Bill Broonzy, who lost a guitar contest to her, called her the best he'd ever heard. 'Bumble Bee,' 'Me and My Chauffeur Blues,' and 'When the Levee Breaks' (later covered by Led Zeppelin) are among her most famous recordings.

Minnie recorded prolifically through the 1930s and 1940s, moving between Memphis and Chicago as the music business demanded. She and her husband Kansas Joe McCoy were one of the most popular blues duos of the 1930s. Her influence on later guitarists — particularly women who followed her into the blues — has been increasingly recognised in the decades since her death, and she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980.

Walls is a small unincorporated community in DeSoto County, just across the Mississippi state line from Memphis. A Mississippi Blues Trail marker acknowledges Minnie's birth here. She died in Memphis in 1973 and is buried at New Hope Baptist Church Cemetery in Walls — her gravesite has a marker installed through the efforts of fans and scholars.