Legends - Febuary March 2015

READlegends.com •

1

Home to blues legends like Kenny Brown, Joe Callicott, Memphis Minnie, Don McMinn and more, the blues have deep roots here in DeSoto County. Come catch a live show or travel back in time along our historic Blues Trail. While you’re visiting, walk, stretch, picnic or enjoy a peaceful rest on our miles of greenways and trails.

For a free vacation guide, call 662-393-8770 or visit SoDeSoto.com.

Blues Trail

Museum

Great Venues

Shopping

In Northwest Mississippi, minutes from Memphis and Tunica.

With 37 hotels, 7 B+B’s, 250+ restaurants and lots of fun activities, a great time is just a phone call away.

SOULFUL!

DeSoto County, Mississippi H E R N A N D O · H O R N L A K E · OLIVE BRANCH · SOUTHAVEN · WALLS

Come to Greenville-Washington County to re-boot your energy with a full lineup of revelry to renew your spirit. Authentic Delta blues, food, festivities—dare we say paradise?

3rd Annual Mississippi River Marathon 24th Annual Crawfish Festival, Leland 2nd Annual Warfield Riverfest benefitting Camp Looking Glass 2nd Annual Mississippi Delta Dragon Boat Festival The 38th Annual Delta Blues & Heritage Festival 5th Annual Sam Chatmon Blues Festival 3rd Annual Mighty Mississippi Music Festival 4th Annual Delta Hot Tamale Festival 5th Annual “Jim Henson” Frog Fest, Leland 51st Annual Christmas on Deer Creek

February 14th May 9th June 13th July 31st - August 1st September 19th September 25th - 26th October 2nd - 4th October 15th - 17th October 24th December 5th - 31st

Greenville - Washington County. More than meets the eye. www.visitgreenville.org 1-800-467-3582

Convention & Visitors Bureau

www.bcbsms.com Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi, A Mutual Insurance Company is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. ® Registered Marks of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, an Association of Independent Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans.

Publisher and president ��������������������Marianne Todd

Creative Director / lead designer ���������������������� Shawn T. King

director of marketing ���������������������������������Ken Flynt

website designer �������������������������������Scott Mire Assistant to the Publisher ����������������������������Chris Banks

Contact LEGENDS 601-604-2963

16

Pickin’ on the Square in Corinth

24

Twist and Shout!

Contributing photographers: Chuck Cook, Joe Worthem, John Snell LEGENDS welcomes your calendar submissions. Submissions are posted free of charge on our website at www.ReadLegends.com. Calendar submissions for consideration in LEGENDS’ print calendar may be sent to

Chris@ReadLegends.com.

Copyright 2015. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or reprinted without express permission from the publisher. The opinions and views expressed by our contributors, writers and editors are their own. Various views from other professionals may also be expressed. Neither LEGENDS nor Blue South Publishing Corporation is endorsing or guaranteeing the products or quality of services expressed in advertisements. All advertisers assume liability for all content (including text representation and illustration) of advertisements printed and assume responsibility for any resulting claims against LEGENDS or its affiliates. Materials, photographs and written pieces to be considered for inclusion in LEGENDS may be sent to P.O. Box 3663, Meridian, MS 39303. Unsolicited materials will not be returned. LEGENDS is sold on bookstore shelves in 38 states. Additionally, Blue South Publishing Corporation provides more than 20,000 free copies in its coverage area to tourism offices, welcome centers, hotels, restaurants, theaters, museums, galleries, coffee shops, casinos and institutions of higher learning. If your business, agency or industry would like to be considered as a LEGENDS distribution point, or for a list of retailers, please contact us at

Editor@MississippiLegends.com.

A longtime tradition for lovers of bluegrass The music of Oxford’s Tyler Keith

culture 8

Traversing Pontchartrain

28

The Making of a Ministry

32

The Ground Zero Blues Club

40

By Way of Hollywood

46

A Day at the Races

52

The Best Artisan Farmers Markets

For more information, write to Editor@MississippiLegends.com. More information, including a comprehensive, up-to-date calendar, may be found at

A history of travel across the busy estuary

Desire Street

A music aficionado’s juke joint of choice Movie makers dub southern states “Hollywood South” Holidays bring in the crowds at the New Orleans Fairgrounds From Mississippi to Louisiana

culinary

www.ReadLegends.com

About our cover Morgan Freeman is comfortable at the Ground Zero Blues Club he owns with business partner, Clarksdale, Mississippi, Mayor Bill Luckett. The club, situated in the small Delta town whose population reaches just over 17,000, has been frequented through the years by blues lovers worldwide and visited by notable musicians such as Robert Plant, Jerry Lee Lewis, Paul Simon, Dan Aykroyd and Elvis Costello.

8

Music

Editorial - 601-604-2963 | Editor@MississippiLegends.com Contributing writers: Riley Manning, Meghan Holmes, Marilyn Storey, Tom Speed

40

Contents february / march 2015

Marketing - 601-479-3351 | Ken@ReadLegends.com

58

Dripping with Creamy Sweetness

63

Southern Fried Blues

Clarksdale’s Sweet Magnolia Ice Cream

Serving it up at Columbus’ Catfish in the Alley

32

58

46

soulfulMemphis

rhythm&blues 7 nights a week on Beale

featuring local blues by: The Boogie Blues Band with Vince Johnson Ghost Town Blues Band (2014 IBC 2nd place finalists!)

Brandon Santini Band (Blues Music Award Nominee) Dr. Feelgood Potts and many more!

Memphis Blues Society Jam Every Sunday 7 pm - 11 pm

Keeping the Blues Alive since 1985

901.528.0150

at the corner of beale & third

www.rumboogie.com │

6 • february // march 2015

READlegends.com •

7

Béla Fleck & The Knights Friday, February 6, 2015

Premier banjo player Béla Fleck is considered one of the most innovative pickers in the world and has done much to demonstrate the versatility of his instrument, which he uses to play everything from traditional bluegrass to progressive jazz to classical music. Some claim that Béla has virtually reinvented the image and sound of the banjo through a remarkable performing and recording career that has taken him all over the musical map and on a range of solo projects and collaborations. First nominated in 1998, Fleck has a total Grammy count of 15 Grammys won and 30 nominations. He has been nominated in more different musical categories than anyone in Grammy history. The roster of The Knights boasts a remarkable diversity of talents. Members are composers, arrangers, singer-songwriters, and improvisers who bring a range of cultural influences to the group, from jazz and klezmer to pop and indie rock music.

The Berenstain Bears LIVE! Friday, February 13, 2015

Adapted from the classic children’s book series

by Stan and Jan Berenstain, The Berenstain Bears LIVE! in Family Matters brings everyone’s favorite bear family to life in a thrilling theatrical experience that kids as well as their parents will treasure for many years to come. Come on down to Bear Country, where Brother Bear, Sister Bear, Papa Bear, and Mama Bear sing and dance in this colorful new musical filled with fun for the whole family.

Montana Repertory Theatre’s

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD’S THE GREAT GATSBY

Adapted for the stage by Simon Levy Tuesday, March 3, 2015 With the publication of Simon Levy’s masterful adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the stage offers a new, exciting, and fertile ground for the story. On stage the audience can feel the energy of Jay Gatsby, the sensual allure of Daisy Buchanan, and the everyman complexity of Nick Carraway. Montana Repertory, an Equity company based at the University of Montana in Missoula, has been touring since 1968. Over the past 15 years the company has toured its productions of classics such as It’s a Wonderful Life, The Diary of Anne Frank, Death of a Salesman, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Steel Magnolias, to name only a few.

MSU Riley Center Box Office | 2200 Fifth Street | Meridian, MS 39301 601.696.2200 | www.msurileycenter.com | Facebook.com/RileyCenter

Story from new orleans, madisonville, mandeville, lacombe, la.

10 • february // march 2015

READlegends.com •

11

 The estuary, known as Lake Pontchartrain, has a long history of travel. The earliest French and Spanish settlers used sailboats. By the early 19th century, steamboats made their way back and forth across the lake and aided in the development of Covington and Madisonville. It wasn’t until 1884 that the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad successfully sent the first train across the lake to Slidell. The Causeway made automobile travel across the lake possible in 1956. These days, travelers zip across the lake in minutes.

T

he Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain have shaped the cultural and economic development of southeastern Louisiana since early human settlements. The expansion of New Orleans and the North Shore means an ever-expanding network of transportation with thousands of people driving across Lake Pontchartrain each day. Others depend on the ships and trains traversing the lake to bring products into and out of the country.

The tolls, bridges and suburbs that now line the North Shore represent a large part of the area’s 21st century economy. Cypress forests and nearby estuaries originally surrounding Lake Pontchartrain illustrate the reason for original settlement: an abundance of seafood, plants and animals near a natural trade center. As people travel across and around the lake, they replicate patterns of migration that have occurred for thousands of years at the behest of the environment. As changing methods of transport accelerate travel between the North and South shores, people and environments become increasingly connected.

The south side of Lake Pontchartrain began forming 5,000 years ago as part of the St. Bernard Delta, a former distributary of the Mississippi River. The next 2,000 years brought more changes to the river’s course, with its modern eastern diversion to the Birdfoot Delta complex forming the remainder of the lake’s boundaries. By this point, groups of American Indians had constructed mounds along the big river and had also settled along the lakes and bayous formed between the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. The lake provided a conduit to the river for trade via a portage through Bayou St. John, and early French explorers encountered Indians here in the 17th century as they also searched for an entrance to the Gulf.

Early Lake Travel At the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Maritime Museum, volunteer Barry Knoess leads visitors on a tour detailing European settlement of the North and South shores. The museum sits near the confluence of Lake Pontchartrain with the Tchefuncte River in Madisonville, originally settled because of its convenient access to the lake and nearby timber forests. “The earliest French and Spanish settlers navigated the lake using sail boats, making travel upstream into the North Shore’s rivers difficult,” Knoess says. “The development of steam travel changed that, and towns like Madisonville and Covington began growing as steamboats transported agriculture and timber to New Orleans.”

Steamboats provided an opportunity for recreational travel, too. “It was a treat to go to New Orleans from Madisonville and stop to pick up passengers in Mandeville along the way. We landed at the West End, took a street car to Canal Street, and shopped,” says Enid Sims-Sears in an oral history at the museum. “You sucked on lemons if you got seasick. It was invigorating in an era of fewer diversions.”

During the Civil War, steamboats transported New Orleanians to the North Shore following their refusal to take the Union oath of citizenship. Yankee troops occupied the city for the majority of the conflict while residents of the Florida parishes remained Confederate. “The Civil War devastated the North Shore,” said Sims-Sears, “but eventually the steamboats and recovery returned.”

12 • february // march 2015

READlegends.com •

13

“When I was in high school the lakefront was the scene. We would drive to my aunt and uncle’s house in the city, and my uncle had a red Delta 88 Convertible with white leather interior. I would borrow his car, and my girlfriends and I would drive three miles an hour for three hours, bumper to bumper along the lakefront on the South Shore. That was just what we did.” –Bambi Engeran In addition to regular round trip steamboat rides, residents of either side of the lake increasingly looked to railways to traverse the water. The Pontchartrain Railroad carried travelers from New Orleans to nearby towns like Milneburg (now part of Gentilly) on the South Shore as early as 1830, but it wasn’t until 1884 that the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad

successfully sent the first train across the lake to Slidell.

“More people traveled back and forth over the lake and so did more products – timber, bricks, tar, cotton, sand and seafood,” says Knoess. “Shipbuilding was a key industry in Madisonville, and Covington was the head of navigation on the North Shore at the Bogue Falaya. Produce was grown there and shipped out, but it wasn’t the primary industry. Land on the North Shore was prime timber country: pine forests and clay earth.”

The World’s Longest Bridge The first bridge to span part of the lake opened in 1928.

