North Florida Music Hall of Fame

Born Arthur Phelps in Jacksonville ca. 1890s, he became a nationally-renowned blues artist as Blind Blake in the 1920s for Paramount Records, for which he sold literally millions of “race records.” Blake seems to have utterly disappeared at the height of his success, around 1932; no one seems to know for sure what became of him — some historians believe he was murdered; others think he went into hiding, and another thinks he stumbled in front of a Chicago streetcar.