SPRING 2016
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UNIQUE DELTA
LODGING
Cool digs rule Clarksdale area PASCAGOULA
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Jack’s by the Tracks serves drinks and eats, juke-joint style
Morgan Freeman Actor aims to leave a mark on state's education
Also: Laurel Couple on HGTV • Hill Country Blues • Tupelo’s Café 212
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PHOTO BY AUSTIN BRITT
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CONTENTS
features Page 30
Page 8
Page 44
Unique Delta Digs
Luther Dickinson
One-of-a-kind Delta properties showcase Clarksdale's diversity and eagerness to welcome guests.
One-half of North Mississippi Allstars famed duo honors his Hill Country roots in new solo album.
Page 22
Page 52
Jack's by the Tracks
Hometown Couple
Pascagoula sushi restaurant exhibits raw charm with the popular 'fivestar dive bar' experience.
Ben and Erin Napier of Laurel exhibit love for each other and their small town on a new HGTV show.
Morgan Freeman Mississippi's leading man focuses on improving education in the state he calls home. COVER SHOT
Acclaimed actor Morgan Freeman visits Charleston Elementary School. Photo by Melanie Thortis
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CONTENTS
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departments IN EVERY ISSUE
4 « Editor’s Note
18
5 « Sipmag.com 7 « Spotlight: Contributors 38 « ‘Sip Trip: Clinton 43 « ‘Sip Sounds: Grammy Winners 48 « ‘Sip of Nature: Composting 62 « Small-Town 'Sip 64 « The Last ‘Sip FOOD
26
18 | Café 212 Tupelo couple serve up hometown favorites Contents page photo by Lauren Wood
ART 26 | Jamie Mixon Designer captures 'big moments' through epic concert posters Contents page photo by Jeremy Murdock
MUSIC
40
40 | Cedric Burnside Project Group takes Hill Country talent to Grammy stage with nomination Contents page photo by Alexander Koffler
OUTSIDE 50 | Gardening Nathan Beane gets his hands dirty in his backyard garden.
60
HISTORY 56 | 'The Crisis' The stage of the first movie filmed in Mississippi
LIFESTYLE 60 | The Hard Places Community Clinton native battles child sex-trafficking in the 'hard places' Contents page photo by Melanie Thortis
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EDITOR’S NOTE
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from the Front Porch
PHOTOS BY MELANIE THORTIS
The Mississippi Delta is already known for its unique and undeniably captivating charm. The land, the music — and, no doubt, the people — have long lured visitors from across the world to delve into the rich culture that seeps through the soil. Knowing the entire region is saturated with an array of hip and downhome accommodations, I couldn't resist the opportunity to tag along on a Delta adventure to feature some of the top Delta stays. Little did I know that the funky blues haven of Clarksdale has a corner on the far from ordinary rental market. When noting its lodging offerings, I lost count somewhere around 15. That's a lot of cool digs for tourists to put heads in beds. We were treated like royalty in a town that has millions of visitors year-round, including celebrity regular and businessowner Morgan Freeman, who graces our cover for this remarkable issue. Our Clarksdale hosts, Madge and Billy Howell, took special care to make sure we experienced the unabridged version of their sacred town. And we became fast friends with locals as they showed us why Clarksdale is the prime spot for unusual overnight landings. We spent some time with Clarksdale mayor Bill Luckett, who — in classic Delta fashion — greeted us with an offering of cocktails. He showed us around the Delta Cotton Company Apartments, rooms he rents above his legendary Ground Zero Blues Club, which he and Freeman opened together. After a night of live tunes at his club, as well as down the road at Red's Lounge, we were treated the next day to a tour of more properties that embody the Delta blues spirit. I think it's safe to say that the 'Sip team will be back for more Delta adventures, and we won't have trouble finding a place to stay. On a separate Delta excursion, I was thrilled to meet Morgan Freeman and his daughter, Morgana, and learn about their foundation to improve education in Mississippi. It was refreshing to talk to them about the importance of celebrating the many positive attributes of our beloved state. In this issue, we also feature — through two acclaimed and wildly talented musicians — a tribute to the roots of Mississippi's Hill Country, and a look into the lives — and love — of the couple bringing national attention to Laurel through their new HGTV show Home Town. We're kicking off our third year with this issue and it just might be our best yet. See for yourself, and brace yourself for what's to come. If, like us, you love The 'Sip, I promise you won't be disappointed.
Cheers, y'all,
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Publisher/Editor Lauchlin Fields Photography Director Melanie Thortis Consulting Editor Karen Gamble Associate Editor Elizabeth Grey Music Editor Jim Beaugez Outside Editor Nathan Beane Writers Gordon Cotton Leslie Criss Kate Gregory LaReeca Rucker Photographers James Edward Bates Jeremy Murdock Lauren Wood Graphic Designers Claiborne Cooksey Erin Norwood Illustrator Jamie Runnells Marketing/Sales Director Cortney Maury cortney@thesipmag.com
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SPOTLIGHT
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a big thanks to this issue’s talented contributors ALEXANDER KOFFLER PHOTOGRAPHER Alexander is a filmmaker, photographer and media artist based in Austin. Work assignments have taken him from rural India to the rice fields of Bali to the plight of troubled youth in South Central Los Angeles. Critics have praised him as a director of unique and poetic vision and as a documentarian who conveys a strong sense of the people and places he covers. Alexander is currently working on his featurelength documentary Born With It, the story of Grammynominated artist Cedric Burnside.
BOYCE UPHOLT WRITER Boyce is a writer and editor focused on stories about how people shape places — and how places shape up. Born in Chicago and raised in Connecticut, he has lived in the Mississippi Delta for six years. A graduate of Haverford College and current MFA candidate at Warren Wilson College, Boyce is a contributing writer at Delta Magazine, and his journalistic pieces have appeared in Bitter Southerner, The Local Palate, Roads & Kingdoms and Mississippi Magazine. Read more at www.boyceupholt.com.
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UNIQUE
Delta LODGING
C l a r k s d a l e o f f e r s g u e s t s c h i c , s h a b b y a n d s h a c k y.
eeeeeee
“It’s cool that there is this much variety here. Whether modern or shabby, there is something for everybody.”
