The 3rd Annual “Mississippi GRAMMY Legacy” Celebration | May 28th, 2009

Hosted
by Governor Haley Barbour and First Lady Marsha Barbour and sponsored
by Mississippi’s own musical innovators Peavey Electronics Corporation,
the gala will feature performances by a staggering array of talent
reflecting the diversity of the state’s unparalleled contribution to
numerous genres of music.  Headliners include country superstar Marty
Stuart, the legendary Charley Pride, R&B icon Dorothy Moore and
mythic blues man Pinetop Perkins. Joining them will be soul-gospel
greats The Williams Brothers, contemporary blues showman Eddie Cotton,
Nanette Workman, one of French Canada’s most celebrated vocalists,
blues and jazz pianist Eden Brent and Brandon Bennett paying tribute to
Tupelo’s Elvis Presley. James Burton, the former Elvis Presley sideman
who has become a star attraction in his own right will also perform.
Sharing emcee duties are noted film actress Joey Lauren Adams and award
winning singer/songwriter Paul Overstreet who will also be one of the
evening’s musical performers.

 

In
announcing the event, Governor Barbour noted, “Our two previous GRAMMY
celebrations were wonderful events that gave us the opportunity to
reflect on just how significant the contribution of Mississippi artists
has been over the years. We’re excited to be moving the festivities up
to Tunica with a slate of performers whose talent and career successes
prove what we’ve been saying all along: ‘If it’s music, it’s
Mississippi.’”

 

 

Sponsored
by Peavey Electronics and the Mississippi Development Authority, the
event will be preceded by a reception hosted by the Governor and First
Lady where the participating performing artists will receive the Peavey
Award.  Named for renowned music and audio innovator and Mississippi
native Hartley D. Peavey, the Peavey Award honors the state’s many
GRAMMY winners and nominees as well as individuals who have played a
significant role in developing and furthering Mississippi’s musical
heritage. 

 

Mississippi’s
GRAMMY celebration kicks off this year with a performance by Charley
Pride who was born in Sledge, Mississippi. Though he loved music from
an early age, he was a talented athlete and first played for the
Memphis Red Sox of the Negro American League in 1952.  He played
professional baseball for a number of teams through the late 50’s but,
after recording some songs at Sun Studios in Memphis, he decided to
pursue a career in music. Country greats Red Sovine and Red Foley
encouraged the pitcher-turned-singer and Chet Atkins signed him to RCA
Records in 1966. The following year he became the first black performer
to appear at the Grand Ole Opry since the 1920s. Charley Pride has
released 29 No.1 country hits that include “Is Anybody Goin’ To San
Antone,” “Just Between You and Me,” “All I Have To Offer You Is Me,”
the autobiographical “Mississippi Cotton Pickin’ Delta Town” and his
signature song, “Kiss An Angel Good Morning.” During the course of his
career, Pride has been responsible for the sale of more than 70 million
records worldwide, has won multiple GRAMMY Awards and was inducted into
the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000. He is a 2008 recipient of the
Mississippi Arts Commission’s Lifetime Achievement Award. 

Marty
Stuart was born in Philadelphia, Mississippi and started performing
bluegrass before his teen years even began, playing with such greats of
the genre as Lester Flatt, Vassar Clements and Doc Watson. Johnny Cash
became his mentor in 1980 when Stuart joined Cash’s backing band. A
member of The Grand Ole Opry for two decades, he is a past President of
the Country Music Foundation and continues to serve on the
organization’s board and has authored several scholarly works on
country music history and is a multi-GRAMMY Award winner. “Sparkle
& Twang: Marty Stuart’s American Musician Odyssey,” a reflection of
the artist’s personal experiences with some of the most famous stars of
American music, is currently the featured exhibition at the Autry
National Center of the American West in Los Angeles. 

 

Pinetop
Perkins was born in Belzoni, Mississippi more than 95 years ago and is
truly one of the last great Mississippi bluesmen still performing.
 Working throughout the Mississippi Delta in the late 1920’s, 30’s and
into the 40’s Pinetop (born Willie Perkins) spent three years with
Sonny Boy Williamson on the King Biscuit Time radio show and went on to
tour and perform with Robert Nighthawk, B.B. King and Earl Hooker,
recording for Sun Records along the way.  His brand of boogie-woogie is
credited with giving structure to swing music and, later, rock ‘n’
roll.  Pinetop Perkins joined the Muddy Waters band in 1969 and
continued to play with the group after Waters’ death when they toured
as the Legendary Blues Band. A GRAMMY winner, Perkins in 2005 also
became a GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award recipient and was awarded a
National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
 A Mississippi Blues Trail Marker honoring Perkins, chronicling his
achievements, was erected just outside Belzoni in 2008.

