328 A BICENTENNIAL HISTORY OF MISSISSIPPI where they attracted large African American audiences needing a release from the harshness of everyday life. The proliferation of rural juke joints and a national blues record industry testified to the popularity of blues music by the 1930s and 1940s. Later blues stars such as Muddy Waters, B. B. King, and Son House would expand on the popularity of this Delta sound and attract new national and even global legions of blues fans. Blues became the secular music of African Americans in the Delta, and gospel hit the right spiritual notes. In black churches, church hymns and spirituals gave rise to a distinct CATFISH Among the states, Mississippi is the United States’ largest producer of farm-raised catfish. Channel catfish, also known as the spotted cat, are the best for aqua-farming and are grown in ponds all over the state. The industry began in the 1960s and since then the catfish industry has added millions of dollars every year to Mississippi’s economy. Catfish are raised in specially made ponds and harvested when they weigh between one and three pounds. Seine nets on cranes are used to haul catfish out of the ponds, beginning their journey to homes and restaurants around the United States. Some catfish are shipped live in tank trucks. Processing plants ensure there is no “muddy” flavor in the catfish and the fillets are all of similar size and quality before sending them out for sale and consumption. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE CLARION-LEDGER Southern gospel sound. The same social forces that prompted African Americans to sing the blues also gave rise to gospel. At Cleveland’s St. Peter’s Rock Missionary Baptist Church, the Reverend Clarence LaVaughn (C. L.) Franklin fused religious music with some stylings of the blues. Franklin passed along this talent and love for music to his children, the most prominent being his daughter, Aretha. Like many African Americans from the 1910s through the 1940s, Franklin left the Delta and moved to Memphis, where Aretha was born. They eventually made their way to