Named the Watson-Williams Pontchartrain Bridge, it connected Slidell to the city but many residents of St. Tammany and Tangipahoa parishes continued driving around the lake or utilizing rail or steam to reach New Orleans. “It wasn’t until the 1940s that plans to build the Causeway began to come together.” says Catherine Campanella, a historian in New Orleans.

“The bridge was originally a single span and opened in 1956.”

The Times Picayune reported that it took two gallons of gas

ABOVE: Lake Pontchartrain is 40 miles from west to east and 24 miles from north to south with boundaries traversing six parishes. Roughly 40,000 cars traverse its Causeway each day. A brackish estuary, it averages 12 to 14 feet in depth, but in some spots it’s deeper than 50. (Photograph by Chuck Cook/LEGENDS)

14 • february // march 2015

READlegends.com •

15

to traverse the bridge and that construction was completed in 14 months. Photographs of opening day show cars lined up and down the causeway, waiting for a chance to drive from Metairie to Mandeville and back again. Bambi Engeran grew up on the North Shore with family in the city. “My parents took old Hammond Highway to get to my grandparent’s house in New Orleans,” she says.

After they built the causeway, we would cross the bridge in my mother’s station wagon and my sisters and I would lie in the back and watch the stars at night driving back to the North Shore. Everyone loved that drive.

“When I was in high school the lakefront was the scene. We would drive to my aunt and uncle’s house in the city, and my uncle had a red Delta 88 Convertible with white leather interior. I would borrow his car and my girlfriends and I would drive three miles an hour for three hours, bumper to bumper along the lakefront on the South Shore. That was just what we did,” Engeran says.

The other novelty was to go to Pontchartrain Beach,” she says. “We drove from the North Shore but every family in New Orleans went, too. We always rode the Zephyr. It was the scariest roller coaster. There was also Lincoln Beach for black families. The beaches were segregated until 1964.”

The Causeway also increased traffic on the north of the lake, as ease of access combined with white flight and a growth in suburbs around the nation steadily increased the population north of Lake Pontchartrain. “When I was a little girl it only took a few minutes to travel from Mandeville to Lacombe and (after the bridge) we started having more traffic. It still wasn’t anything like it is today, though,” remembers Joyce Bates, a lifelong resident of Lacombe.

Economic development both in and out of the waters surrounding Lake Pontchartrain proceeded largely unabated until the passage of the Clean Air Act and burgeoning environmentalism in the 1970s. City officials closed Pontchartrain Beach to swimming in 1972 following the lake’s contamination from sewage runoff on the North Shore. “I remember when they closed the beach,” says Engeran. “I was too young to understand that the water was polluted.”

A Basin Rich with Artifacts and Stories Michael Harley grew up in Mandeville and now lives in New Orleans. His parents owned Sweet Daddy’s restaurant on the North Shore while he was growing up. Before that, his father’s family of Houma and Creole ancestry lived and farmed in nearby Lacombe. “Lacombe is some of the last country still left on the North Shore because of the state park. When I was growing up, driving into Mandeville from the causeway was so dark. All you could see were lights at the end of docks as you drove into the North Shore. Now it looks like Metairie,” he says.

In Mandeville, the Causeway is used to give people directions, he said. “It’s always in the background like a skyline. You knew you had made it as a driver when you were confident enough to cross the bridge and make it into the city,” he says.

In high school, Harley and his buddies swam in the lake. “Right before I moved to New Orleans they tore up all the cypress forests … to build a parking

16 • february // march 2015

lot for a new ferry system across the lake. Funding fell through and they never finished the project,” he says. “I’m glad that we have the causeway; it’s irreplaceable for people that live in that area of the North Shore, but I do worry about the future with so many people traveling back and forth and so much development of the forests and bayous.”

Lake Pontchartrain is 40 miles from west to east and 24 miles from north to south with boundaries traversing six parishes. Roughly 40,000 cars traverse its Causeway each day. A brackish estuary, it averages 12 to 14 feet in depth, “but in

some spots it’s deeper than 50,” according to Engeran and other locals.

The lake’s basin provides a home for millions of people, plants and animals. As commuters return to the North Shore after working in the city, pelicans search for dinner in the lake’s choppy waters and willow trees shade alligators waiting for nightfall along confluences of the lake to the rivers above it. It’s all connected.

Bridges, ferries and trains shorten the distance between people and communities, allowing for increased migration and economic development. The past has taught the people of the Pontchartrain Basin that development cannot be undertaken lightly – dredging, drilling and popu-

lation growth have all negatively impacted the area’s plants and animals.

The future requires a balance, connecting people and businesses on both sides of the lake while also acknowledging the fragility of southeast Louisiana and the importance of protecting its unique wonders. “The rivers and the lake are full of artifacts and stories,” Sims-Sears says, “traveling on our rivers and lakes keeps our stories alive.” L

ABOVE: Sailboats sit in a Lake Pontchartrain harbor, not unlike the sailboats used by early settlers to traverse the 40-mile lake.

READlegends.com •

17

Story from corinth, miss.

Pickin’ on the Square in Corinth

Bluegrass

love

by Riley Manning

photography by Joe Worthem

C

orinth is a town lots of folks swear by, not the least of which are the people who live there.

The old Civil War town sits at the top of the state, under Pickwick Lake just over the Tennessee line. It sprung up around the intersection of two railroads, the Memphis and the Charleston, and conflicts over these shipping lines scarred the land outside of Corinth, the Shiloh and Brice’s Crossroad battle fields.

To many, it is a place that has retained the best of the old times. It wasn’t until 2012 when the town of around 15,000 voted to adopt the sale of liquor and wine. There’s even still a drug store on the town square where visitors can eat a patty melt and slurp a milkshake while they wait for their prescriptions.

Each Thursday, musicians come out in their worn denim, some bearing the faded rings from chew cans. They raise their harmonicas and strings on the steps of the courthouse steps as the sun settles and turns everything purple, and they sing about wandering souls, about Kentucky and about being lonesome.

In the winter, they take their pickin’ indoors. The crowd thins

out a little in those months, but Freeman Gurley likes the extra room on the dance floor.

“I pass the gate like a Ford V8,” he says.

Like most in attendance, the 88-year-old shrugs and says he doesn’t really play music, right before he explalins his mastering of the guitar, the mandolin and the fiddle.

Ingrid Bergmann and Jimmy Hathcock are also fixtures on the dance floor and the courthouse steps. Ingrid hails from Guatemala and is named for the famous Swedish dancer. They’re a handsome couple. If you ask Hathcock how they got hooked up, he’ll tell you he found her as a belly dancer in New Orleans and won her love by rescuing her from the jaws of a crocodile.

Bergmann rolls her eyes, not unfondly.

“My father was very strict when I was a girl, so instead of dancing, I played basketball,” she said. “When I fell in love with a military man, we married in Guatemala, then moved to the U.S. We would always go dancing.”

Bergmann’s husband passed away about 12 years ago, but she found a new dance partner in Hathcock, who learned to cut a rug at the legendary juke joints on the state line.

“These were back in the days of Buford Pusser,” he said. “I met Ingrid at a bluegrass show and it just took off from there.”

Bluegrass is a storytelling art, and to take in a night of pickin’ is to come into contact with stories as much as with music. It is a snapshot, an intimate one, of a North Mississippi town’s humble soul.

Pickin’ on the Square was formally organized 13 years ago by Patricia Harville-Nachbar. “My son played the banjo, and one year he spent the summer in Mountain View, Arkansas,” she said. “He ended up staying two-and-a-half years. They play on the square every chance they get up there.”

When she and her husband, Bruce, went to visit, she saw the pickin’ firsthand and thought it might be a good thing to implement back in Corinth.

She then proceeded to pocket the idea for 20 odd years. In the

but anyone who wants to play can take the stage.

Some people, however, find the best action side stage. There are some musicians that have no yearning for the stage. They’re a unique breed who pull their chairs in a circle around back and jam.

“If you can learn to play bluegrass, you can play anything,” said Marty Stewart, one such jammer. “We’re the regulars. We’re here on a weekly basis, but while the road musicians come to hit the stage, we like being off to the side,” he said, gesturing to the other dozen or so pickers in the room. “This is kind of a place for musicians to come and exercise each week.”

It’s an especially crucial environment for young musicians, Stewart said. He recalled living with his grandfather one summer at the tender age of 12.

“I got married when I was 17, and my wife traded a doll for a real guitar for me. You can buy a record, but it’s not the same as standing around watching and listening first hand.”

—Marty Stewart meantime, bluegrass and crafts like blacksmithing picked up in Arkansas, gaining national attention. When Harville-Nachbar finally did put the idea forth, it turned out to be just what the pickers of Corinth and Alcorn County were waiting for.

“The Coca-Cola plant here gave us a little money to start, and it took off beyond anything I could have imagined,” she said. “We’ve had people from all over the U.S., people from Australia, England, all over, really.”

Pickin’ on the Square is an open forum. Every once in a while, a guest band will roll in from out of town, like the Hatchie Bottom Boys,

TOP: A donation bucket is passed in support of bluegrass musicians who come to play for the crowds at Corinth’s Pickin’ on the Square. To the right, Ralph Tucker plays the harmonica.

BELOW: During winter months, when the biting cold air is upon the northeast Mississippi town, the musicians meet indoors. When the air is warmer during spring and summer months, an average of 300 guests plant themselves in lawn chairs around the grounds of the courthouse, all coming for a taste of their beloved bluegrass.

“He said, ‘I sure could use a rhythm guitar player,’ so I made a guitar out of a board that sounded awful,” he said.

“But I learned a little. I got married when I was 17, and my wife traded a doll for a real guitar for me. You can buy a record, but it’s not the same as standing around watching and listening first hand.”

Autry Derrick is another jammer. He’s only been playing for around 60 years. “Still ain’t learned it yet,” he said.

Derrick got his start playing in a band in Arkansas until he met his wife in North Mississippi and settled there. He played country and gospel everywhere between Arkansas and Louisiana until he got hooked on bluegrass in the early ‘80s.

“It’s so precise,” he said. “Country you can kind of slide into it, but in bluegrass, you gotta be right on it.”

These winter months will do, Derrick said, yet he yearns for summer nights on the square, when 300 people from town plant themselves in lawn chairs, sweet tea in hand, and breathe the sweet smell of summer that only Mississippi can muster. L Want to go?

Pickin’ on the Square is held each Thursday night at 7 p.m. at either the Courthouse Square (spring, summer and fall) or East Waldron Street during winter months. For more information, visit www.Corinth.net or phone (662) 287-8300.

Cost is free.

22 • february // march 2015

Left to right, clockwise, Donald Donn, Don Barner, Sherry Smith and Willie Eubanks are members of The Courthouse Pickers, a group frequenting Pickin’ on the Square.

Scan Here!

Follow Us!

Pearl River Resort • Choctaw, MS near Philadelphia • 1.866.44PEARL(1.866.447.3275) • www.pearlriverresort.com A development of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians READlegends.com •

23

24 • february // march 2015

READlegends.com •

25

Story from oxford, miss.

— Rock ‘n’ roll renaissance man Tyler Keith and the road from punk to folk —

F

or the better part of the past 20 years, musician Tyler Keith has made a name for himself mostly as a rough-hewn rock ‘n’ roll rebel. As a member of the Oxford garage rock band, The Neckbones, he released three albums including 1997’s critically heralded “Souls on Fire.”

He also toured the world with Fat Possum label mates TModel Ford and R.L. Burnside. These days, Fat Possum boasts a wide roster of alternative rock acts. Bands such as the Black Keys and Water Liars got their start on Fat Possum. At that time, it was strictly a blues label, and The Neckbones were the first rock act to fuse the two styles of music. It made a weird kind of sense. The raw-boned blues guys shared a kinship with the upstart punkers. Both played with an urgency and honesty that was palpable from the stage. And both specialized in organized mayhem.

Keith later fronted The Preacher’s Kids, a unit that released three albums of its own and also, for most of the aughts, made a show of touring America like rampaging pirates. In that group, hints of rockabilly fused with the punk-leaning sounds of The Neckbones.

