Newly appointed board works to bring music museum to Cleveland

By Mark Stowers
Photography by Jordan Thomas

Mississippi just got another step closer to having its own GRAMMY museum. With the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, and the B.B. King Museum in Indianola, a GRAMMY museum could be the ideal thing to create real tourism synergy in the area, according to Judson Thigpen, executive director of the Cleveland/Bolivar County Chamber of Commerce. The first major step towards making a GRAMMY museum a reality in Cleveland took place recently with the establishment of a board of directors for the museum.

The 18-member board will be led by Thigpen, who currently serves as the interim chair of the board. The group met in late November and talked briefly about the status of the project, and to review proposed bylaws. “Once the by-laws are passed, we will move forward with a strategic plan, a fundraising campaign and the design of the building,” says Thigpen.

The corporate name of the organization in charge of the museum is the Cleveland Music Foundation Inc. The Foundation has applied for a 501c3 non-profit status.

According to the GRAMMY website, www.GRAMMY.org, the GRAMMY is the recording industry’s most prestigious award, presented annually by The Recording Academy. A GRAMMY is awarded by The Recording Academy’s voting membership to honor excellence in the recording arts and sciences. It is truly a peer honor, awarded by and to artists and technical professionals for artistic or technical achievement, not sales or chart positions.

The GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles explores and celebrates the enduring legacies of all forms of music: the creative process, the art and technology of the recording process, and the history of the GRAMMY Awards, the premier recognition of recorded music accomplishment.

So why a GRAMMY museum in Cleveland? “There is no doubt that Mississippi is the birthplace of American Music,” says Allan Hammons of Hammons & Associates in Greenwood. “That’s exactly what we told the GRAMMY folks in Los Angeles. Without Mississippi, there would be no American music. We gave the world Jimmy Rogers, the father of country music, B.B. King, the king of the Blues, and Elvis Presley, the king of Rock ‘n Roll.”

Thigpen says that the Chamber is working to focus on the area’s heritage, and music is a major part of that. In keeping with the Mississippi Arts Commission and Mississippi Development Authority’s Creative Mississippi initiative, Hammons pitched the idea of the museum to focus not only on Mississippi musicians, but also on the music industry as a whole in the state.

After a series of meetings with John Hornyak, senior executive director of the Memphis Recording Academy, and Bob Santellis, executive director of the GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles, it became clear that having the nation’s only other GRAMMY museum in Mississippi would be a good idea.

Tricia Walker, director of the Delta Music Institute at Delta State University, and herself a GRAMMY winner, is thrilled about having a GRAMMY museum in Cleveland. “This is an important event for Cleveland, for the Delta and for Mississippi in general,” she says. Delta State now offers a Bachelor of Science in Music Industry Studies.

“Music and the GRAMMYs are big business,” says Walker. “American music is one of the country’s top exports. The GRAMMY Museum’s partnership with the DMI will give our students the opportunity to develop additional developmental and business skills.”

Board members for the Cleveland Music Foundation include Thigpen, Hornyak, Walker, Reuben Anderson (Phelps Dunbar, LLP, Jackson), Calvin Dye (Cleveland State Bank), Blake Wilson (MS Economic Council), Emily Havens (Chickasaw Council, BSA), Carol Puckett (Viking Hospitality Group), Jim Tims (Quality Steel Corporation), Wilma Wilbanks, Willie Simmons (MS State Senate), Lucy Janoush, Nan Sanders, Gary Gainspoletti (Alderman, City of Cleveland), John Hilpert (President, Delta State University), Will Hooker (Administrator, Bolivar County), Billy Nowell (Mayor, City of Cleveland), Paul Janoush (Alderman, City of Cleveland). DBJ

For over ten years Thacker Mountain Radio has produced a live, unrehearsed broadcast that features author readings and a wide array of musical performances. The free show is normally recorded and broadcast weekly from Off Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi, but will relocate for this special show in DMI Studio A as part of the institute’s spring fundraiser for student scholarships.

This year’s featured literary guest is Leland native Culpepper Webb, author of the acclaimed work “Lifted From The Waters.” Musical guests are brothers Bryan “Beaches of Cheyenne” Kennedy and Gordon “Change The World” Kennedy. Both Kennedy brothers, sons of music legend Jerry Kennedy, have won multiple Grammy awards for their songwriting and producing.

Thacker Mountain’s house band, the Yalobushwhackers, features the Delta’s own Duff Dorrough. Joining the band for this special Thacker edition will be former Tangents keyboard player and Delta native Jim “Fish” Michie. They will be backing the show’s musical guests as well as playing featured performances of their own.

Thacker Mountain is hosted by Jim Dees and is broadcast live on Rebel Radio 92.1 FM and rebroadcast statewide on Mississippi Public Broadcasting at 7:00 p.m. on Saturdays.