John Magnusson, proprietor
Clarksdale When that warm Delta sun sets over the flatlands, the sad, soulful notes of the blues drift to life in cozy corner bars. You can almost set your watch by it. On any given night, 365 days of the year, live music can be heard in Clarksdale. Just ask a local where to go. Mississippians often take this beautiful, poignant culture of music and its birthplace for granted. After all, an authentic juke joint can be found in almost any Delta town. But rest assured that to the rest of the world, Clarksdale, nestled on the banks of the Sunflower River, is as high on the music totem pole as Nashville, Memphis and New Orleans. Clarksdale has a population of about 17,000, yet each year additional tens of thousands of international tourists
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Spring 2016
descend upon the city, visiting among other sites the crossroads of U.S. 61 and U.S. 49, where notable bluesman Robert Johnson traded his soul to the devil for incredible musical talent. The tourists want to see, smell and taste where this music all began. For that reason, in addition to standard hotel and motel chains, Clarksdale has dozens of unique lodging options within its nearly 14-mile radius. From old cotton shacks to a stately mansion built by the founder of the town, there is something to satisfy every visitor.
A Flat Fit for Freeman Clarksdale Mayor Bill Luckett knows his city is a small town with a lot of international branding. Almost 15 years ago, with the help of his business partner and friend, actor Morgan Freeman, Luckett
GROUND ZERO BLUES CLUB
decided the downtown area really needed to capitalize on this phenomenon. Deeply rooted in the Delta, Freeman recently had built a home in nearby Charleston and was spending more and more time in Clarksdale. “Slowly he started noticing what I had become accustomed to — tourists wandering around Clarksdale gawking, taking pictures, doing what tourists do,” the mayor said. “A lot at that point were in from Japan, the Far East, as well as Australia and Great Britain. The draw was always the same. This is where the music for the world began. America gave the world the blues which, in turn, influenced every genre of modern music.” Luckett said every tourist he encountered wanted to know where to hear bona fide, live blues. “The best answer that anyone could give was not the one that they wanted to hear. We didn’t really know. Maybe here, maybe there, but it was hit or miss. So we answered that question by opening the (Ground Zero) Blues Club,” he said. For about six months, Luckett and Freeman traipsed around Clarksdale searching through run-down, ruined, dilapidated old buildings searching for the perfect location. When the old Delta Wholesale and Hardware building became available, they knew they had found it. The building was once a cotton-grading warehouse and it needed some serious renovation work before it would suit their needs. “The roof was leaking pretty bad and needed to be replaced. We needed to fix all the broken windows. It was close to the tipping point of being non-salvageable,” Luckett said. “But what made it perfect was that it was so
close to the railroad tracks that originally separated black Clarksdale and white Clarksdale. This is the real crossroads right here.” After some much-needed tender loving care, the Ground Zero Blues Club opened on May 11, 2001. Renovations of the upstairs space started soon after, and Luckett knew that loft living space — particularly downtown — was a hot commodity. “There was one wall in place, but the rest of it was just an open 7,500 square feet of space. I came up here and did some measuring and divided it up into seven units. Some were a single column wide, and some were double-column wide. I fixed them up and rented them long-term about a year after the club opened. Yes, there are some crazy people who will live above a blues club,” he said. “Then we started getting requests from other people about staying in these units when they came in town for a visit. So as the leases expired, we started converting them into furnished short-term rentals,” he said. A unit was added downstairs, making eight that compose the Delta Cotton Company Apartments. “It really just depends on the weekend, but we have a pretty good occupancy rate. All the units have their own good flavor,” he said. The front upstairs unit directly above the entrance to the club is probably the most popular, he said. It used to be Freeman’s when he visited and features mid-century art deco design. “Most of the furniture was driven down on top of a Suburban,” Luckett said. “It looked like Sanford and Son driving up out front.”
Ground Zero
LEFT: Andrew Britt plays a game of pool at Ground Zero Blues Club. RIGHT: The Delta Cotton Company Apartments are located above the blues club.
"It really just depends on the weekend, but we have a pretty good occupancy rate. All the units have their own good flavor.� B I L L LU C K E T T
Off the Wall
ABOVE and RIGHT: The walls of the Delta Cotton Company Apartments are covered with former guests' names, quotes and artwork. LEFT: A fedora sculpture and shades at the Clark House.
The upstairs hallway leading to the units is covered with handwritten scribbling and notes from former occupants. The names and locations are from all over the world. “One night recently we had two pretty ladies sitting at our bar with one bar stool between them. They both — neither knew one another — grew up in Cambridge and now lived in London. Eventually they took the middle stool out and started catching up,” he said. “This happens all the time. One Friday night, we had French group No. 1 at one table. Right next to them was French group No. 2. The next night, French group No. 3 sat right next to French group No. 4. And not one group knew the others.” Some nights, Luckett said, he won’t know a single person in the bar, and that’s just fine with him. He loves for visitors to see his city the way he sees it, full of history and full of promise. “In Downtown Clarksdale — I’ve recently calculated,” Luckett said, “there are 35 places to stay short-term here, and there are still 28 more that are still long-term rentals. And there are more on the way.” “We opened Madidi (an upscale restaurant that closed in 2012) and Ground Zero at the same time, making us the anchors for downtown revitalization. Fifteen years ago there wouldn’t be a single car parked on these downtown streets after 5 p.m. Now it’s hard to find a parking spot most nights,” he said. “There’s a vibe all over Clarksdale, and all of us kind of stick together,” he said. “There’s also a big misconception out there about competition. If you go over to Tunica County, you’ll find three different branded casinos that all share the same parking lot. I call that the casino-cluster mentality. The more offerings you have the more people you get, as well as everybody else gets. So really the more unique places we can establish the more people who will come.”