 

Paul
Overstreet, a two-time GRAMMY Award winner, is one of the most
successful country music songwriters of all time, having been named BMI
Songwriter of the Year five times and has been the recipient of both
CMA and ACM Song of the Year awards as well as three Dove Awards for
his writing in the Christian field.  A native of Newton, Mississippi,
Overstreet has written songs recorded by a who’s who of country greats
including George Jones, Randy Travis, Tanya Tucker, Keith Whitley,
Alison Krauss, The Judds, Kenny Chesney, Hank Williams, Jr., Glen
Campbell, Mel Tillis, Travis Tritt and many others. Overstreet is also
an accomplished record producer and as a recording artist in his own
right, he has released albums on RCA and now through his own Scarlett
Moon label. 

 

Dorothy
Moore is a native of Jackson, Mississippi and is best known for the
R&B and pop smash ballad “Misty Blue” that topped the charts in
1976.  As a child she sang gospel with the New Stranger Home Baptist
Choir, later becoming a soloist. She attended Jackson State University
where she formed a group called The Poppies that was signed to CBS
Records. Her string of hits for Jackson-based Malaco Records following
“Misty Blue” included “Funny How Times Slips Away” and “I Believe You.”
She went back to gospel in the late 1980s but returned to secular music
later in that decade. A two-time GRAMMY nominee, Moore formed her own
label, Farish Street Records, naming the enterprise in honer of the
legendary neighborhood where she was raised. 

 

The
Williams Brothers began their remarkable career in gospel music almost
40 years ago when the late Leon “Pop” Williams founded the group in
Smithdale, Mississippi. Today’s Williams Brothers, Melvin, Henry and
Doug, Leon’s progeny, carry on the tradition having broken through
nationally in the early 1970’s with “Jesus Will Fix It.” In 1991, they
founded Blackberry Records, the first black-owned and operated record
label in Mississippi. This group has received numerous GRAMMY
nominations and is widely considered the most prolific quartet within
the entire gospel genre. They are planning to perform a tribute to Sam
Cooke who was born in Clarksdale and The Staple Singers whose patriarch
Roebuck “Pop” Staples was born Winona, Mississippi.

 

Nanette
Workman is so well known in Quebec that the mere mention of her first
name sparks instant recognition throughout French Canada. She was
raised in Jackson, Mississippi and, as a child, appeared on local TV,
first on the “Mr. Magic Show” and “Junior Time” and eventually hosted
“Teen Tempos,” her own weekly show.  She attended the University of
Southern Mississippi but soon moved to New York where she began a
career in theater.  Though she didn’t speak French, she was encouraged
to record in that language with her very first record, “Et Maintenant,”
staying at No.1 on French Canadian charts for 15 weeks, soon mastering
the language and hosting “Fleurs D’Amours et Fluers d’Amitie,” her own
weekly TV show. She worked as a back-up singer for the Rolling Stones
and is heard on several tracks on their landmark Let It Bleed album
including “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”  She has lived in
France and England and worked with such artists as Johnny Hallyday,
Peter Frampton and Yves Martin. Most recently, Mississippi State
University has begun a program that provides for students to live
together to advance their study of the French language at The Nanette
Workman French House.

 

Eddie
Cotton was born the son of a preacher in Jackson, Mississippi, and
began playing guitar at the age of four. He attended Jackson State
University where he majored in music and began playing professionally
at local clubs. In 1995, he left college to pursue his musical
ambitions, which led to the creation of a band called The Mississippi
Cotton Club. Cotton’s impassioned, soulful vocals and fluid, biting
guitar combined with his powerful stage presence left no doubt that a
new king was claiming his throne as one of the best guitar players to
rise from the Mississippi Delta in many years.

   

 

The
evening’s performers also include Brandon Bennett who, some contend,
directly channels the spirit of Elvis Presley. His celebrated act is
entitled “Elvis: My Way” and highlights how the life and legend of
Elvis Presley continues to be a major touchstone for all Mississippi
music.

 

 

Joey
Lauren Adams, a resident of Oxford, Mississippi, is the evening’s
co-emcee.  The talented actress has appeared in more than 30 films,
which include roles in Dazed And Confused, Chasing Amy, Mallrats, Big Daddy and The Breakup. She is writer/director of the feature film Come Early Morning, starring Ashley Judd, a Sundance Festival selection.

Event
co-sponsor Peavey Electronics was founded in 1965 by Hartley Peavey
who, the year prior to the first GRAMMY Award, built his first
amplifier in the basement of his family’s home in Meridian,
Mississippi. Today, Peavey is still based in Meridian but does business
in 136 countries through 33 facilities — most of which are in
Mississippi — and leads the industry in patents and innovations.  Just
as Mississippi bluesmen and early rock and rollers inspired Hartley
Peavey to pursue his music dreams, so do his musical instruments and
sound equipment continue to inspire musicians around the world. It is
safe to suggest that virtually every GRAMMY nominee and winner has used
Peavey products on stages and in studios over the course of the past 50
years. www.peavey.com