The Delta Music Institute began with a generous donation by Fred Carl of the Viking Range Corporation. The focus of the DMI is to provide students with a broad and thorough education in the technological, business, and creative areas of the music industry.

The public is encouraged to come be a part of this entertaining broadcast on March 5 at 3:00 p.m. to support the Delta Music Institute. For more information on the Thacker in the Delta event, please call (662) 846-4579 or visit dmi.deltastate.edu.

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/in-williamsburg-cmj-kicks-off-in-a-warehouse/?emc=eta1

Fighting Okra Records, a new student-run record label at Delta State University, will officially launch on October 12, 2010 with a celebratory party in the State Room of the Nowell Student Union building on the campus of DSU. Fighting Okra Records, housed in the Delta Music Institute, is the combined outcome of students enrolled in the Record Label Operations course at the DMI.

The mission statement of the new label reads, “Fighting Okra Records is a student-run record label at Delta State University whose purpose is to provide a practical, real world music industry experience to the students. Our mission is to provide a variety of independent artists with professional quality music industry services in an effort to expose their name in recordings to the broadest possible audience.”

Students staffing the label are assigned responsibilities within divisions similar to real-world record companies, including A&R, publicity, promotions, sales/marketing, production, product development, and new media.

“The DMI is working to develop scenarios for students to apply what they are learning in the classroom,” says director Tricia Walker. “Having to handle the planning, development, and execution of an actual record release really accelerates that learning.”

The first release on the label will be a compilation CD with artists and songs chosen by the label staff from the ‘best of the best’ of DMI recordings completed over the past two years. The CD release is scheduled for late November.

To celebrate the label’s launch, the Fighting Okra Records staff will be hosting a fundraising party in the State Room on the campus of Delta State University on Tuesday, October 12, 2010, beginning at 7 pm. Scheduled musical acts for the party include Ol’ Skool Revue, DeltaRoX, and DJ Saxy. The Fighting Okra Records launch party is free and open to the public.

“This launch party will be a great way to let everyone know about the new record label on campus and what we plan to do at Fighting Okra Records. We are asking for the support of DSU students and the surrounding community in making this venture a success by purchasing the CD when it is released later this semester. We hope a large crowd will join the F.O.R. staff at our launch party. It will be a great opportunity to listen to some great music and support the cause,” said F.O.R. general manager, Lance Vaughn.

Interested in these bands entertaining at your event? Give us a call at 662-846-4579. Thanks for supporting live music!

Delta State University students Katie Gibson of Summerdale, Ala., and Joanna Sabine of Columbia, were invited to participate as production assistants for the 4th Annual Mississippi Grammy™ Legacy Celebration recently held at the Hard Rock Live! venue in Biloxi.

Gibson and Sabine are members of the Delta State Grammy U chapter and are enrolled in courses at the Delta Music Institute (DMI), a recording arts and music industry studies program at Delta State University.

The annual gala event celebrates the state’s Grammy™ winners and their musical legacies. Mississippi boasts more Grammy™ winner per capita than any other state in the union.

The GRAMMY University Network (GRAMMY U) is a unique and fast-growing community of college students who are pursuing a career in the music industry. The Recording AcademyY created GRAMMY U to help prepare students for careers in the recording industry through networking, educational programs and performance opportunities. GRAMMY U is designed to enhance students’ current academic curriculum with access to recording industry professionals to give an “out of classroom” perspective on the recording industry. Delta Music Institute’s Grammy U chapter was formed in the fall of 2008 and now has over 50 members.

The Delta Music Institute is an independent center of study under the College of Arts & Sciences at Delta State University. The focus of the DMI is to provide students with a broad and thorough education in the technological, creative, and business areas of the music and entertainment industry.

Ol’ Skool Revue, the Delta Music Institute’s (DMI) Blues/R&B/Soul/Funk band, has been selected to perform at the 2010 International Blues Challenge (IBC) in Memphis, January 20-23, 2010.

Ol’ Skool Revue will represent DMI and Delta State University in the Youth Challenge (IBC) during this 26th year of the International Blues Challenge. The band, made up of Delta State college students, will compete during the afternoon lineup on Friday, Jan. 22, showcasing their talents for record labels, media, festivals, managers, talent buyers and the fans.
The IBC has evolved into the nation’s biggest and most respected showcase for Blues musicians ready to take their act to the national stage. The IBC is a judged “Battle of the Bands” in which competitors take the stage and play a short set for a panel of judges. The acts are judged based on an established set of criteria.

Each Affiliate of The Blues Foundation has the right to send a band and solo/duo act to represent the organization at the IBC Semi-Finals. Ol’ Skool Revue competed and was selected by the Crossroads Blues Society, an IBC affiliate from Rosedale, Mississippi.