Built By the Man Himself There was always a vision for unity in this town, starting with its humble beginnings in 1859, about a decade after the town was founded and when founder John Clark began construction of his home just a few blocks away from the hustle and bustle of downtown. When the Civil War broke out, Clark refused to use slave labor, so it wasn’t until 1916 that the stately European home was finished and moved over on logs to the property where it sits today. The Clark House was the first residential building constructed in the city limits and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. “The home stayed in the Clark family until 2000 when a local couple bought it, opened it as a bed and
breakfast and had it open about two years when the current owner, Charles Evans, bought it,” said Billy Howell, manager of the Clark House. Evans lives in Santa Rosa, Calif., and has trusted Howell to manage the day-to-day operations of the eightroom residence since 2009. “Charles Evans was good friends with blues musician Charlie Musselwhite. The two were investing in the old Delta Hardware building behind Ground Zero. He came down here to look at the property and ended up buying about half of downtown, including the Clark House,” said Howell. While still retaining the class and charm of its Colonial Revival design, the home is decorated as a basic, contemporary model with gifts from friends and guests. “Charles Evans is a bit of an art collector and adds an eclectic piece once or twice a year,” Howell said. The house has a good occupancy rate during its peak season from March through the end of October, with about 75 percent of its business coming from international tourists. One good thing about the lodging options in Clarksdale, Howell said, is that they are plentiful. “In Clarksdale, if there’s one place where we have a pretty incredible symbiotic relationship, it is among all the innkeepers,” he said. “If somebody calls here and they want something grittier, I’ll be happy to refer them to the shacks. We all send folks back and forth; we really do all work really well together. It’s a healthy thing. We really don’t have a singular boutique hotel here that’s fullservice and offers everything. All of our properties offer something different — nothing really offers everything. We all try to make sure we pitch our products so folks aren’t disappointed based on their expectations.” Inside the Clark House, a common downstairs area features a library, a great room, a communal dining room and a kitchen. Howell serves a simple continental breakfast — fruit, cereals, breads, coffee and juice —and encourages guests to make new friends while visiting. “We get singles, predominantly couples, some groups, and occasionally someone will rent the whole house. Anthony Bourdain rented it for weeks when they were filming a special in the Delta,” Howell said. “You’d be amazed at how many folks still stay in touch who met here. I’ve used this line a million times, but it’s so true. Someone told me a few years ago after a festival, ‘I came here for the blues but I’ll come back for the people.’ It’s such a Mississippi thing.” The main house has five bedrooms and an adjacent cottage. The master bedroom upstairs — aptly named “Big Daddy” — has hosted such celebrities as Robert Plant, Dan Aykroyd and Renee Zellweger.
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“It’s just amazing, the people who have come to Clarksdale,” Howell said. “In Clarksdale, I think Morgan Freeman really did get people used to a celebrity being here. He would come in Madidi, and people were just fascinated that he was there, but they always respected him and let him be.” The other rooms upstairs (“Desire,” “Stella!” and “Baby Doll”) surround a casual living space at the top of the stairs. If you’re sensing a literary theme, it’s because author Tennessee Williams spent the summers in Clarksdale and was quite fond of the area. In fact, John Clark’s daughter, Blanche, lived in the white Italian Renaissance style house next door that she built with her husband, J.W. Cutrer. The home is said to have been the model setting for several of Tennessee Williams’ novels, and Blanche herself the muse for Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. Howell said that despite its history, the Clark House is not home to any ghosts, but Blanche is rumored occasionally to walk the halls inside the Cutrer Mansion.
The White House with Bohemian Charm
An old soul himself, Howell and his wife, Madge, have two unique lodging properties. Also just blocks from downtown Clarksdale, the Delta Bohemian and The White House are two different but unique houses. The White House was built in 1917 at the beginning of the residential boom of Clarksdale. “When we bought this in 2010 it came with the guest house (the Delta Bohemian) in the back. We’ve been living here, but now we’ve moved downstairs to an area that was formerly a den and are letting people come stay with us. It’s really fun,” Madge Howell said. “It just plays right into what we like to do, which is really meet the people who come here. I think people now are looking for an experience. They can stay at a hotel if they want to, but they’re isolated, they’re not connected. I think it’s important for people to connect. We’re here sometimes, and sometimes we’re not,” she said. The downstairs of the White House includes two living rooms, which are adjoined but can be closed off for privacy, as well as a kitchen and dining room/bar area. Up the stairs lined with old family photos are three bedrooms — the Honey Room, the East Room and the Treetop Room with 16 windows — with the potential for a fourth, if the demand presents itself. “We’ve had the coolest folks come here and connect, and then we’ll all go out and have drinks. It’s just really neat to see them get together. We had a guy here from Switzerland for weeks. By the time he left here he was friends with everyone in town,” Billy Howell said.
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The couple spends most of their time at their lakehouse 19 miles away at Moon Lake so there’s plenty of privacy for the guests of the White House and Delta Bohemian. “So, we’ve gone from a 4,600-square-foot home to a 900-square-foot house, but we really like that. We’ve kind of simplified our lives somewhat with not so much stuff. We’re getting older, and it’s really a luxury to be able to have this house to share with people when they come here,” Madge Howell said. A boom in such online booking websites as Airbnb, FlipKey, and VRBO has been huge for residential renting, she said. “It’s becoming more of a trend, especially with young people. They want the experience, they want to meet people. They don’t want just to stay in a hotel. They want to stay somewhere different,” she said. “And that’s great for us because we like to meet people.”
What's in a name? Two minutes away and back in the heart of downtown sit three small, side-by-side rental units that have drawn a good bit of attention, starting with the names that hang above the doors. The Hooker Hotel, The Squeeze Box and Delta Digs take up less than half of a storefront block total, but the eclectic energy inside each is astounding. Brightly colored and authentically decorated with funky, Delta-like furnishings, such as original wood from a sharecropper’s shack, these properties bring smiles to all who enter. “Everybody who comes in — whether they’re from Denmark or Spain or anywhere — they all come in and just look around and say, ‘Wow,’” proprietor John Magnusson said. The New Jersey native moved here six and a half years ago to renovate a recording studio built by an old friend. “My buddy Mark (Benson) owns this building, and he knew that I had helped do some construction odds and ends at the music studio,” Magnusson said. “He had these rented out as office spaces, and, when the Squeeze Box came up, he got the tenant out and said, ‘Hey man, here are the keys. Here’s what I want to do, but do whatever you feel like.’” The Squeeze Box was such a hit that it paid for itself in one year. Then came Delta Digs, a studio apartment rental made out of the storage room and bathroom of an old alterations shop. The Hooker Hotel, the only two-bedroom of the trio, was so named as homage to musician John Lee Hooker. Magnusson said the thought was to name it something particularly funky that came across as a double entendre. It worked better than they expected.