In recent years, Tyler Keith and the Apostles has been the outlet. That group released “Black Highway” in 2013 and have played countless shows in Oxford and beyond.

Now, Keith has a new record out, his first solo record. And it only makes sense that it would be … a folk record? Not quite, but almost. “Alias: Kid Twist” consists of Keith alone, with acoustic guitar, harmonica, piano and his voice. While not necessarily a quiet record (Keith can still manage to raise a ruckus without the benefit of amplification) the acoustic setting does put the focus on the songs, their construction, their hooks, their lyrics.

This isn’t a far stretch for Keith. In fact, he is something of a renaissance man it turns out. He is a musician, but he is also a filmmaker who has had his films screened at the Oxford Film Festival. Last year, he wrote, directed and starred in an original stage presentation of his rock opera, “Outlaw Biker.” He holds a master’s degree in Southern Studies from the University of Mississippi. A conversation with Keith can meander through topics of neurobiology, literature, the documentary films of Warner

26 • february // march 2015

Herzog, pre-Civil War history and the punk rock scene of Pensacola, Florida in the late 1980s.

It was there, growing up in nearby Gulf Breeze, Florida, that Keith learned songwriting. Keith grew up in a strict, religious household, attending a fundamentalist private school.

But his dentist father was also a bluegrass musician on the side.

Musical instruments were all over the house, and everybody in the family played something. Keith picked up the guitar at age 7.

“There was always a guitar around, a piano, banjo,” says Keith. “My older brother played guitar. And my sister played fiddle. I started playing guitar at 7 or 8, just learning the alternating bass, the Flatt runs, the Carter Family songs and stuff.”

The family would travel together to bluegrass festivals throughout the South. At one, Keith got to see Bill Monroe perform.

READlegends.com •

27

“That made a big impression on me,” he says.

The festivals were a communal affair, with parking lot picking parties sometimes being as much of a draw as the performers on the stage.

Sometimes, they were one in the same.

“There would be people from the bands out there playing too,” says Keith. “So that was kind of cool.”

During this time, Keith was learning to play guitar, and learning how songs worked. He was playing bluegrass. But he was listening to rock ‘n’ roll on the radio—whatever the hits of the day were. Then, an older buddy introduced him to The Who. Pensacola was an unlikely hotbed of live punk concerts. Clubs like The Handlebar would host all-ages shows, catching bands on routing gigs while traveling. Black Flag, Suicidal Tendencies and other seminal punk bands would stop regularly. Keith remembers seeing an early version of The Flaming Lips when they were just a three-piece performance. He saw Henry Rollins, post-Black Flag.

“The audience was weird,” Keith said. “You had old surfers and skateboarders, old punk rockers, young goth kids. Pensacola was a hub.”

He and his buddies tried to put together a punk band called Meager Existence; the name proved prophetic and they didn’t get very far.

“I really couldn’t play that fast,” quips Keith.

In high school, despite his penchant for punk rock, Keith was pretty much a straight arrow. He did his schoolwork and was a star athlete running cross country for the track team. He was awarded a track scholarship to Mississippi College where he would follow in the footsteps of his older brother.

Then, he found his rebellious streak. Instead of hitting the books, he was soaking up the culture. He’d spend all night at Jackson’s Subway Lounge, seeing live blues music for the first time.

“When you come from a place, you don’t notice your own culture a lot,” says Keith. “Coming to Mississippi, there’s a lot of obvious culture.

There’s the blues. There’s a lot of literary culture. At the time, I was a big reader of Barry Hannah and William Faulkner. Mississippi, to me, was like a magical place where there are all kinds of that stuff. Coming here was like coming to a different world. Going to the Subway Lounge when you’re 18 and staying up until daybreak. It was just really mind blowing.”

His sister had attended Mississippi College too, but had transferred to Ole Miss where she was dating the drummer for a band called Jet Screamer. Keith would visit on the weekends and summers. Inevitably, his grades suffered at Mississippi College and eventually he lost his scholarship. He was already yearning for Oxford.

“I wasn’t there to run or learn,” he says. “I was there for experience. You’re young, 16 or 17, and you read stuff like “On The Road” or “Catcher in the Rye.” That stuff really had an effect on me.”

It was 1990 and the music scene in Oxford was thriving. In addition to Jet Screamer, bands like Beanland, The Cooters and The Hilltops were gestating. Touring bands would come through town regularly and occasionally Syd & Harry’s would score a top national act.

“Syd & Harrys had a lot of good shows at that time,” says Keith “I remember seeing Alex Chilton in there, Flat Duo Jets, The Hilltops too.

There really was a nice little group of bands from here. Real varied but everybody was friendly.”

The Hilltops would, of course, split up when bassist John Stirrat joined Uncle Tupelo (and later,Wilco), and the remaining members formed the alt-country pioneering band Blue Mountain. Beanland gained national footing on the jamband scene as well.

Keith enrolled at Ole Miss to study English and moved into a

house on Van Buren Avenue in Oxford known locally as “the rock ‘n’ roll house” because so many musicians tended to live there. Keith rented an upstairs room, and his new roommates were musicians, too. In fact, they had a band already, and they were called The Neckbones.

Keith teamed up with a friend to form the duo Sky Pilots. Soon The Neckbones announced that they wanted to add another guitarist and vocalist. Keith was in. He became an integral part of their sound as they ascended.

During his years with The Neckbones and The Preacher’s Kids, Keith continued to hone his songwriting skills. When he started playing solo shows for the first time, he learned a new approach to performance and, perhaps, songwriting.

“I was always kind of afraid of doing solo shows,” explains Keith. “You have to deliver.

There’s not all that noise. Oddly enough, the less [fewer] instruments you have, the more dynamics are possible. Because if you quiet your guitar it can be almost near silence. It’s helped me a lot as a performer to do that, and as a singer.

“I didn’t [play solo] until the early 2000s.

I just needed money. I just asked if I could play at the Long Shot. It was terrifying. But I’ve grown to really love it. I wanted to make a record like that.”

Even through the years with The Apostles, Keith has maintained his solo gigs, now moved to the nearby Blind Pig. On stage with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica, Keith taps into the sound of his upbringing while maintaining an edge. The songs he’s written for these shows and recorded for “Alias: Kid Twist” owe as much to forbearers like Johnny Cash or Woody Guthrie as they do The Who. And a particular proclivity for rockabilly. Keith’s piano playing is rudimentary, but his barrel house style draws a straight line from Jerry Lee Lewis.

“I really got into [rockabilly] in my early 20s,” he says. “I knew how to play the music already because of knowing the Carter Family, and knowing bluegrass. Elvis’ first song was “Blue Moon of Kentucky.”

I think that songwriting, that bluegrass and country music, that’s the way I naturally think about a song. It’s entrenched in my mind, a simple structure with a hook and verse-chorus-bridge type break. I went through a period where I thought I needed to be more clever. But then I decided, you need to do what feels natural. That feels natural to me.

Those kind of changes, one-four-five. There’s something in human beings’ DNA that just feels natural.”

The name “Alias: Kid Twist” comes from both a song that appears on the album, and the alter-ego moniker Keith often used when billing his solo gigs.

Keith’s mind seems to be teeming with enough creative ideas to occupy both egos. His latest idea is for a tour to commemorate the release of “Alias: Kid Twist” with a tour of towns along the Mississippi River that would coincide with a documentary film project tracking the music history of those towns. Interviews and performances by local luminaries would be part of the package. In Minneapolis, where the tour would start, members of The Replacements and Husker Du would be interviewed. Other stops would include St. Louis, Memphis, Vicksburg and it would of course end in New Orleans, where he would be joined by the Apostles. Oh, and he wants to travel by riverboat.

Keith’s Mississippi River Tour is, like “Outlaw Biker,” an ambitious plan that has been long gestating. And like many ambitious and creative ideas, funding could be an issue. He turned to crowd-funding platforms like Kickstarter to fund the Apostles record, as well as “Alias: Kid Twist” and may do the same to fund the Mississippi River Tour.

Traveling along the waterways of America, in the grand tradition of Woody Guthrie and other iconic folkies, would be a fitting way to commemorate this record because it’s cut from that cloth and represents a lifetime of music incubation. From the tender ballads (“I Guess We Don’t Really Have That Much To Lose”), to the story songs with richly rendered characters (“No More Trains”) to commentary on other works like The Outsiders’ (“Do It For Johnny”), “Alias: Kid Twist” is very much in the folk tradition, and Keith wants it that way.

“I’ve been listening to a lot of folk records. I really like those early mid-’60s folk records. I like that sound— stuff by Patrick Sky, John D. Loudermilk, even the early Donovan folk records. The early Bob Dylan records of course. On of my favorite records of all time is ‘Another Side of Bob Dylan.’

“But I like some of the folk music being made nowadays. There’s a lot of it. I’d like to get in that world somewhat, to play some shows.

People don’t really consider what I do to be folk music. But I consider rock ‘n’ roll and rockabilly to be folk music. That’s what I consider. I don’t think anything I do is outside this realm.” L

“I wanted to be Pete Townsend.

I got an electric guitar. From then on, I didn’t care about bluegrass anymore. I played it with my family.

But punk rock was coming along.”

—Tyler Keith

Story from new orleans and atlanta

————— The making of a ministry—————

Desire Street —————————————————————————————

By Meghan Holmes

Photography by Chuck Cook

{

de·sire də | zī(ə)r noun 1. a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen.

{

I

t was a ministry begun as an after-school program in the Ninth Ward – long before the the economically depressed New Orleans region gained national attention as the horrific epicenter of Hurricane Katrina.

In 1990, Mo and Ellen Leverett had envisioned Desire Street Ministries as a project to help the children of New Orleans’ Desire housing project.

“The school grew into a Christian academy for young men, and I started as a volunteer in 1997 while I was still playing football,” says Danny Wuerffel, now executive director. “I just got hooked.”

Wuerffel, whom NFL quarterback Tim Tebow credits as his inspiration, played quarterback for the Florida Gators and later for the Saints. He retired from professional football in 2004 and began working full time for Desire Street Ministries, focusing on “building up a community in the Ninth Ward and trying to be a voice for those who don’t have a voice,” he says. For years, Desire Street focused exclusively on the Ninth Ward, primarily in the Desire neighborhood.

A year after Wuerffel began his full time service, Hurricane Katrina struck, having an immediate impact on the organization’s focus.

Several days before the storm hit, Ben McLeish had scheduled an appointment with an irrigation specialist. An employee at Desire Street Ministries, McLeish taught at the ministry’s school in the Desire neighborhood. The flood that ensued required more than he had bargained for. “We ended up with 17 feet of water where we wanted to put the football field. I needed a drainage specialist, not an irrigation specialist.

We had plenty of water to be distributed,” he says, laughing.

“We temporarily relocated to Baton Rouge and began rebuilding our ministry. At the time the Desire neighborhood was a question mark; the city was talking about making it a canal or a park. I lived in the St. Roch neighborhood, somewhat east of Desire and part of the Eighth Ward. The flooding wasn’t as bad and people had already started to rebuild, so we said let’s go where there’s life and help fan the flame.”

“The flood forced us to think about expanding beyond just the Ninth Ward,” says Wuerffel. “St. Roch Community Church was one of our first expansions out of that area. They’ve done a great job integrating the organization into the Eighth Ward and improving the neighborhood.”

These days, the Desire Street Ministries staff works across the Southeast to empower low-income residents and ministry leaders like McLeish and to improve the communities in which they live.

“One of our primary goals is creating indigenous leadership; we want young African American people from the community in leadership positions,” says McLeish. McLeish currently serves as director of the St. Roch Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit working with St. Roch Community Church as well as other initiatives to revitalize the neighborhood. “We have had a lot of success with building

“People from a neighborhood tend to both understand it and love it with great insight and passion.” – Danny Wuerffel up young people in the neighborhood. One woman that comes to mind is Nika Carter. When we met her she was a young, hot-tempered, high school student terrified of public speaking. She now leads our youth ministry and regularly speaks in front of the congregation. One young man we work with, Nehemiah Sylvester, was my neighbor when he was 6 years old, and I was a recent arrival in the city. He was raised by his grandmother, who passed away soon after the storm. He had a difficult time after that and spent time in foster care but he now works part time at our thrift store as well as part time at our charter school, Homer A. Plessy.”

