VICKSBURG, Miss. — The Mississippi gravesite of blues artist Lucille Spann is getting a headstone, 23 years after she was buried in an unmarked plot.
Born as Mahalia Lucille Jenkins in 1938 in Bolton, Mississippi, she grew up singing gospel music. She moved to Chicago as a teenager, and that’s where she met and married legendary blues pianist Otis Spann.
The couple recorded together until his death in 1970, then she continued working in music, including recording with Mighty Joe Young.
In 1974, Lucille Spann released an album called “Cry Before I Go.”
She was 56 when she died in 1994, and was buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Vicksburg.
The Vicksburg Post reports that the Killer Blues Headstone Project purchased the grave marker that will be dedicated Friday.