“This city has a lot of old souls with stories to be heard. That’s what the blues is all about.” BILLY HOWELL
THE CLARK HOUSE
The White House: TOP RIGHT: The White House foyer is illuminated with a unique light fixture. MIDDLE LEFT: A bedroom at The White House in Clarksdale includes a sitting area. BOTTOM LEFT: The living room and sitting area of The White House
Clarksdale Mayor Bill Luckett sits in one of the Delta Cotton Company Apartments (also shown middle right) above his Ground Zero Blues Club.
“One night in a drunken stupor we came up with it and thought, ‘Man, that’s good.’ We hung the sign on a Monday at 6 at night. Tuesday morning — and I’m not exaggerating — CBS News out of Memphis was here to talk to us about the sign and what reactions we were getting from it. They aired it, then Wednesday morning, ABC was here, Thursday, Fox came — all because of the name. I guess because we’re in the Bible Belt, they thought it was a bit bold,” he said. Despite the options for lodging around Clarksdale, it never seems to be enough. “We still haven’t reached a point of saturation in Clarksdale. People are still building. They see what’s going on here; they believe in it; they just love it. The blues to foreigners like in Europe and Australia and South America is a thousand times more popular than it is here. People will come from Europe and know more about Clarksdale than people who grew up in Clarksdale do. It’s bizarre, especially to people who are from this area,” he said. “When I was a bartender, I would always ask the tourists why they came here. They all said the same thing — the Nashville, Memphis, Clarksdale, New Orleans music tour. It’s mindboggling, but it’s true,” Magnusson said. “Clarksdale is a strange, weird, cool little town.”
HOOKER HOTEL AND SQUEEZE BOX
One Man’s Trash is Another’s Treasure
On festival weekends, rooms across town are at a premium. Magnusson’s own house, a two-story brick mansion built in 1917, has recently been added to the pool of rental options. With a jukebox in the corner of the dining room and peeling wallpaper and scraped plaster walls in some of the bedrooms, he calls it Chateau DeBris. “I have four bedrooms upstairs to rent along with a kitchen and dining area catered to large parties. It’s right next to a church that is often used for weddings, so when everything is booked, I can now say, ‘Hey guys, you’re in luck. I have rooms at my house,’” he said. It’s a work in progress, but each room has its own eclectic charm, as can be expected. “My favorite room is called The Bordello, and the walls are covered with hand-painted saloon portraits of beautiful women. They all came from the ladies’ room foyer of the Grand Casino in Biloxi before Hurricane Katrina,” he said. “All of these rooms are going to be funky and weird. All the artwork is going to be trash. It’s the Chateau DeBris — repurposed art. It’s getting tougher to get the junk we all love,” said Magnusson. “It’s cool that there is this much variety here. Whether modern or shabby, there is something for everybody.”
Spring 2016
HOOKER HOTEL
PHOTOS ON THIS PAGE BY AUSTIN BRITT
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HOOKER HOTEL
DELTA DIGS
Shackin’ Up
Shacksdale USA: THIS PAGE: A bedroom, living area and bathroom of Fernando Brazil's shack near the Shack Up Inn.
The Clarksdale lodging anomaly all began with Shack Up Inn at Hopson Plantation, the original “Bed and Beer” site in Mississippi and the No. 1 attraction in the area. Since its opening in the late 1990s, the plantation offers refurbished and authentically Delta shotgun shacks for rent and, not surprisingly, the place stays booked nearly yearround. Just outside the plantation gates is another shacky chic neighborhood of sorts called Shacksdale U.S.A., home to “new but old” shacks like the one owned by Fernando Rolim of Brazil. A few years ago, after falling in love with Clarksdale, Rolim commissioned Magnusson to build and decorate his shack so that he would not only have a place to stay when he came to town but also could have a bit of an investment in the area. “I first came to Clarksdale in 2011 after going to a U2 concert in Nashville. I just spent one night at the Shack Up Inn, and I fell in love with the place immediately,” Rolim said. “I came back the next year and stayed again at the Shack Up Inn, and it was even better than the first time. When a friend of mine heard I was coming again to Clarksdale she told me I should be crazy to visit the same place two years in a row. But when she recognized I loved the place she immediately said that someday I was going to buy a house there.” Magnusson said he and his brother built Rolim’s shack with wood from a 100-year-old barn. “It’s really something. It’s two-bedroom, one-bath, but you would think it had been there for a hundred years itself. The whole thing is tin and real cypress inside and out,” Magnusson said. Rolim said he visits Clarksdale at least once a year, and when he’s not there the “nice fellas” at the Shack Up Inn rent it for him. “As a blues-lover, I felt very honored in being able to be a part, even a quite small one, of the blues community in Clarksdale,” he said. After all, Rolim said, Mississippi, and Clarksdale in particular, has always been iconic in his mind and has a history — as well as a future — of which to be proud. “The name is a legend in itself. It’s the birthplace of American music, which is the music that I’ve learned to love even from a very distant place,” he said. “Additionally, there is also the people — the transplanted and talented guys from everywhere — a bright spot that has survived some hard times.” STORY Elizabeth Grey PHOTOGRAPHY Melanie Thortis & Austin Britt
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WILLIAM FAULKNER’S
ROWAN OAK
Save Room For Dessert For 50 years, The Crystal Grill has been serving Delta classics to generations of families for lunch and dinner. The Crystal Grill is known for its generous portions and legendary desserts. Locals know to save room for dessert. What will you try?
The University of Mississippi Museum and Historic Houses UNIVERSITY AVE. & 5TH STREET, OXFORD, MS Tues.–Sat. 10 a.m.–6 p.m. | 662.915.7073
museum.olemiss.edu
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Tickets go on sale April 1. www.oceanspringschamber.com
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Cafe 212
Two-some serves up food and friendship
Jason and Amanda Hayden
Café 212 212 W. Main Street
Hours: Weekdays Only Full coffee bar: 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Lunch: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Fridays: closes at 3 p.m. @cafe212 CAFE-212-81852651805
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On any day, Monday through Friday, starting around 11 a.m., lots of folks on foot and in search of the elusive parking place on Main Street let their hunger pangs guide them. For many, the destination is Café 212.
Standing in line to order are hometown regulars, tourists and even local first-timers who’ve gotten the good word about one of Tupelo’s favorite gathering places. They come for a cup of gourmet coffee and a homemade pastry or a hearty lunch from the impressive menu, or perhaps they have a hankering for the day’s special. No matter the culinary preference, Café 212 has become a friendly respite in the midst of a busy day. Of course, the success of any business depends on the people who make it work. At Café 212, that would be Jason and Amanda Hayden, along with the four women who work daily at the cafe. The Haydens treat their employees – Amy, April, Callie and Ramona – like family. “The workspace is small – we have to have people we can get along with,” Jason said.