In 2009, 100 bands and 60 solo/duo acts entered, filling the clubs up and down Beale Street for the semi-finals on Thursday and Friday and the finals at the Orpheum Theater on Saturday.
The Delta Music Institute is an independent center of study under the College of Arts & Sciences at Delta State University. It began with a generous donation by Fred Carl of the Viking Range Corporation in 2003.

The focus of the DMI is to provide students with a broad and thorough education in the technological, creative, and business areas of the music and entertainment industry.

For information, contact the DMI office at (662) 846-4579 or e-mail dmi.deltastate.edu.

P. Diddy’s Starmaker winner, Liz Davis, performs during 2005 Homecoming festivities at Delta State

Mississippi native and former Delta State University student Liz Davis was crowned the winner of P. Diddy’s Starmaker during Sunday night’s finale broadcast of the MTV reality competition series.
The 21 year-old claimed the show’s grand prize of a record deal with Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Bad Boy Records label.

In winning Starmaker, Davis became the first predominantly country artist to sign with Bad Boy.

Liz, and her entire family have strong ties to the University.

“Our whole family spent time in Cleveland and at Delta State,” said Liz’s mother Lauree Davis. “Delta State played a big part in the lives of our family. Liz’s time there helped her to achieve the success she’s enjoying today.”

Liz’s father, Dale, and mother both attended Delta State on athletic scholarships.

“Dale played baseball for Coach “Boo” Ferriss from 1977-81 and I received the first tennis scholarship for a female in 1979,” said Davis.

Liz’s older sister, Kelli Davis-Cotton graduated from Delta State in 2004 with a degree in marketing. She now resides in Cleveland and works for Coopwood Communications.

Liz’s younger brother Jeffrey is a junior at Canton Academy. “Jeffrey is an athlete and we don’t know where he’ll go for sure, but he could wind up at Delta State just like the rest of the family,” laughed Davis.

Performing at a talent show in Jackson, Liz Davis caught the eye of Norbert Putnam, an accomplished musician and producer who played bass for Elvis Presley and helped launch the careers of Dan Fogleberg and Jimmy Buffet. Putnam encouraged Davis to enroll at Delta State University, where he was director of the Delta Music Institute,a center for music industry studies focused on educating students in the technological, business, and creative areas of the music industry.

Once enrolled at Delta State, another music instructor influenced Liz’s life and career path. She received a music scholarship and was a member of “Renaissance” a popular vocal and instrumental ensemble led by Gene Ayers.

“Gene Ayers probably had the greatest influence on Liz during her time at Delta State,” said Davis. “She absolutely loved to perform and ‘Renaissance’ gave her the opportunity.”

Another instructor who recognized Liz’s talent was current Director of the Delta Music Institute Tricia Walker. “I taught Liz in a song writing class and her focus was very evident even as a student,” said Walker. “Having spent over 25 years in the music business, I believe Liz’s natural ability and instinct will take her a long way in the music industry.”

In the fall of 2006 Liz Davis left Delta State to pursue a career in music full time.

“Liz felt in her heart it was time to make the move and we supported her,” said Davis. “Even so, our whole family has fond memories and we love Delta State.”

For now, Liz Davis is back in Nashville. “She’s waiting to go to New York to sign her contract with Bad Boy/Interscope records,” said Mom. “This opens the door to a world of possibilities and we couldn’t be more proud or excited.”

As a part of Delta State University’s Delta Music Institute grand opening weekend, an official ribbon cutting ceremony was held Sunday, March 9, at the front of the Whitfield Building on the campus.

Pictured are, from left, Malcolm White, executive director of the Mississippi Arts Commission, Hartley Peavey, founder and CEO of Meridian-based Peavey Electronics Corporation, Fred Carl, founder and CEO of Viking Range Corp., Tricia Walker, director of Delta Music Institute, Mary Peavey, Dr. John Hilpert, president of Delta State University; Eddie Willis (background) campus minister of Wesley Foundation; Bill Luckett of Rock River Foundation; Dr. L. Stacy Davidson, Jr., Board Member, Mississippi Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning; and Judson Thigpen, executive director of Cleveland-Bolivar County Chamber of Commerce and president of DSU Foundation Board. Not pictured: Marsha Bryan, who with husband George are major donors to the Delta Music Institute.

The Delta Music Institute began with a generous donation by Fred Carl of the Viking Range Corporation in 2003. The focus of the DMI is to provide students with a broad and thorough education in the technological, business, and creative areas of the music industry.

Students in the DMI program pursue career aspirations through an innovative Interdisciplinary Studies degree, allowing them to combine two or three concentrations of study. The result is a broad entrepreneurial approach to the music and entertainment industries.

Mississippi Delta Blues Society of Indianola