On Friday night, May 12, Brady Rees paused from entertaining the Mother’s Day weekend crowd at Taylor Grocery to hug his friend Mary Lou Williams of Water Valley. 

Rees, from State College, Penn.,  earned a film degree from Penn State, but has been in Oxford for the last seven years. He plays the guitar, bass, and harmonica and performed this spring with the Yalobushwhackers at the Thacker Mountain Radio Show, where he first met Thacker Backer Mary Lou. (Ben Williams)