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MUSIC FOOD Right, top: Sandwiches inspired by Elvis Presley, including the T.C.B. Grill sandwich, grace the Cafe 212 menu. Middle: Desserts made by Amanda Hayden's mother Charlotte Riley are served at lunch at Cafe 212. Bottom: Amanda Hayden cuts a chicken salad sandwich.
Amanda, who worked for her cousin Robin Walton at Yummy Too, a sandwich and yogurt shop, was the beginning of Café 212. When her cousin wanted to sell, Amanda decided to buy. “I realized I liked it and was good at it,” she said. It was not as easy a sell to Jason, however, when it was suggested he join his wife in the restaurant business. “I was basically supporting the cafe with my job at Radio Shack,” he said. “I thought the cafe was such a risk. I didn’t see how we could make money if both of us were here.” Finally, Jason jumped into food service with both feet. “There was a big learning curve early on,” he said. “Pricing, cutting out waste, payroll. We had to learn to do a little bit of everything.” As if finishing her husband’s thoughts, Amanda added, “We just hung in until we got better.” And it did get better. Positive feedback from patrons made them believe they were doing something right – “even if the bank account didn’t show it,” Jason said. In the early days, making the menu, Amanda said, was fairly simple. “It contained stuff I liked to eat — things I ate on a regular basis and enjoyed,” she said. These days, the menu is more extensive. There’s a daily special – the most popular is “Mama’s Chicken Casserole.” The favorite dessert is chocolate chip peanut butter pie made by Charlotte Riley, Amanda’s mother. Two kinds of chicken salad, both created by “trial and error,” grace the menu. “Jason makes all the chicken salad now,” said Amanda, who admits it drives her crazy to watch her husband cook. “He measures nothing.” Clearly, Jason, sporting his signature newsboy cap, does not take offense at his wife’s comment. “I’m kind of like a little mad scientist back there,” he said with pride. "I do hate measuring cups. That’s why I’m not a baker.” Jason did not always like cooking but said it’s now something he loves. Amanda — not so much. "I hate cooking," she said. “When I leave here every day, I don’t make food anymore.” The honey apple nut chicken salad easily lands the spot as the top-selling sandwich, while the white cheddar pimiento cheese takes a close second. Elvis-loving folks in town for a visit to The Birthplace have a chance to get all shook up over the Fit For A King portion of the menu, with offerings such as Blue Suede Grill — bananas, peanut butter and honey grilled on wheatberry bread; or “Blue Hawaii" Grill — ham, pineapple and mayo grilled on sourdough bread; and The Hound Dog – an old-fashioned grilled hot-dog. Of their menu, the Haydens say it’s pretty simple. “We make stuff that tastes good to us," the couple said. The Alabama-born Jason moved with his family to Tupelo when he was 10. He and Amanda, a Lee County native, went to school together, but became friends as high school seniors. “We were just buddies …, " Amanda said before Jason interrupted. “Wait a minute. We may have been buddies to her, but I always had intentions of dating her," he said. ''It took a while to convince her, though."
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The Cafe 212 crew prepares lunch for customers.
Married 11 years, the Haydens glance at one another and smile when asked if they ever argue on the job. “Our friends who work here will tell you, 'If you haven’t seen Jason and Amanda fight, you’re not a regular,'” Jason said. Having a quirky sense of humor helps them both. “I’ve been known to threaten him with a knife once a week,” Amanda said, laughing. “That’s why I don’t sharpen the knives,” her husband said. “If we get mad at each other at work, we get over it by the end of the day,” Amanda said. “It’s usually because of some smart-alecky comment from him. And I can be just downright mean.” In fact, whether fun or fact, there’s been talk of a T-shirt just for Amanda. “The front would say, ‘I may not be a redhead by nature,’” she said. “And the back, ‘But I sure as hell am one by heart'.” Restaurant work is not easy. In fact, Amanda said if she ever hears anyone say they think it’d be fun to open one, she will quickly tell them not to do it. But with a decade of hard work behind them, the culinary couple has found their calling — not only in their cafe but also in their community. “That’s the best thing that’s come out of all this,” Amanda said. ''It's how much we feel a part of the community. The majority of our friends we’ve met because of the cafe.” As the two talk of Tupelo, one quickly realizes what a powerful public relations team they are for their town. “We feel like such a part of this community,” Amanda said. “We want to see Tupelo be the best it can be. Being in this place, on Main Street, is such a good opportunity. We see where needs are. It’s been awesome for us. I’m not sure if we didn’t have the café if we’d have the same opportunities.” Jason nods in agreement. ''It may sound cliché, but I truly want everyone to see
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Tupelo how I see it. I’ve always loved living here. Honestly, I believe it gets better every day.” Café 212 is closed most weekends, unless there’s a big event scheduled in Tupelo, like the Gumtree Festival, which is held each May on Mother’s Day weekend. Several years ago on Gumtree weekend, what the couple calls their “biggest weekend,” the main cooler at Café 212 broke. ''Everything spoiled,” Jason said. “We had to shut down for two days.” Word got around and customers started a fund to help with a new cooler. ''It was a humbling experience,” he said. On days when the line inside Café 212 is long, the phone orders keep coming and chaos reigns, the Haydens continue serving up good food and Southern hospitality. ''Even when we’ve had a bad day and I occasionally think of selling, I can’t do it,” Amanda said. ''It hurts me to even think of not having this place.” And Jason, despite his doubts early on, believes he’s where he’s supposed to be. ''I can’t imagine myself doing anything else,'' he said. And regarding working together day in and day out: ''It’s not easy working with your spouse in such a confined space,” Amanda said. “But I wouldn’t want to do it without him. We really do work well together." Once again, the two are in agreement. “We’ve gone from ‘what are we doing?’ to ‘This is what it’s all about.”’
STORY Leslie Criss PHOTOGRAPHY Lauren Wood
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Juke Joint
GET TING THE 'FIVE-STAR DIVE BAR' EXPERIENCE AT JACK'S BY THE TRACKS
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JACK'S BY THE TRACKS HAS 44 CHAIRS AND 40 BAR STOOLS, AND ON ANY GIVEN FRIDAY NIGHT THEY'RE USUALLY TAKEN.
