recalled seeing her husband playing with Collins, whom she recognized from a publicity image for Black Patti Records. One year later, Roberta and Essie returned to Sibley, while Joe pursued his musical career, initially in McComb and then as an itinerant, returning periodically to Sibley. One town he played in was Minden, Louisiana, where he had a friend, George Young. In 1928 Blind Lemon Jefferson passed through Minden, and Holmes and Young left with him for Wichita Falls, Texas. Holmes later celebrated his brief partnership with Jefferson on his record "My Buddy Papa Lemon". At that time he befriended Willard Thomas, known as Ramblin' Thomas, who became his favorite musical partner. Holmes would often travel to Shreveport, Louisiana, to play with Thomas. Little evidence exists of his life outside of music. He was described as a heavy drinker. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Louisiana in 1940. Some sources put his date of death at 1949. Recording In 1932, while performing in Minden, Holmes was invited to record for Paramount. Wardlow speculated that the Paramount sales manager Henry Stephany stopped at Minden en route from Birmingham, Alabama, to Dallas on the recommendation of Ben Curry (possibly the same man as Bogus Ben Covington), a friend and fellow musician who had moved from Arcadia, Louisiana, to Birmingham. In any case, somebody representing Paramount took Holmes to Birmingham, where he met up with Ben Curry and other Alabama musicians: the blues singer Marshal Owens and a gospel quartet, the Famous Blue Jay Singers of Birmingham. The musicians travelled to the Paramount recording studio in Grafton, Wisconsin, and recorded at least twenty-eight titles, six of them by Holmes and issued under the name King Solomon Hill. It has been speculated that the recording session occurred about January 1932, but Roberta Allums stated that it was in the spring. Fourteen records were issued, three by King Solomon Hill, but Paramount was on the edge of bankruptcy, pressing and shipping only small numbers of records. Holmes took three discs with white labels back to Sibley, but his friends and family never saw any discs with a Paramount label. His friend John Wills did not believe they were "real records". Until persuaded by Wardlow, he believed that Holmes had paid to have them recorded privately. Few copies survived. One of the three, Paramount 13125, with "My Buddy Papa Lemon" and "Times Has Done Got Hard",