Wuerffel agrees that local leadership is pivotal in community development. “People from a neighborhood tend to both understand it and love it with great insight and passion,” he says. “Oscar Brown in the Ninth Ward is a great example of this. He grew up in the ministry established there and now leads a church in Desire.”

Because of the difficulties of the job – dealing with poverty, violence and domestic problems – burnout from inner city leadership can occur in as little as three to five years without adequate support.

“For every success story there’s a story that doesn’t end as you’ve dreamed, which is a difficult part of being intimately involved in people’s lives,” McLeish says. “What we do is hard. I am lucky, though, in that my work is also incredibly rewarding, and I have a lot of optimism

“We still don’t know what the overall impact of that will be on the neighborhood, but we know there will always be a need to help lowincome people in New Orleans. When you think about people that are truly poor, they are affected when houses start selling for $300,000 in their neighborhood. When I bought my house 13 years ago it was $35,000. You’re seeing a national trend where low-income people are being pushed into suburbs outside of easy access to goods and services while more affluent Americans return to urban spaces, which is making owning a home in the city more expensive.”

St. Roch Community Church will always be relevant, he said. “No matter who lives in the neighborhood, church matters. We’ve always been a diverse church and our population now reflects more diversity in the neighborhood. Low-income populations are often transient, because they lack the resources to stay in one place, so as an organization we are used to dealing with a rapidly changing population in need.”

While McLeish prepares to grow his organization in the shifting landscape of New Orleans, Wuerffel manages Desire Street Ministries from Atlanta, where the organization moved in 2008. They now partner with ministries in Atlanta and New Orleans as well as Lakeland, Florida, Montgomery and Mobile, Alabama, and Dallas, Texas.

“For every success story there’s a story that doesn’t end as you’ve dreamed, which is a difficult part of being intimately involved in people’s lives. What we do is hard.” – Ben McLeish about the projects we have upcoming in the future.

“Desire Street has championed our cause all along. When we first started, our entire staff was part of Desire Street, and there’s been a gradual and deliberate separation from their program. Now we’re in our last year as a strategic partner. As of July 2015 we’ll be considered alumni of the program, but they’ll always be a champion in our corner.”

McLeish’s group is working to open a thrift store called Restoration

32 • february // march 2015

“We chose Atlanta as a strategic headquarters in an effort to grow Desire Street Ministries across the southeast of the United States,” Wuerffel says. “The history, the people, the airport, all caused us to believe it would be a great spot, and it has been.”

As partnerships come and go and ministries grow and change, efforts to revitalize the Ninth Ward will continue. They may all fail, and most likely people will keep trying. Memories will inspire people to rebuild, no matter how much mud and water seeps into New Orleans.

Mud and water built the city and then tried to destroy it. It’s only fitting to ignore their whims and listen to the people whose culture keeps the city afloat, no matter how often it seems sunk. L Want to know more?

Visit www.DesireStreet.org

OPPOSITE: Ben McLeish of the St. Roch Community Church stands at the new site of Restoration Thrift, a store run by the church. The store will employ low-income residents from the community as well as help fund ministry efforts.

BELOW: Danny Wuerffel shares a moment with inner city ministry leaders Leroy Barber, Nate Ledbetter and Anthony Gordon.

Thrift. “The store will employ low-income residents from the community as well as help fund our ministry efforts. We’ve also done health fairs, financial literacy and job training, summer camps, business planning programs and affordable housing efforts.”

McLeish wants to bring economic growth to low-income residents of St. Roch and says the organization also wants to promote arts education. “We started Stable Goods Gallery on St. Roch Avenue, which is now owned by one of our church elders who teaches art at Tulane. We also run an Artist-in-Residence program which provides artists with ten months of support including a stipend and housing. So far, we’ve had an illustrator and four painters,” he says. “It’s about empowering people in the community.”

Desire Street Ministries and St. Roch CDC work in historically low-income urban neighborhoods, something changing in New Orleans as post-Katrina populations shift. Coupled with a national trend of millennials migrating into urban areas, the shifts alter the racial composition and economic background numbers that make up the St. Roch neighborhood as well as the nearby Ninth Ward.

“St. Roch has gentrified a lot in the last two years,” McLeish says.

READlegends.com •

33

Story from clarksdale, miss.

34 • february // march 2015

READlegends.com •

35

M

organ Freeman is at home at the large table at Ground Zero Blues Club.

It’s lunch time at the popular juke joint he shares with friend and business partner, Clarksdale Mayor Bill Luckett. Freeman orders spaghetti and catfish – on the same plate. Luckett is busy making sure everyone else at the table – a Mississippi-born, Hollywood-transplant actress, two magazine publishers, Luckett’s wife and a 17-year-old teenager from Meridian accompanying her mother for the ride – are all well fed.

“Have some of these,” Luckett says, motioning to the teenager, Hattie Banks, who is already managing an oversized burger in her small hands. “They’re fried grits with some honey on the side. Man, they’re good.” The plate is presented on a vinyl tablecloth laden with graffiti.

The fried grits don’t last long.

The conversation at the table changes hands like a round of musical chairs. Freeman’s phone rings and he talks, even though his attention has also been taken by a friend stopping by to say hello. Others at the table swap stories, laughing robustly, or take photographs of the seemingly unusual lunch group.

36 • february // march 2015

Mid-way through lunch another guest joins the crew. Noted harmonica player and musician Charlie Musselwhite strolls in with his companion. He greets the guests at the table then slides comfortably in with the rest of the group.

Another passerby taps Freeman on the shoulder. They chat for a moment and pose for a photograph. For most of the lunch crowd, though, this is a common scene in this small, Delta town, a place the hugely popular actor calls home.

At this same club a few weeks earlier, actress Shannen Doherty was in with Holly Marie Combs, both from the “Charmed” television series.

The pair were in town to film an episode of their new reality series “Off the Map with Shannen and Holly.” While they lunched, 15-year-old guitar and blues prodigy Christone Ingram, usually called “Kingfish” and recently bound for a White House concert, played to the international blues-seeking lunch crowd. When the filming wrapped, Doherty was smiles, chatting with “Kingfish” and lingering long after her work was complete.

Luckett and Freeman opened Ground Zero Blues Club on Blues Alley in Clarksdale in 2001. The ramshackle building – complete with

“A host of famous musicians, both blues and non-blues, including Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Nelson, Pinetop Perkins, Robert Plant, Paul Simon, Dan Aykroyd and Elvis Costello have visited and/or played the club. On one recent Saturday there were visitors from Australia, Stockholm, Paris, London, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York.”  Clarksdale Mayor Bill Luckett with friend and business partner, actor Morgan Freeman at their Ground Zero Blues club in Clarksdale, Mississippi.  left to right, clockwise: Freeman and Luckett accepting the Early Wright Blues Heritage Award at the Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival for their outstanding service in promoting the blues of the Mississippi Delta; a waitress waits for an order outside the kitchen known for hot tamales, fried grits, catfish, spaghetti, oversized burgers and awesome chicken wings; the house is full during a live performance on a Saturday evening; graffiti coats every wall and surface from nearly every guest; a John Lee Hooker signed guitar hangs amid graffiti and other memorabilia.

READlegends.com •

37

 Dudley Tardo, drummer and bandleader for The House Rockers, provides the beat for a GZBC gig with vocalist Abdul Rasheed, saxophone player London Moffett and bassist Jeff Dyer. • Right, the best seat in the house.

worn couches on the front porch – dates to the early 1900s and sits on the town’s railroad line. It is formerly Delta Wholesale Grocery and Cotton Company.

“The Delta Blues Museum opened here in 1999 and was bringing in tourists who wanted to hear live blues music,” Luckett said. “So we decided to accommodate them. We came up with the name Ground Zero. I came up with the German zero and the basic design and Morgan added the red guitar for our logo, which has become pretty recognizable everywhere.”

Ground Zero Blues Club – aptly named for being the “Ground Zero” of the world’s blues aficionados, has become an international blues destination in itself. Tourists from around the world pour in – some for a hopeful glimpse of Freeman – but most for the music that ensues long after the lunch crowd has left.

A host of famous musicians, both blues and non-blues, including Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Nelson, Pinetop Perkins, Robert Plant, Paul Simon, Dan Aykroyd and Elvis Costello have visited and/or played the club. On one recent Saturday there were visitors from Australia, Stockholm, Paris, London, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. The eclectic crowd might not be unusual for a New York dive, but in Clarksdale, where the population reaches just more than 17,000, the host of year-round internationals seeking an authentic Mississippi experience is stunning. “Just walking around here, I can feel the beat right beneath the ground,” said a tourist.

And once there, they’re reluctant to leave. “Naturally as the club

became successful, there was a demand for a place where folks could ‘fall upstairs to bed,’ and Morgan really wanted a Clarksdale apartment, so that’s when we decided to do the Cotton Company Apartments upstairs,” Luckett said.

Of the eight brightly decorated and spacious downtown apartments, seven are all aptly named after the seven grades of cotton from “Good Ordinary” to “Good Middling.”

Like the downstairs restaurant, bar, pool hall and stage, graffiti has made its way into the hotel entryway.

“The graffiti starts at the front door and continues up the stairs into the hallway of the apartments. It kind of tells the story of the folks who have stayed with us. The rooms don’t have graffiti though,” Luckett said. He recites some of the scribblings on the hall walls. “Too much of everything is just enough,” he quips. “Lower my standards, not possible,” he says. The graffiti is so numerous that there is a published picture book dedicated solely to Ground Zero Blues Club scribblings.

Recently named as one of the top lodgings in the Mississippi Delta

by Forbes magazine, the Delta Cotton Company Apartments each have personalities and configurations, kitchens, dark hardwood floors and high ceilings.

Luckett chuckles when he describes how guests can feel the downstairs beat in several rooms – especially in Room No. 5. “A couple of rooms are directly above the stage and really do rock to the music playing in the club at night,” he said.

As the lunch crowd disburses, Luckett and Freeman slip quietly

A The club offers comfortable bar stools, vinyl tablecloths, a cozy atmosphere and plenty of room to write your name.

Jaxx Nassar plays the drums during a GZBC gig along with her brother, Phillip Carter, pictured at bottom. The pair practically grew up playing blues in the popular club.

into the afternoon. Freeman is on a short break from filming, but Luckett is due to film “Battle Creek,” an Allison Eastwood directed film in Canton, Miss., the next morning.

Clarksdale bluesman Josh “RazorBlade” Stewart slides behind the stage’s piano and begins singing “Easy Like Sunday Morning.” He is immediately joined on the bench by a tourist from Germany. They play an impromptu duet, and the remainder of the German tourists sing along from a long table in front of the stage. “Razorblade” feels the beat. The Germans feel the beat. The guests upstairs in Room No. 5, Strict Middling, feel the beat.

Clarksdale’s not quiet anymore. L Want to go?

Ground Zero Blues Club features live musical performances Wednesday through Saturday, beginning at 9 p.m. Kitchen hours are Monday & Tuesday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Wednesday & Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday & Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. For more information, visit www.groundzerobluesclub.com.

To rent a room at the upstairs Delta Cotton Company Apartments, visit www.deltacottoncompany.com.

Discover your new favorite neighborhooD place sunday - thursday: 5:00pm - 10:00pm friday & saturday: 5:00pm - 11:00pm

1380 Warrenton Rd. • Vicksburg, MS 39182 • www.ladyluckvicksburg.com © 2015 Isle of Capri Casinos, Inc. Lady Luck and Otis & Henry’s are registered trademarks of Isle of Capri Casinos, Inc. Subject to change/cancellation without notice. Must be 21. Gambling problem? Call 1.888.777.9696.