P A S C A G O U L A On those evenings, the live music spills from open doors and onto Pascagoula’s historic Krebs Avenue. It's hard to notice when the occasional train zooms past from the music and dancing shaking the floor. This shotgun-style sushi shack, lovingly nicknamed a “five-star dive bar” by locals, packs in diners and revelers for entertainment and an evolving menu that combines Gulf South cuisine with Asian delicacies and sometimes whatever brainstorm or request ends up on the blackboard. “Our last menu had a fried bologna sandwich,” said owner Mark Garrison, whose dog Jack is the namesake of the place. “We do blackboard things when we start feeling crazy, and all of that comes from our staff.” Walking into Jack’s is like stepping into another time. The building, Garrison said, was the only survivor of a 1921 blaze that gutted downtown. The original cypress siding from 100 years ago still lines the exterior. “In the 1920s, Krebs was the main drag with hotels, a streetcar and a ferry,” he said. “A gentleman who had a washing machine repair shop down here since the ‘40s would tell stories about all he saw in those years, like cattle being unloaded in what’s now our parking lot. There was a wagon yard and cattle rental across the street.” The bar itself has its own history — it was built with wood salvaged in the 1870s from a pier warehouse along the Mississippi River in New Orleans. Church pews from Sumrall, Miss., date to the first World War. With so much history, it’s easy to forget — like many places on the
A SEAT MIGHT NOT BE AVAILABLE BUT THERE'S ALWAYS ROOM TO
DANCE
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DJ and Mark Garrison, owners
On the Menu
FAR LEFT: The Big Bayou TOP RIGHT: The Ruby Ruby, front, and Black Pearl, back BOTTOM RIGHT: Seaweed Salad
Sushi by Day
Jana and Eric Dillard have lunch at Jack's by the Tracks. BOTTOM LEFT: Jack's turns into a "juke joint" at night.
the SHOTGUN-STYLE SUSHI SHACK
"FIVE-STAR DIVE BAR" Mississippi Gulf Coast — time here is separated into before and after Hurricane Katrina. That was 2005, and a paint store occupied the building where Jack’s is today. It didn't reopen after the storm, and Garrison and his wife, DJ, bought the building about a year later. It took another year to figure out what to do with it. The owner “decided he didn't want to work anymore, so he flipped the sign and closed it,” Garrison said. “I could have just flipped the sign and opened as a paint store.” But, Garrison previously had owned and operated a restaurant on Mobile’s Dauphin Street and hoped that someday he’d have an opportunity to do it in his hometown of Pascagoula. Inspiration finally struck on a trip home from New Orleans, when he realized that people had to leave town to get sushi, and that seemed to happen quite often. A Google search for “Southern sushi” turned up Marisa Baggett, an accomplished sushi chef and Starkville native who became the first female African American graduate of the California Sushi Academy. The Garrisons spent a week in Memphis training under Baggett. When they returned to open Jack’s, the menu was entirely sushi. “She taught us to use the best and freshest ingredients and just relate it to our people,” Garrison said. “That’s how we came up with our roll that has fried shrimp in it. We also have one that's wrapped and fried.” Fittingly, the deep fried roll, called the Big Bayou, is the most popular menu item. The Jackimo, which combines fried shrimp, sautéed crawfish and tobiko, is the next favorite. The menu changes during the year and has grown from 10 sushi rolls to a diverse 43-item menu in four years. Garrison jokes that the menu reads like a list of his favorite dishes. “We went down my favorite foods list,” Garrison said. “We started making fish tacos. I researched po-boys and started getting bread from New Orleans. We cook our own chuck roast every night, so it's always fresh.” Localizing an exotic item such as sushi by pairing it with more familiar fare has earned Jack’s a regular crowd in this city of 22,000 people. “People here aren't going to eat sushi five nights a week, but you can have the best po-boy one day, then a
salad or fish taco. A lot of people show up more than one day a week.” The most important ingredient in the Jack’s philosophy is consistency, Garrison said, every month of the year, with local sourcing preferred where possible. “Growing up here, I know there's nothing like Gulf shrimp,” he said. “We won't sell shrimp that isn't from the Gulf of Mexico. If they're getting [grade 1 tuna] in the Gulf, which they are now, that’s what we use. We buy as much local produce as we can, and we use Mississippiraised chicken.” DJ provides much of the consistency to the operation, and the Garrisons are sticklers about stomping along to their own beat. They make their sauces and marinades from scratch, and their commitment to procuring fresh ingredients runs so deep that they don’t even have a walkin freezer to store extras. It’s all made daily. Although Pascagoula is known for shipbuilding and a refinery, there’s another side to its story that could be one of the secrets to Jack’s success. The city lies at the mouth of the Pascagoula River, the largest undammed river in the lower 48 states. That distinction —as well as the nearby uninhabited Horn Island, the muse of many Walter Anderson paintings — draws bird-watchers, canoers and kayakers. The watershed provides refuge for 327 species of birds, and one of the new draws to the area is ecotourism. “Events like Paddlepalooza provide an influx of really great visitors,” he said. “They stay here, they spend money locally. People stop by who are going to New Orleans and find us on Yelp. We're not advertised anywhere, so social media is the only way you find out about us.” When such musicians as Cary Hudson, a Sumrall native who toured for years as the front man of Blue Mountain, or Loxely, Ala., resident Anthony Crawford, who’s played with Neil Young, Steve Winwood and Dwight Yoakam, stop in to play, Jack’s really starts hopping. A seat might not be available, but there's always room to dance.
