Holly Springs

Cassandra "Cassi" Davis is an American actress. She is mostly known for her role as Ella Payne in Tyler Perry's House of Payne. Davis has done... extensive work with director and writer Tyler Perry, and has played many roles in his various productions. She also has appeared in several stage plays. Born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, Davis' acting career began in 1988 with her role in the Spike Lee film School Daze. Her early television credits include appearances on Living Single, Married with Children, Kenan & Kel, Boycott, and The PJ's. She established her acting career by appearing in Tyler Perry productions such as Madea's Family Reunion, Madea Goes to Jail, Daddy's Little Girls, and Tyler Perry's House of Payne. Davis attended Spelman College in Atlanta. She has credited her devout, born-again Christian faith as the main reason behind her professional success.
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Jimmy Johnson is an American blues guitarist and singer. Several of Johnson's brothers had careers in music; among them are soul musician Syl... Johnson and Magic Sam bassist Mack Thompson. In his younger years he played piano and sang in gospel groups. He and his family moved to Chicago in 1950, where he worked as a welder and played guitar in his spare time. He began playing professionally with Slim Willis in 1959, changing his last name to Johnson like his brother Syl. As a guitarist he was influenced by both Buddy Guy and Otis Rush and he played with Freddy King, Albert King, Magic Sam and Eddy Clearwater among others. In the 1960s he played more R&B music, working with Otis Clay, Denise LaSalle, and Garland Green. He also had his own group from the early 1960s, and by the late 1960s he had released his first single. By 1974 he had returned to blues playing, working with Jimmy Dawkins and touring Japan with Otis Rush in 1975. His first solo material appeared on Alligator Records and Delmark Records in 1978-79, when he was fifty years old.
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Syl Johnson is an American blues and soul singer and record producer. Born Sylvester Thompson in Holly Springs, Mississippi, United States, he... migrated with his family to Chicago in 1950; blues guitarist Magic Sam was his next-door neighbor. Johnson sang and played with blues artists Magic Sam, Billy Boy Arnold, Junior Wells and Howlin' Wolf in the 1950s, before recording with Jimmy Reed for Vee-Jay in 1959. He made his solo debut that same year with Federal, a subsidiary of King Records of Cincinnati, backed by Freddie King on guitar. He then began recording for Twinight Records of Chicago in the mid 1960s. Beginning with his first hit, "Come On Sock It to Me" in 1967, Johnson dominated the label as both a hitmaker and producer. His song "Different Strokes", also from 1967, featured on the Ultimate Breaks and Beats breakbeat compilation. Like other black songwriters of the period, several of his records at this time explored themes of African-American identity and social problems in songs including "Is It Because I'm Black", which reached Number 11 in the US Billboard R&B chart in 1969.
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Mose Vinson was an American boogie-woogie, blues and jazz pianist and singer. His best known recordings were "Blues With A Feeling" and "Sweet Root... Man". Over his lengthy career, Vinson worked with various musicians including Booker T. Laury and James Cotton. Vinson was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi. He taught himself how to play the piano as a child. In his teenage years, Vinson started playing his own style of barrelhouse boogie-woogie in local juke joints in Mississippi and Tennessee, incorporating both blues and jazz in his repertoire. In 1932, following a chance meeting with Sunnyland Slim, Vinson relocated from Mississippi to Memphis, Tennessee. In the 1930s and 1940s, Vinson continued to play at local juke house and rural community parties. By the early 1950s, Vinson found employment as a custodian at the Taylor Boarding Home, where artists often stayed whilst recording next door at Sun Records studios. In the studios, Sam Phillips occasionally requested that Vinson accompany musicians. These included James Cotton on "Cotton Crop Blues" , and Jimmy DeBerry on the latter's "Take a Little Chance".
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