Story from hueytown, ala., waveland, meridian and clarksdale, miss.

by way of

hollywood Small, Southern towns offer virgin territory for movie makers Words by riley manning photography by marianne todd

O

n an October night in Hueytown, Alabama, the high school football stadium is lit like a large torch. It is that slim fall time in the Deep South between suffocating heat and bone-gnawing winter, where the days are crisp and nights cool. The parking lot is full as locals and out-of-towners traipse through the field and the stands. The energy around the big game is palpable.

Sort of.

Hueytown is the latest in a windfall of film crews to set up shop in small Southern towns with big budget pictures on their minds. The movie being filmed there, called “Woodlawn,” centers around Alabama football player “Touchdown” Tony Nathan, who would go on to play for the Miami Dolphins.

Standing in the bleachers amid rows of mannequins who make up the background of the shot, the stadium “crowd,” unit publicist Jeanmarie Murphy watches as extras rush the field below after a game-winning play. Directors Jon and Andy Erwin stand off-camera.

“Mississippi and Alabama are virgin territory,” she said.

“They haven’t been shot out like New York or Los Angeles or New Orleans. It’s perfect, unspoiled.”

Murphy isn’t the only one who thinks so. In 2013, the James Brown biopic, “Get on Up” was filmed in Natchez, and the John Krasinski film, “The Hollars” wrapped up filming

around Canton and Jackson in August. More and more, movie makers are coming to find gems in these locations. They are new, unique and versatile.

“The thing about New Orleans is that you can throw dirt on the cobblestones and it looks like the 1600s in Europe, or a cowboy movie, or something modern, anything you want.

These places have that same kind of quality,” she said. “’Woodlawn,’ for instance, takes place in the ‘70s. It was relatively easy to achieve that effect. It’s helpful to method actors because there’s an authenticity to feeling like you’re in the place where things happen.”

It has certainly made passion more possible for Mississippi actors like Jeremy Sande. The 33-year-old lives in Meridian and threw caution to the wind for the sake of acting five years ago. At the time, New Orleans was just getting into the swing of things, although it wasn’t a serious threat to the Los Angeles scene. Sande decided to look for jobs from Shreveport to the east coast.

“I’ve driven all over God’s creation,” said Sande, who has found himself increasingly taking short hiatuses from his job as a bartender at Weidmann’s restaurant to film locations. “Let me put it this way. In 2010, I bought a Honda Civic new, and it now has 117,000 miles on it. Now there are three major films coming within like 90 miles of my house.”

Sande recently finished a role in “By Way of Helena” op-

CUTLINES: On the set of “Woodlawn,” a film about Alabama football player “Touchdown” Tony Nathan, mannequins sit in the stands as a background for a crowd. In a make-up trailer provided by movie production transportation specialist Jack Prince, an actor gets made up as a 1970s character. Movie making has become so prevalent in Southern states that they’ve earned the nickname Hollywood South.

42 • february // march 2015

READlegends.com •

43

said.

The elder actor met a young Sande during Street’s stint as a theater teacher at Meridian High School in 1996. He had darkened the room for a class exercise. “Everyone was taking turns at telling their stories, and then this really weird little voice came out of nowhere. Everyone just laughed, but the voice continued. I couldn’t wait for the lights to come on to see who that voice had come from – and there was Jeremy Sande sitting there. He’ll admit he was terribly undisciplined in those days. Damn, he wouldn’t come to rehearsals until last-minute stuff started. I’m glad that’s changed.”

Street had started professionally in the business nearly 30 years earlier after graduating from Pasadena Playhouse College of Theater Arts.

In 1969, he returned to his hometown of Meridian and was, oddly, introduced to the then vice-president of programming for CBS by a local television station manager. He returned to California but was instead hired by ABC.

Histor�

Mad� U� Famou�

TU TU TU

TU

posite Woody Harrelson and Liam Hemsworth, and in the Allison Eastwood directed film, “Battle Creek.” Hollywood, Sande said, is getting closer. He said he is pleased with having landed several featured roles, but he knows he has lost out to Los Angeles-based actors whose producers don’t have to pay for air fare, hotel and per diems. With the focus on Mississippi, those roles are reversed.

“The landscapes are a key factor as well. What directors want is as wide a variety in terrain as they can get as close together as they can get it,” Sande said. “Because when they move between them, they have to move everything there. Between Jackson, the Delta and north Mississippi, the state has a lot to offer in that respect.”

Elliott Street received his first film role at age 11 in Meridian, Mississippi. He’s now 71. “Lloyd Royal was the only person making movies in Mississippi back then. We called him the ‘Pioneer Producer.’ He would hire Los Angeles talent to lead the cast and hire directors from Los Angeles and then cast local people to be in the lesser roles,” Street

Enjoy the Unforgettable Experience!

Breakfast until 2 p.m.

Lunch until 4 p.m. ◆ Free Wi-Fi ◆ Book Exchange ◆ Art & Photography ◆ ◆

 Jeremy Sande has found himself taking increased time off from his job as a bartender at Meridian’s Weidmann’s restaurant to pursue filming on locations around Mississippi and Louisiana. The actor used to drive thousands of miles in pursuit of acting jobs. These days, acting jobs are so plentiful in Mississippi, he doesn’t have to drive far. Sande’s latest roles were as a mean Brit in “By Way of Helena” opposite Woody Harrelson and Liam Hemsworth and in “Battle Creek,” an Allison Eastwood-directed film.

VISITNATCHEZ.ORG is your “go-to” source for event information, attractions, accommodations and everything else you need for planning the perfect trip to Natchez in 2015.

Literary & Cinema Celebration February 27-28

Homemade Soups, Sandwiches, Cakes, Muffins, Coffee & Teas, Fruit Smoothies and much more!

509 Franklin Street ~ Natchez, Mississippi ~ (601) 304-1415

BEST PLATE LUNCH BEST FOOD FOR THE MONEY

Spring Pilgrimage March 7 - April 7 PowWow at the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians March 28-29 RiverStock April 18

BEST FAMILY RESTAURANT BEST STEAK

Festival of Music Events throughout the month of May Food & Wine Festival July 31 - August 2 For a full calendar of events or a free visitor guide, go to visitnatchez.org. Plus, ask us your travel questions and share photos of your trip using #visitnatchez.

SAVE DATE 2016

Join Us for Natchez’s Tricentennial Celebration!

visitnatchez.org 44 • february // march 2015

natchezms300.com

BEST SEAFOOD

333

TAKE-OUT & CATERING

515 SCENIC LOOP 333 • GRENADA, MISSISSIPPI READlegends.com •

45

“The thing about New Orleans is that you can throw dirt on the cobblestones and it looks like the 1600s in Europe, or a cowboy movie, or something modern, anything you want. These places have that same kind of quality,” she said. “’Woodlawn,’ for instance, takes place in the ‘70s. It was relatively easy to achieve that effect. It’s helpful to method actors because there’s an authenticity to feeling like you’re in the place where things happen.” – Jeanmarie Murphy The difference between acting in southern states between 1969 and 2015 is drastic, he says. “There are all sorts of ways to have better exposure now. Back then, you had to go to L.A. In Mississippi it all started in the early 1990s with ‘A Time to Kill.’ Canton, where that movie was filmed, led the wave in Mississippi. They were willing to build a facility to work with the producers.”

Street left Los Angeles for Atlanta in 1983, because “It was No. 3 in the nation for film production.” These days, he’s back in his Meridian home and still being offered roles in major motion pictures. Most recently, Street appeared in “Last Vegas” as the chapel officiant opposite Mary Steenburgen, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Klein. “It’s nice company,” he laughs.

For Connie Hoy, president and director of Maindiner Entertainment, the decision to shoot her movie “Battle Creek” in the Delta was somewhat of an Aha! moment. Hoy recalled sitting poolside after scouting the area near Clarksdale. She and the other directors sat with their feet in the water kicking around the pros and cons of shooting in Mississippi or their alternate choice, South Carolina.

“We’d scouted Mississippi and found the creek we wanted to use for the movie, but when I plunged off the ledge of that pool and into the water, I came up and for some reason just knew Mississippi was right,” she said. “I said to them, ‘Guys, we’re shooting here.’”

Murphy and Hoy both became familiar with Southern hospitality, a phenomenon sight unseen in Los Angeles. Not only are the regulations and permits there ceaseless, but the natives have become jaded to the business.

“There are no obstacles to do what you do here, and the locals will bend over backwards to accommodate you,” Murphy said. “In L.A., let’s say you’re shooting a scene and a lawn guy is running his weed eater in the background and killing your audio. When you go ask him to stop for a second he holds his hand out for a $100 bill.”

Aside from the charm, Hoy said filming in the state is good for movie-makers’ bottom lines. Unlike Louisiana and Georgia, Mississippi offers qualifying projects an impressive 25 to 35 percent tax incentive in the form of a cash back rebate rather than a tax credit.

“It’s so good that no director wouldn’t come here,” Hoy said. “The

46 • february // march 2015

problem is that Mississippi’s infrastructure isn’t quite ready to handle the influx.”

Hoy said South Carolina and Utah are other states who give a cash back incentive. These states employ CPAs to tag the production’s books along the way, so when the Department of Revenue audits the film’s rebate application, the information is simple and streamlined. The process in Mississippi is much more jumbled and archaic, producing hundreds of hours of preparation and relatively no one to perform the task.

“Mississippi is going to get busy, but I don’t want it to miss the wave,” Hoy said. “As it stands, it takes six months to get the rebate, and that’s not going to cut it.”

Clarksdale attorney Bill Luckett is a self-proclaimed “film-friendly” mayor, and he’s looking to capitalize on the rush for the good of the state. As much as Mississippi has to offer the movie business, the industry has just as much, if not more, to offer Mississippi.

“The Screen Actors Guild and other organizations categorize films by budget, kind of like grades of cotton,” said Luckett, who also is an actor. “Mississippi right now caters to independent film budgets up to about $25 million.”

His friendship and business partnership with actor Morgan Freeman introduced him to the legal side of the business, and before long, Luckett was scoring minor roles. He’ll appear as a cantankerous diner chef in “Battle Creek.” Luckett said a problem does exist in that there is a local lack of production staff, grips, gaffers, the contractor work behind the film. Since Mississippi is in its infancy, many of these services have to be brought in from out of state. The good news is that since this support staff gets paid in-state, they qualify for the rebate.

“It’s like when the beer truck runs out of beer before it gets to you,” Luckett said. “It’s fine to call in another truck, because they’re still paying the local guy.”

However, this aspect of small town filming is growing, too.

Jack Prince is a transportation coordinator for Waveland Studios, the largest motion picture equipment group in the State of Mississippi.

His fleet filled the parking lot in Hueyville – trailers filled with makeup, costumes, electrical and lighting equipment – even dogs. Waveland Studios provides even mechanical effects used in explosions and wrecks.

Prince moved to Waveland three years ago, and now his fleet includes the only camera car and camera crane in the state.

“We’re a homegrown company,” he said. “I had some friends down in Gulfport who said, ‘Hey, let’s make a movie,’ so I came in and just stayed. I believe in what’s going on down here, and the tax incentive is incredible.”

It is hard to find a downside to a film boom in Mississippi, Murphy said. When a film crew takes to a town, it leaves it behind at least as clean as they found it. Sometimes even better.

“If we find a house we want to use, we pay to have it fixed and restored how we need it, and that adds value to the house for the owner after we leave,” Murphy said. “A film brings money into a town beyond just well-heeled people eating fancy dinners. You think about gas, lumber, rentals, office supplies, dressing sets with furniture, catering for 500 people each day … It goes and goes and goes.”

Murphy offered one lament about shooting a film in the South and sending it to Los Angeles for editing.

If Mississippi was equipped for more post-production work, that’s another slice of money that could contribute to the state’s economy.

Luckett is working on that as well.