STORY Jim Beaugez PHOTOGRAPHY James Edward Bates
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S T A R K VI LLE
Jamie Mixon
MSU instructor fits the bill for concert posters
Poster Gallery View the Verizon Arena poster collection online at verizonarena.com/poster-gallery and check out Jamie Mixon's website below for more poster designs and other artwork. cargocollective.com/jburwellmixon
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Jamie Mixon knew from a young age that she would make a career in art. "I definitely had the idea that I would be an art major,” even when she was a student at Murrah High School in Jackson, she said. “I was very determined about that." A summer job at Lamar Outdoor Advertising in Baton Rouge immediately following high school graduation strengthened her dream. "I loved to draw," she said. "It was an escape from reality." After graduation from Mississippi State University, however, opportunities opened in a way that surprised her. "I was asked to teach (at MSU)," she said. "I was just flabbergasted. I never thought in all my years I would be a teacher, but I made that leap of faith. It's been amazing. Teaching changed my life." Now, 25 years into her work as a graphic design instructor at MSU’s College of Art, Architecture and Design, Jamie Mixon has no regrets. "I can't imagine a life without having taught, and my involvement with students and graphic design at State," she said. "I'm continuously amazed and surprised by each new group of students. It's like a renewal each year." Jamie said many successful students have come from MSU’s CAAD program. In all the years of teaching, however, she never lost her energy for her own creative pursuits. The teenage girl who loved to draw became the concert artist and promotional manager for the student-led Music Maker Productions organization at MSU, which is in charge of booking musical acts for the university. In that post, Jamie fell in love with designing concert posters. She has designed posters for such artists as Bruce Springsteen, Waylon Jennings and Earth, Wind and Fire. "I got the taste of it then," she said. "It was the moment when I realized that I could really be a graphic designer." Her connection with Michael Marion, the faculty adviser for Music Maker Productions, eventually led her to a major freelance project with which she has been involved for more than a decade — creating more concert posters for the Verizon Arena in North Little Rock, Ark., where Marion is now the manager. "In 2004, Michael asked me do posters for a few events. One day in 2004 he called and said, 'Hey Jamie, want to do a poster? Want to do Eric Clapton?' I laughed and thought he was joking," she said. "He said, 'No, I'm serious," and I said, 'Please let me do Eric Clapton!'"
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"One that was exciting for me was when I was able to present my James Taylor poster to James Taylor," she said. " I drew him just for fun when I was 15 years old. For him to love my poster and me to just stand with him was a fantasy." ~ JAMIE MIXON
From there on, Jamie became the go-to poster designer for many of the arena's major events, including, but by no means limited to, The Who, the Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac and Taylor Swift. "He hires me to do what he considers to be his big moments," Jamie said. Since the posters are commemorative and a copy is typically framed and given to the artist, Jamie has numerous photographs of major musicians holding her posters. "One that was exciting for me was when I was able to present my James Taylor poster to James Taylor," she said. "I drew him just for fun when I was 15 years old. For him to love my poster and me to just stand beside with him was a fantasy." Jamie attends the North Little Rock concerts as often as she can, where reproductions of her posters line the concourse walls, sometimes as big as 20 feet tall. "It blows my mind," she said. Though Jamie is oftentimes a big fan of the artists, others are less familiar to her. That's where the design process begins. She listens to performances and researches the artists to get a better sense of them and their works. When comedian Kevin Hart was on the slate, Jamie said, "I went and watched YouTube videos of his stand-up." She said Taylor Swift was one of her more challenging endeavors because Swift's style changes over time. "She's so everywhere," Jamie said. "She's hard to pin down." She then hand letters her designs. In some of the designs, she imbues an added vintage theme. "I am a rabid collector of pre-1900 advertising art and ephemera. I started collecting them in the '80s," she said. "I add a little recurring touch of that here and there, collage-style." Even as graphic design technology has advanced, Jamie
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has held onto a belief that initial designs are drawn by hand. "I was trained that way. I'll never get away from doing things by hand," she said. "It's my strength. It's who I am as an artist. "I typically use charcoal, brush and ink or graphite pencils," she said. “Then I scan them at a high resolution, and I'm able to produce that printready artwork.” Drawing by hand, Jamie said, gives designers a better handle on their direction and fosters a sense of selfreliance. "Our students have lots of opportunities to do things by hand," she said. "Our department believes that they need to rely on themselves first and let the computer simply help them finish." Now, the walls of her office at MSU are lined floor to ceiling with posters she has made. Jamie is confident and happy with her work, and she tries to help her students feel the same way. "My goal is to pull them up and make them believe in themselves," she said. "That moment when they take the reins, they have the power to do it themselves." Though her freelance projects are time-consuming, Jamie wouldn't have it any other way. This spring, in addition to her teaching work and preparing to lead a study abroad program this summer, she's also at work on posters for upcoming performances by Janet Jackson, Mumford & Sons and Carrie Underwood. "To me, it's not work," she said. "To have this opportunity, I'm very lucky."
STORY Kate Gregory PHOTOGRAPHY Jeremy Murdock
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MORGAN FREEMAN takes his
Acclaimed actor aims to leave a mark on education in Mississippi, his ‘safest place’
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Hear that famous voice and you expect something wise. C H A R L E S T O N — Morgan Freeman can explain the intricacies of Hinduism, which he learned amid his recent worldwide ramblings to Guatemala, Jerusalem, Egypt and India. But, deep-voiced and resonant, he admits there’s no lesson at all. “It’s their thing,” he said. “Not mine.” It’s just a little piece of trivia to recount. His intellect is sharp and sometimes contradictory: he is clear-voiced and opinionated, but he does not want to be known as the "voice of God." He called that an old joke — and a tiring one. Freeman recently visited an elementary school library in Charleston, Miss. — his home now, or at least his resting point between his journeys. Here he likes to “cave up,” he said. With one stoplight, one grocery store and about 2,000 people, nearly half of whom live below the poverty line, it’s a strange home for a world-renowned star. He calls it, however, his safest place — and, in another contradiction, a place that has no assets.
“We’re trying to build assets,” he said, lifting his hands to indicate the bright books on the surrounding shelves. “This is the best shot.” Freeman knows the dismal facts. Mississippi’s education system is perpetually ranked as one of the nation’s worst; based on recent ACT scores, only one in eight high school graduates is fully prepared for college. For black students, who make up 85 percent of the public-school students in Tallahatchie County, where Charleston is situated, that number drops to 1 in 30. Those statistics "just didn’t sit well,” Freeman said. “Moving back home, I just couldn’t stand the idea of living in a state that was that stupid.” Freeman attended elementary and high school in Mississippi, and remembers a better education. “Even though we were segregated, we still had a really terrific system,” he said. “I could quote Chaucer, I could quote Shakespeare — I still can. That’s what we had to learn.”
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"Even though we were segregated, we still had a really terrific system. I could quote Chaucer, I could quote Shakespeare - I still can. That's what we had to learn."
morgan freeman
Actor Morgan Freeman gets a big grin on his face as preschoolers make their way through the hallways of Charleston Elementary.
