[1] She was influential in the development of blues music, particularly through her recordings of Sonny Boy Williamson II and her discovery of the guitarist Elmore James.
[2] The furniture store sold the stock they discovered and she also decided to record more music like it.
By her own account, until that point she, as a white woman, had been completely unaware of the music being made on her doorstep by her African-American neighbors.
The first releases were of gospel music, but she soon auditioned and recorded both slide guitarist Elmore James, on his original recording of "Dust My Broom", and Sonny Boy Williamson II (Aleck "Rice" Miller).
She acted as producer on many of the sessions recorded for Trumpet, and hired top musicians including B.B.
McMurry went back to working in her husband's shop, while scrupulously continuing to pay the musicians' royalties and going after record labels that were trying to re-release Trumpet tracks without permission.
[3][4][7] In 1998, she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, one of the few record producers to be granted that honour.
[5] On November 17, 2007, Lillian and Willard McMurry (who died in 1996) were posthumously honored with a historical marker on their former recording studio in Jackson, Mississippi.
Her daughter, Vitrice, her son-in-law, and her granddaughter attended along with Dr. Woody Sistrunk and Trumpet musician Jerry McCain.