He’s feeling out plans to construct a top-notch production company in the Delta with a sound stage large enough to give Prince’s Waveland stage competition. Nothing is for sure, but he’s optimistic about having it underway in the next year. It’s one more step in the trek to provide Southerners working in the industry a sense of permanence by having plentiful work where they live.

“The Delta really is a striking place,” he said. “If you didn’t have the tree line, you could see forever. It’s stark, but beautiful. If you’ve never seen a film set up in a small town, it’s exciting for everyone, and I’m excited about everything going on down in Clarksdale.” L

Top to bottom: Elliott Street graduated from acting school in California and began his professional film career in 1969. In those days, actors had to go to L.A. for acting gigs, but these days, acting jobs are numerous in and around Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. Street’s most recent roll was a chaplain in the film “Last Vegas.”; Jack Prince moved his production company to Waveland, Mississippi in 2014 and has built the largest sound stage in the state; extras gather on the football field for the shooting of “Woodlawn” in Hueytown, Alabama.

READlegends.com •

47

Story from new orleans

48 • february // march 2015

READlegends.com •

49

The New Orleans Fairgrounds has brought together people for more than 150 years. On major holidays, the mix of cultures and people who make up New Orleans, the longtime and the recently transplanted, gather to eat, to celebrate and to watch the thoroughbreds race.

I

t is a Thursday, and Keith Juneau is having a good day at the races.

“I’ve been betting at the track with my dad since I was 9; I grew up in Gentilly,” he says.

Placing bets at the New Orleans Fairgrounds Race Course and Slots complex used to mean waiting in long lines. “Before everything was computerized, tellers took all the bets,” Juneau says. “Nowadays you can bet on races all over the place and you don’t have to talk to anybody.”

Juneau is eating a hotdog, like almost everyone else surrounding the gambling machines on the bottom floor of the building. On “Throw Back Thursdays” the fairgrounds serves both hotdogs and Miller Lites for $2. He is wearing a faded blue sweatshirt, jeans and flip-flops, while holding a rolled-up guide to the day’s races. For novices he recommends disregarding such information.

“I used to bring my girlfriend here and she didn’t know much about horses. It’s better to just bet on the one whose name you like. Don’t waste your time reading about the horses or trying to understand the lengths and speeds. You’re more likely to have beginner’s luck if you pick the name you like the best.”

An announcer offers other betting tips via a loudspeaker. Juneau bets on Offshore Fantasy, the No. 4 horse for the 4:30 p.m. race. Both horse and jockey wear bright blue and move anxiously behind the starting gate. As the horse’s head butts the gate and attempts to rear, Juneau appears unconcerned.

“He’s ready to go. Could be good, could be bad,” he says, waiting.

“Call to post,” says the announcer. Almost everyone looks up.

Offshore Fantasy starts with a strong lead, upsetting some fans nearby. “Stop the race,” one man yells dramatically, largely ignored by the people surrounding him. Juneau also ignores him, saying little until the race’s final seconds when Offshore is edged out by the No. 5 horse, Winner Take All. “Got him by the nose,” he says, returning inside for another Miller Lite. Juneau lost $20. Wages are much higher in the clubhouse four stories above, where the majority of the millions of dollars in bets and prizes originates and returns.

The next Thursday is Thanksgiving. Cars surround the fairgrounds and cabs drop off already tipsy locals relocating from Bloody Mary brunches to the horse races. First post is at 11 a.m. and by mid-after-

50 • february // march 2015

noon thousands of people circle the grounds. The crowds will also return at Christmas, New Year’s and Mardi Gras.

Aside from a $10 entry fee for the clubhouse, entrance to the fairgrounds is free. As a result, a wide variety of people occupy the lower levels. Bets are made on the bottom floor, which is will equipped with televisions simulcasting racing events around the country. The floor above has a viewing area for live races with rows of seats facing the racetrack.

The building’s track side is entirely glass, rising high above crowds of mingling people waiting for the next race to begin.

Outside, track regulars peruse weathered racing guides and quietly discuss odds amongst themselves.

A jockey’s family waits near the finish line, speaking in Spanish next to a group of men wearing wigs and high heels. Fashions run the gamut from $12,000 minks to wrinkled sweatpants.

Gabrielle Trimm and Irene Plax arrive from Bacchanal wine bar, where the two work. The employees met for raw oysters and champagne before traveling together to watch the races. Neither plans to bet. “I didn’t really come here to gamble,” says Trimm. “On Thanksgiving people come to see and be seen. It’s like a city-wide costume party where everyone is dressed to the nines, New Orleans style.”

Plax and Trimm both wear fur, a trend from the past that has made a recent resurgence at the races. It’s a November day in New Orleans – sunny and around 60 degrees. “It’s hot when you aren’t in the shade but everyone here loves an occasion to dress up,” Plax says. “There are people who have been coming here forever next to people who recently moved here and don’t have a lot of family in the area.”

Upstairs in the clubhouse, visitors enjoy a Thanksgiving Day spread

 A day at the races -- especially on Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and Mardi Gras, brings thousands of visitors, mostly to bet, but some to be seen.  top to bottom: Ladies dressed in their fanciest hats pose for a photo in between races; Brother Martin High School alums meet before a race; because entrance to the fairgrounds is free, the races draw a wide variety of fans.

– $70 for seating in row seven and $125 for seating on the first row, next to the glass.

No shorts, t-shirts or sandals are permitted. Menu highlights include corned beef and cabbage, roast turkey with gravy, roasted grouper, green bean casserole and a fruit and cheese display. There is an $80 meal with a similar menu available in the Black Gold Room and a buffet for grandstand visitors priced at $32 per person.

“Almost everyone up here has bet on a race or has a stake in it somehow so everyone’s paying attention,” says Ida Little, who often dines in the clubhouse at the fairgrounds. “People are excited about the races but it’s also about spending time with friends and family and not just on Thanksgiving. Louisiana Champions Day, Christmas, New Years, Mardi Gras … a lot of families come here on major holidays.”

There has been a racetrack on the site of New Orleans fairgrounds since 1852.

Races were interrupted during Union occupation as troops raided nearby plantations and sold many of Louisiana’s thoroughbreds to New York buyers. Despite an ensuing READlegends.com •

51

lack of quality horses, races continued, and gambling on the sport became a sometimes lucrative pursuit in the city.

By 1908, resentment towards increasingly corrupt bookmakers and gamblers manifested in the form of the Locke Law, which banned horse racing for seven years and effectively shut down the racetrack. The law’s repeal in 1915 reopened the track, though races halted briefly in 1919 following a fire in the grandstand.

The fairgrounds almost closed again in 1941 when it was put up for auction. It was purchased with a 30-day option by a group of businessmen and horse owners.

The races continued. A gas line explosion in 1993 destroyed the clubhouse, and in 2005, Hurricane Katrina tore open the grandstand roof and flooded the grounds in what became the first winter without races in 91 years. Jazz Fest was held at the fairgrounds the following April. The festival – which boasts large stages on either end for national and local performers – had relocated from Armstrong Park in the ‘70s and has since been held at the fairgrounds.

Despite the endurance of local traditions associated with the racetrack, the future of the fairgrounds sometimes seems uncertain with the owners, Churchill Downs, Inc., rumored to possibly sell.

Until that time, the people will continue to come, celebrating a time-honored tradition in classic New Orleans’ style. L

“

It’s better to just bet on the one whose name you like. Don’t waste your time reading about the horses or trying to understand the lengths and speeds. You’re more likely to have beginner’s luck if you pick the name you like the best.”

TOP TO BOTTOM Track bugler Les Colonello calls the next race; Shadows of horses, groomers and riders are cast on the paddock floor as betters come to view the thoroughbreds; The starting gate at the New Orleans Fairgrounds.

52 • february // march 2015

READlegends.com •

53

Story from new albany, miss.

From the baskets of

Mississippi farmers

The New Albany Biscuits & Jam Farmers Market strives to merge fresh produce and farm-made products with art and music. Area farmers and artists from around the state flank the banks of the Tallahatchie River on the 2nd Saturday of each month to sell their wares.

Fresh produce, music and art rise from trendy to mainstream

by Riley Manning photographs by Marianne Todd

54 • february // march 2015

I

n the misty morning of any given Saturday in Mississippi, it isn’t too hard to find a collection of local farmers, wherever “local” happens to be, gathered in rows on their truck beds or tents over plump baskets of ripe produce.

In New Albany, Karen Green is one of them, with her crates of watermelon and cantaloupe. She and her husband Jerry Green hail from Potts Camp, about half an hour away. The couple usually sell okra, squash and tomatoes. They started selling at the New Albany farmers market last season.

“Normally we’re out in front of the quick stop back home. There’s always been folks like that, one selling boiled peanuts on one side of town, another fellow selling sweet potatoes on the other,” she said. “But it makes more sense to come together in one spot.”

On down the line, Union County farmers Johnny and Bonnie Clayton offer up four different kinds of okra – Burgundy Reds, Star of David, Emerald Green and Dwarf. The reds stick out with their slick purple texture, against the squat, ridged Star of David variety. “Every okra’s got a different taste. The burgundy has a sweeter taste. My mother grew and cooked dwarf okra back in the ‘50’s,” Johnny said. “I’ve been gardening all my life. Used to be, it was the way people fed their kids.”

Arranged around the okra are boxes of baby tomatoes, purple hull peas and bell peppers, and when a pair of ladies approach to examine the tomatoes, Bonnie is quick to offer salad ideas. “Especially in the center of town, a farmers market draws more people,” Johnny said. “They can compare, see what everybody’s got.”

Jesse and Neal Porter sell a similar spread, except with more in the way of beets and squash. The couple picked up gardening when they retired in 1988, and have seen the farmers market concept grow from a trend to a full-on movement. The majority of their customers each weekend, Jesse said, are young people, turned on by the freshness.

“The older people always knew what it was, but the younger people are just now learning. They say every trade skips a generation,” he said.

“My generation knows how to grow produce and the value of it. The generation after mine wasn’t as interested, but now it’s coming back around again.”

Green agreed, and gestured towards her watermelons.

“If these were shipped, they’d have to be picked too soon and ripened with gas,” she said, picking up a cantaloupe. “They come here and know these were picked last night.”

Each farmers market has its own spirit, and New Albany’s is as artoriented as it is food-oriented, especially as peak harvest season declines.

Every second Saturday, it combines with the town’s Folk Art on the River festival. Charles E. Smith, a painter and sculptor of wood, makes the trip up from his home in Brandon every month.

“The produce is really entwined with the art here,” he said, “And that’s really something we needed. Lots of people around here have talents, but nowhere to show them. I usually sell pretty good up here, myself.”

Smith’s pieces are big, elemental arrangements of recovered wood.

“When I see a piece of wood, I see something a man couldn’t make. I see art,” he said. “With my pieces, I’m trying to get people to be more aware of what’s around them. Man can’t manufacture nature.”

John Smith, a 36-year-old blacksmith from Union County, stood over a tray of blazing coal, heating a metal rod. A crowd of children peered over the edge as he explained how working with copper was different than working with steel.

Smith makes a showing at folk arts events in Oxford, Water Valley and West Point after moving home from New Orleans about a year ago.

Compared to markets in New Orleans and Jackson, he said, New Albany is unique in how closely it works with downtown. The development of the town’s Tanglefoot Trail has been instrumental in drawing traffic through the North Mississippi town, and thus, the farmers market.

In New Albany, Mississippi, art is a staple of the farmers market, along with children’s activities, food, fresh produce and live music.

READlegends.com •

55

“Normally we’re out in front of the quick stop back home.

There’s always been folks like that, one selling boiled peanuts on one side of town, another fellow selling sweet potatoes on the other. But it makes more sense to come together in one spot.”

LEFT TO RIGHT: The New Albany farmers market is coupled with Folk Art on the River every second Saturday; Blacksmith John Smith explains the differences in working with copper and steel to a group of children; the farm-to-table concept is making a comeback as people are becoming more mindful of locally grown produce; children have their share of fun with games and activities; artist Charles E. Smith sculpts pieces from driftwood to remind people of “what’s around them.”

join us To CELEBRATE ouR 75Th YEAR The concept of the farmers market seems ready-made for the South, he said, but markets popped up on the West Coast decades before Mississippi caught on. “Well here there’s a much stronger kitchen guard.

The era where everyone gardened and it wasn’t a specialty thing went on for a lot longer here,” Smith said. “Now the farm-to-table movement is driven by the idea of knowing your farmer. It’s much more of a community thing, and its reach is much broader.” L

Other markets around the state: (Most are due to start back in March or April, check local listings for season openings.)

Ashland: Thursdays from 3 to 7 p.m. at Ashland Square.

Biloxi: Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Howard Avenue under the I-110 bridge overpass.

Cleveland: Saturdays from 8 to 11 a.m. at The Alley by Mosquito Burrito.

Grenada: Saturdays from 7 to 11 a.m. on the town square.

Hattiesburg: Thursdays from 3 to 6:30 p.m. at Town Square Park in

56 • february // march 2015

downtown.

Hernando: Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 2535 Highway 51 South on the historic Hernando Court Square.

Jackson: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 929 High St. McComb: Thursdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Front Street across from the Caboose.

Meridian: The first Saturday of the month from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Singing Brakeman Park by the train station.

Natchez: Tuesdays through Fridays from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 199 St. Catherine St. Ocean Springs: Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 1000 Washington Ave. Olive Branch: Fridays from 2 to 6 p.m. at 6900 Highland St. Oxford: Wednesdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Saturdays from 7 to 11 a.m. at the Mid-Town Shopping Center, half a mile north of the Square on North Lamar Boulevard, across from Handy Andy’s.

Tupelo: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 6 a.m. at 415 South Spring St. by the railroad tracks.

April 6 -18

2015

75 Years of Exemplary Historic Home Tours and Unparalleled Hospitality go to www.visitcolumbusms.org for complete listing of events Tennessee Williams Home & Welcome Center • 300 Main Street • 800-920-3533 • www.visitcolumbusms.org

READlegends.com •

57

Story from slidell, mandeville, covington, and abita springs, la.

Louisiana’s

farmers markets A culinary tradition from the North Shore by meghan holmes | photographs by chuck cook

Unlike many farmer’s markets which operate in only spring and summer months, farmer’s markets on Louisiana’s North Shore are open year-round, offering everything from fresh produce to tamales, crepes, smoothies, hot sauce and jellies.

food; they serve as a gathering place for local communities and a place to share knowledge and traditions unique to the North Shore. Because of the area’s year round growing season, residents can visit the market almost every week.

Slidell’s Camellia Street Market Slidell’s Camellia Street Market started six years ago as a Leadership North Shore class project. The market offers fresh produce from multiple vendors, including North Shore High School’s Future Farmer’s of America group, which recently supplied fresh beans, collards and turnip greens. When in season, guests will find freshly foraged oyster and chanterelle mushrooms, which grow near the rivers emptying into Lake Pontchartrain. Prepared foods include muffalettas and beignets, and shoppers eat these and other regional favorites while browsing Mardi Gras decorations, Saints jewelry and artisanal soaps.

The market recently partnered with the Boys and Girls Club of Slidell to establish a learning garden. Bill Mauser of Keep Slidell Beautiful donated the garden soils to get the program underway.

The Camellia Street Market is located in Griffith Park in Olde Towne Slidell and open weekly every Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon.

Mandeville Trailhead Community Market

Phillip Ramos holds a stuffed artichoke at his Musso’s Fine Italian Food booth at the farmers market at Griffith Park in in Olde Towne Slidell, southeast Louisiana.

I

magine the smell of crab and okra gumbo. Okra thickens the soup. Its aroma is reminiscent of Louisiana’s long agricultural history and a darker time in the state’s past when African culinary influences were shared by Louisiana’s slaves.

The crab serves as a reminder of the seafood which has sustained a culture and an economy for hundreds of years.

In recent decades, chefs across the country have incorporated gumbo and other elements of Creole and Cajun cuisine into their menus. The results may be delicious, but the

58 • february // march 2015

history is far removed. By sourcing ingredients from their native Louisiana and Mississippi states, residents reconnect to longtime culinary traditions and maintain local economies based around fishing and growing food.

The North Shore is currently home to four farmers markets offering a myriad of fresh produce and prepared food.

Soaps, jewelry, clothing, furniture and art are also for sale.

In total, they bring together more than 100 vendors, an indication that these markets are about more than just buying

Mandeville’s market began 12 years ago and takes place at the Trailhead Cultural Interpretive Center. The center seeks to give residents and visitors a sense of environmental and cultural awareness of the Tammany Trace. The farmers market connects people to the area’s history and provides an opportunity to listen to live music, eat and relax. Some recent performers have included the St. Paul Jazz Band, Paul Lucido and the Mandeville Show Choir.

Other wares include seasonal fresh produce, homemade pet food, artisan soaps, bead work, quilts, art, jewelry, leather belts and knives.

Prepared foods include crepes, smoothies and tamales, and local restaurants sometime offer complimentary tastings for visitors.

The market also maintains a vendor-of-the-month program to promote the area’s small businesses. In December, the market featured artist Peggy Imm. Imm collaborates with other North Shore artists and incorporates their art into home decor. Recently she worked with vendor

Ferris Patrick Hotard to create rugs featuring Hotard’s paintings. She also creates art with towels, pottery and ornaments. Most vendors have similar stories of creativity and ingenuity.

The Mandeville Trailhead Community Market takes place on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 675 Lafitte St. in Mandeville.

Covington Farmers Market The Covington Farmers Market is home to more than 50 vendors creating, among other prepared foods, tamales, crepes, smoothies, cakes, pastas, quiches, dips, cookies, granola, pickled vegetables, kombucha and honey. This is in addition to fresh produce, locally sourced meat and seafood, as well as herbs and plants.

Unlike other markets on the North Shore, the market takes place on both Wednesdays and Saturdays. Wednesday offers more prepared food options geared towards lunch breaks for locals. “The Saturday market is much larger,” says Natalie Faust of Faust Farms, provider of strawberries and other fresh produce to the market. “There is always good music, lots of food and people spending time together. It makes for a great experience.”

The Covington Farmers Market is held Saturdays from 8 a.m. to noon at 609 N. Columbia St. and Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to noon at the Covington Trailhead.

Abita Springs Farmers Market The farmers market in Abita Springs began in 2013. Michael Norman, market manager, decided to open on Sundays as an alternative to other area markets which are open only on Saturdays. “We meet on Sunday afternoon, which is a time when many people like to relax and do something enjoyable. The venue is also beyond compare. People like to come let their kids play and explore the Tammany Trace,” he says.

The market offers fresh produce and also works with the recently established Abita Grows Initiative to offer cooking and gardening classes in an effort to connect more local residents to farmers and healthy foods.

“If you don’t grow it, you don’t know it,” Norman says.

The Abita Springs Farmers Market is located at 22049 Main Street on Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. L READlegends.com •

59

Story from clarksdale, miss.

A Delta Delight

Sweet Magnolia Ice Cream

By Marilyn Storey Photography by Joe Worthem

H

ugh Balthrop is busy in his spacious and intoxicatingly scented ice cream factory.

Housed in Clarksdale’s Chamber of Commerce business incubator, Balthrop creates artisan-quality ice cream from local organic ingredients, including whole milk and cream from Oxford’s Brown Family Dairy.

Flavors – more than 200 of them – beckon lovers of this sinfully sweet, creamy delight. One wall in the Sweet Magnolia Ice Cream Company factory is neatly lined with alphabetized rows of labels bearing delectable sounding names – Whiskey & Pecans, Espresso and Sweet Tea. Those who dare to sample are sure to find a favorite flavor, and judging by the rise of this ice cream maker’s popularity, that flavor is bound for a number of distributors and stores.

“My favorite part of what I do is creating. It’s what I am best at,” he says, as two of his employees Ricardo Nava and Donald Sutton hand pack pint after pint of Banana Pudding Gelato. They carefully Hugh Balthrop chops up chocolate in his ice cream factory in Clarksdale, Mississippi, creating a fresh batch of homemade chocolate gelato, pictured left.

“Intrigued with the possibilities, he experimented and researched and studied, eventually attending Penn State’s ice cream short course. Then he began giving samples to local Clarksdale restaurants. When orders started to come in, his wife insisted his expansion be outside the home.

That was three years ago.” add additional tiny vanilla wafers to each pint. “Technically our ice cream is a gelato. Most American ice creams are at least 50% air. Ours are only 30% air, so the flavors are much more concentrated and intense.”

When the Banana Pudding gelato is packed and placed in the freezer, it is time to begin packaging the next flavor, Candy Cane.

Nava carefully weighs and adds the ingredients to a large mixing bucket, then pours the mixture into a commercial ice cream machine, which pasteurizes it and then mixes it. “We will make whatever flavors our customers want,” Bathrop says.

“We like to do seasonal flavors, like the Candy Cane and Eggnog this time of year, and we always like to have some special Southern flavors like our Moon Pie, Delta Gravel and Miss Mary’s Poundcake.” Balthrop admits a personal penchant for the Lemon Drop and the Pistachio. They remind him of his childhood. He says he can’t pick just one.

Originally from Washington, D.C., and formerly the owner of an art gallery there, Balthrop moved to Clarksdale in 2000 with his wife, a physician. When his children came along, he was the primary cook at home, and he began experimenting with making ice cream for them. Soon he was sharing it with friends and neighbors.

Intrigued with the possibilities, he experimented and researched and studied, eventually attending Penn State’s ice cream short course. Then he began giving samples to local Clarksdale restaurants. When orders started to come in, his wife insisted his expansion be outside the home. That was three years ago.

Top to bottom: Whiskey & Pecans is a favorite gelato flavor. The Clarksdale ice cream factory offers dozens of flavors -- everything from Banana Pudding to Delta Gravel; Balthrop hand rolls freshly-cooked waffle cones; in the ice cream factory, Balthrop and workers Ricardo Nava, right, and Donald Sutton, create fresh batches of different flavored ice creams.

MiSSiSSiPPi

April 18-19, 2015 A juried fine arts festival with America’s finest artists

– F e At u r i n g –

Tandem Rally

Weekend Art & Wine Lodging Packages Available 800-468-6078 / ridgelandartsfest.com

Story from columbus, miss.

Nava admits he is partial to the Strawberry Champagne, while Sutton’s favorite is the Sweet Potato Roasted Marshmallow. Both employees readily admit their love for working at the ice cream plant – and Balthrop wants it that way.

“I want to help young kids, providing them with a good place to work and instilling in them a strong, passionate work ethic,” he says. “Ultimately I want to really impact the Clarksdale community in a positive way.”

The company supports local and regional programs and charities, including the Griot Youth Program, The Batesville Boys and Girls Program and the March of Dimes.

Balthrop says he is dedicated to expanding Sweet Magnolia’s distribution. Besides supplying his ice cream to local and North Mississippi restaurants and stores, Balthrop now delivers to Whole Foods in Memphis, Nashville, Birmingham, Jackson, Mississippi, and Duluth, Georgia.

More locations are coming, and perhaps even larger chain stores across the South in the next year. And of course, there will be more flavors. L Want to try some?

For a list of retailers, or for a list of flavors, visit www.sweetmagnoliaicecream.com.

Sweet Magnolia flavors 

Balthrop uses only the freshest ingredients -- cream from a nearby dairy and locally-grown pecans. Besides supplying his ice cream to local and North Mississippi restaurants and stores, Sweet Magnolia Ice Cream now delivers to Whole Foods in Memphis, Nashville, Birmingham, Jackson, Mississippi, and Duluth, Georgia.

Banana Pudding, Chocolate, Cookies and Cream, Delta Buttered Pecan, French Vanilla, Delta Gravel, Lemon Drop, Mint Chocolate Chip, Nutella, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip, Pistachio, Pound Cake, Salty Caramel, Sweet Potato with Roasted Marshmallows, Strawberry, Whiskey and Pecans, Blackberry, Blueberry, Lemon Frozen Yogurt with Blueberry Sauce, Sweet Tea, Orange Crème, Watermelon

southern fried blues

catfish alley in the

Story and photographs by Marianne Todd

Back in the day, catfish would be brought into the alley in tubs of ice by horse and wagon, where they’d be cooked and eaten.

It was more than just a feast. It was a time to gather, swap stories, play the blues and share the joys and travails of life in the river town.

It was the turn of the century. The boats would meander up the Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway, bringing their wares to the city. Much like the quaint downtown is today, Catfish Alley

(named for its scent of freshly fried catfish), the buildings of the alley were lined with businesses – a cafe, barber shops, launderers, a drug store. It was a central meeting and business district for the African-American community there.

These days, catfish are still eaten in the alley, the stories are still swapped and the music is still played – only in celebration of the history of Columbus, Mississippi, the small, Southern city heralded as the Friendly City, known for its history of America’s most famous playwright and the more than 600 properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway meanders through the city. It flows near the Tennessee Williams Birthplace, just a hop away from Catfish Alley.

On April 11, the Alley will come alive with food vendors vying for first place in the Catfish Cookoff and musicians taking their turns at center stage.

This year, Terry “Harmonica” Bean will make an encore appearance, along with noted blues vocalist Grady Champion and his band.

“They were such crowd favorites last year, we decided to bring them back,” said Nancy Carpenter, CEO and executive director of Visit Columbus and the Columbus Cultural Heritage Foundation, which hosts the event. “One of the first blues markers in the state

is in Columbus. It is dedicated to the blues musician Big Joe Williams. That’s why we feature blues music during this time.”

Bean, from Pontotoc, Mississippi, said with blues festivals being so plentiful in the Delta, the Catfish in the Alley festival fills in a need in northeast Mississippi, where blues has lived in the shadow of the the greats 100 miles to the west.

“I really appreciate Ms. Carpenter putting this on,” Bean said. “We need more blues played in these places. That other music is good, too, but you’ve got to have the blues out there.”

Bean, who has performed worldwide, said he’s been playing for more than 30 years.

He grew up in a household with both his father and grandfather as musicians. “My father played house parties with B.B. King. That’s what they played back in those days, house parties and juke joints, before they got famous. And my grandfather knew Robert Johnson very well. I used to play the house parties, too, before I got where I am now.”

Carpenter said guests can stroll through town, buy plates of catfish or barbeque in Catfish Alley, enjoy craft beers and sit a spell to hear the blues performances. In its ninth year, the festival began as tours through the alley as part of Black History Month. “Then we began to include music, but because February has such inclement weather, we moved it to April to coincide with Pilgrimage,” Carpenter said.

The day will begin with a half-marathon at 7 a.m. and advance to a 5K run an hour later. By mid-morning, Artisan’s Alley will open, featuring arts indicative of the 19th century – hand-blown glass, ornaments, vintage aprons and fountains and bird feeders created from recycled materials, for example.

Since the festival coincides with Columbus’ yearly Pilgrimage, antebellum homes and homes on the National Register of Historic Places will open for guests. Later in the afternoon, chamber music will be played in the Colonnade garden, where mint juleps will also be served.

Also during the afternoon hour, Columbus Mayor Robert E. Smith will host the annual Mayor’s Unity Picnic.

“We’re expecting once again for thousands of people to embark on Columbus and Lowndes County, Mississippi,” Carpenter said. “Over the last year we’ve had guests from every state and more than 39 countries.” L

Want to go?

WHAT: Catfish in the Alley WHAT ELSE: Artisan’s Alley, Pilgrimage, Columbus Half-Marathon, Columbus 5K Run, Mayor’s Unity Day Picnic WHERE: Columbus, Mississippi WHO: Blues musicians Terry “Harmonica” Bean and Grady Champion WHEN: April 11

Top to bottom: Roy Tate of Southern Elite Catering proudly displays his first-place win in the Catfish Cookoff; Freshly fried catfish is pulled from the grease; judges sample cooked catfish in the Catfish Cookoff; a guest holds a plate made of pottery and laden with catfish; Wayne Beard waits for his fish to fry.

Opposite: Grady Champion performs with his band downtown; Mickey Rogers plays his guitar during a performance; Dwayne L. Booker poses as a Tuskegee Airman outside the Red Tail Squadron display.

66 • february // march 2015

“My father played house parties with B.B. King. That’s what they played back in those days, house parties and juke joints, before they got famous.” – Terry “Harmonica” Bean READlegends.com •

67

VB.KeytoEntertainmentAd2015.3.85x9.875.qxp:Layout 1 12/17/14 4:17 PM Page 1

VISIT

VICKSBURG The Key to Entertainment

•

March7 RUN THRU HISTORY

•

•

•

•

•

•

WHAT’S SHAKIN’ IN THE CRADLE? •

•

•

•

•

•

•

Bay St. Louis, MISS.

• Feb. 16.......................... 2nd Annual The Mystic Krewe of the Seahorse Lundi Mardi Gras Parade at Bay St. Louis Community Center. For more information call (228) 547-4873.

APRIL 10-11, 17-18, 24-25 GOLD IN THE HILLS

• Feb. 17.......................... 8th Annual Krewe of Diamonds Mardi Gras Parade in Downtown Bay St. Louis. For more information call (228) 342-0883. biloxi, miss.

• Feb. 19.......................... Harlem Globetrotters at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. For more information call (228)-594-3700.

• Feb. 21.......................... KC and the Sunshine Band at IP Casino Resort and Spa. Call (228) 653-8000 for more information.

• Mar. 21.......................... Miranda Lambert at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. For more information call (228)-594-3700.

APRIL 11 BLUZ CRUZ CANOE AND KAYAK RACE April 17-18 RiverFestMusic and Arts Festival

clarksdale, miss.

• Feb. 20.......................... Tim Hinkley at the Ground Zero Blues Club. For more information call (662) 621-9009 or visit groundzerobluesclub.com • Feb. 28.......................... Ori Naftaly at the Ground Zero Blues Club. For more information call (662) 621-9009 or visit groundzerobluesclub.com • Mar. 7............................ Lala and Element 88 at the Ground Zero Blues Club. For more information call (662) 621-9009 or visit groundzerobluesclub.com. columbus, miss.

• Feb. 26-27.................... “Cat in the Hat” at the Columbus Arts Council. For more information call (662) 328-2787.

• Mar. 28.......................... John Purifoy’s “Chronicles of the Blue and the Gray,” based on the poem by Francis Miles Finch. Rent Auditorium at The W, 8 p.m. Free. Sponsored by The W, Columbus Cultural Heritage Foundation and Dr. Jim Borsig. Complimentary tickets available at Visit Columbus, 117 Third St. South. For more information, visit www.visitcolumbusms.org.

APRIL 18 Alcorn State University Jazz Fest

destin, fla.

• Feb. 28.......................... Emerald Coast Parrot Heads Chili Cook-Off at the Emerald Grande. For more information call (920) 246-5622 or visit www.emeraldgrande.com/events.

• Mar. 14-15................... 7th annual Irish Street Fest & Grogg March at the Emerald Grande. For more information visit www.emeraldgrande.com/events.

April 18 Old Court House Flea Market

d’iberville, miss.

• Feb. 21.......................... 9th Annual D’Iberville BBQ Throwdown and Festival at the D’Iberville Civic Center. For more information call (228) 257-9734. greenville, miss.

• Feb. 14.......................... The Mississippi River Marathon (full and half marathon) will be held in Greenville, Mississippi and will support Teach for Scan this QR to visit our mobile site and get your keys to Vicksburg.

America. For more information call (662) 721-7779 or visit www.msrivermarathon.com.

www.VisitVicksburg.com /VisitVicksburg

hattiesburg, miss.

• March 28...................... RAW: Deliciously Healthy Eating with Claudia Cartee of Ka Pottery at The Kitchen Table. Cost: $45. For more information, phone (601) 261-2224 or www.kitchentablenow.com.

68 • february // march 2015

READlegends.com •

69

horn lake, miss.

• Mar. 20.......................... Family Cultural Exchange Live Arts Performance Series at M.R. Dye Public Library for more information call (662) 393-5654 or visit www.firstregional.org. madison, miss.

• March 27...................... The Mississippi Opera presents Tosca in the Madison Square Center for the Arts. 7:30 p.m. For tickets, phone (601) 960-2300 visit www.msopera.com. meridian, miss.

• Feb. 6............................. Bela Fleck & The Knights, 7:30 p.m. MSU Riley Center. For more information, call (601) 696-2200 or visit www.msurileycenter.com.

• Feb. 13.......................... Brad Simon Organization’s The Berenstain Bears Live! at the MSU Riley Center. For more information call (601) 696-2200 or visit www.msurileycenter.com.

• Mar. 3............................ Montana Repertory Theatre’s F. Scott Fitzgeralds’ The Great Gatsby at the MSU Riley Center. For more information call (601) 696-2200 or visit www.msurileycenter.com. natchez, miss.

• Feb. 27.......................... 26th Annual Natchez Literary & Cinema Celebration at the Natchez Convention Center. For more information call (601) 446-1289.

• Mar. 12.......................... Southern Exposure at the Natchez Little Theatre. For more information call (601) 442-2233. new albany, miss.

• Ends Feb. 19............... The Way We Worked, A Smithsonian Exhibit at the Union County Heritage Museum. For more information call (662) 538-0014 or visit ucheritagemuseum.com. new orleans, la.

• Feb. 17.......................... Mardi Gras Parade throughout New Orleans. For more information visit www.mardigrasneworleans.com.

• Mar. 8............................ Journey and the Steve Miller Band at the Smoothie King Center. For more information, call (504) 587-3663 or visit www.smoothiekingcenter.com. ridgeland, miss.

• April 18-19 ... Ridgeland Fine Arts Festival. Weekend of children’s activities, student art gallery, music and Saturday Wine Festival.

Artists from around the country are hosted as they showcase their fine art. For more information, visit www.ridgelandartsfest.com. southaven, miss.

• Mar. 1............................ 5th Annual Mumbo Gumbo Cook-Off. Live music and all the gumbo you can eat. For more information call (662) 510-5423 or visit www.fillinstationgrille.com. vicksburg, miss.

• Feb. 6-8......................... Oliver! A musical on a grand scale, based on the novel “Oliver Twist” by Charles Dickens. 7:30 p.m. for Friday and Saturday shows, 2 p.m. for Sunday matinee. Parkside Playhouse, 101 Iowa Blvd. Cost: $20 adults, $15 senior citizens and $10 children ages 10 and under. For more information, phone (601) 636-0471.

70 • february // march 2015

READlegends.com •

71

�.������.�...�..�

SHOPPING �����.������.�������

FAMILY FUN! Let us show you around!

Shopping

Dining

Family Fun

�.......��..�..�.�.�.�..��........................ .. ..�.. ........ .�. ..... �.�.... ..�.. ..�. ...�...... �........�....�.........�..................�....�... �.... .�.... ......... ... �......�. �.... ...�... ... ....�...

�......... ............ .�... .. ............. �....... ..�..�.�......�.�...................�.........�.�. ... ............ ...... ... �....�... ..�. .......... �.....�.....�..�.................�........�......... slugburger.......................................

�....... .�.... .. ........ .�. ....... ... .... ..�. �... �.... ...�.... ..�......... ... ..... �....... ..�. .�. �..............�..��....................�.�......... ...... ..�. ...... .... �........ �..�. �....�.. �....... �.........�............�.....�.

HISTORIC CORINTH, MISSISSIPPI (662) 287-8300 | www.corinth.net �� � � � � � . � � � � . �� � � � � � � � � . � � � .� � � � �� � � . � � � � �� . . . . . � � � � � ��� � � � � � .

72 • february // march 2015

����.���..�����..���..�����.���