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In high school in Greenwood, he sang in the glee club, argued on the debate team and played in the band, traveling to compete with other schools. He won his first acting award, a statewide prize for a one-act play, as a 12-year-old. Since he moved home 25 years ago, he’s given widely to arts and education organizations. “But if you don’t have a really targeted focus, you can get lost in such a broad vision,” his daughter, Morgana Freeman, said. Three years ago, when she took over his philanthropic organization, the Tallahatchie River Foundation, she sharpened its mission. She wants to overhaul early childhood education in Tallahatchie County. She wants students to “thrive by third grade.” The research is clear: investing in effective prekindergarten can save money — as much, in some studies, as $12 for every dollar spent. But experts bemoan the state’s perpetually low funding. In 2014, Mississippi paid for statewide pre-kindergarten for the first time—but just $3 million, enough to affect about 6 percent of Mississippi’s 4-year-olds. A national literacy test that year showed that two-thirds of the state’s kindergartners were not ready for school. Small, rural counties, such as Tallahatchie, face some of the steepest challenges. The Tallahatchie River Foundation aims to help such counties support their children. The first move was to launch TELA, or Tallahatchie Early Learning Alliance. The organization supports community efforts to provide holistic assistance to young children in the county — training for excellent early childhood educators, resources to local schools and childcare providers and support for new parents.
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He's at his most open when he speaks of his adopted home state. At one point he called it special. Morgana — who calls herself a city girl — said that after early efforts, she had to learn a key lesson: You need to listen before you can make change. Now that idea is built into the foundation’s five-year plan, which launches in June. She wants ultimately for the community itself, rather than the foundation, to take ownership of TELA. “The foundation is built on collaboration,” she said. “No one can do this work alone.” “Listen to her,” said her father, rising jokingly, as if this were the final word that need be said. Listening suits Freeman just fine. Despite his commitment to education, when asked if he has a vision for the ideal classroom, again he demurred. “Give it to the experts,” he said. “I’m not an expert on any of this. I just happen to have some money.” Freeman is the fourth-highest grossing actor of all time, but he didn’t always have money. Born in Memphis in 1937, Freeman moved from community to community as a child — from Mississippi to greater Chicago and back. After high school, he turned down a drama scholarship to Jackson State University, thinking it couldn’t lead to Hollywood. Aiming simply to get out of the state, he joined the U.S. Air Force. But he soon realized he preferred the movie version of the military to the real thing. So, in 1961, 11 years after winning his statewide prize, he caught a Greyhound to Los Angeles. While attending dance and acting class, Freeman worked clerical jobs. He tried his luck in New York, too, where between auditions and Broadway gigs, he kept up a stream of temp jobs. “There were a few times where I thought, ‘OK, I’m going to spend the rest of my life doing whatever I happened to be doing to eat,’” he said. “Even after my career had gotten what I had thought was a good, firm foothold, I had to say, ‘OK, my 15 minutes are up, now what?’” When he was nearly 40, his luck turned: he landed a role on The Electric Company, a Children’s Television Workshop program for kids who had aged out of Sesame Street. It was not a role he relished; those years were tough in their own way, marked by drinking and divorce, but he had money and a career. Finally, in 1987, at nearly 50 years old, he scored a role in Street Smart. His performance earned critical raves. Within two years he starred in Glory and Driving Miss
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Daisy, launching a nearly unbroken series of acclaimed performances. Since, he’s won an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Golden Globe. It took years, hard work and learning life lessons, but suddenly, Freeman had arrived. A short inventory of 78-year-old Freeman’s recent filmography: he’s played a government scientist seeking to save the world; a U.S. senator; the speaker of the House and eventual U.S. vice president; and an all-powerful wizard. In a commercial that aired during the United Nations climate talks in Paris last year, Freeman spoke as the voice of the Earth. In 2003’s Bruce Almighty, he became our Hollywood stand-in for God. No wonder he seems to have lessons to teach. But that voice, like so much in his life, is the result of hard work. Early on, he practiced speaking slowly, enunciating his final consonants, shedding his Southern accent and deepening his tone. But, Freeman also uses his voice to guide. In June, the Foundation will roll out a messaging campaign, with Freeman as narrator, pitching Mississippians statewide on his daughter’s key idea — students must “thrive by third.” And in a six-part documentary premiering on the National Geographic channel this spring, he will share, as the title puts it, “the Story of God.” It was for this project that Freeman, acting as producer and narrator, recently traveled the world. On the subject of God, Freeman said he wants to make clear that he is not an atheist. “Write that down,” he said. “Morgan Freeman believes in God.” What he does believe is idiosyncratic: he identifies with Zoroastrianism, an ancient Persian religion little talked about outside of history class. He held up his hand to tick off its three key principles, seemingly fuzzy and warm: good thoughts, good words, good deeds. “That’s all that life requires of you,” he said with a mischievous glint in his eye. “After that, have babies and die.” At one point, noting that the biggest employer in Tallahatchie County is a prison, Freeman’s voice dropped, sounding almost mournful. “I don’t think that’s helpful,” he whispered. “I really don’t.”
Thrive by Third
Preschooler Nevaeh Jones reads aloud to fellow students at Charleston Elementary. TOP LEFT: Charleston Elementary preschool students, from left, De'marriel Porter, Aubri Bush and Bryce King play with farm animals. Freeman's foundation, the Tallahatchie River Foundation, focuses on early childhood education. TOP RIGHT: Alaysiah Oliver works with blocks in the preschool class. BOTTOM RIGHT: Preschooler Gabriella Reed becomes animated while reading a book.
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"Good thoughts, good words, and good deeds. That’s all that life requires of you,” he said with a mischievous glint in his eye. “After that, have babies and die.”
morgan freeman
He’s at his most open when he speaks of his adopted home state. At one point, he called it special. He said he had a “quiet epiphany” while visiting his parents in the early 1980s, just as his career was beginning to rise. “I’ve always had this sense of, ‘Ah, OK, just relax. I’m good.’” In a town like Charleston, he said he can go to the grocery store and no one will follow wielding cell phones. Morgana shook her head. “Yes, they do.” “I haven’t seen them,” Freeman replied. His daughter is right. Cell phones did appear on a recent trip home for Freeman. After a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new wellness center in town that Freeman and his daughter attended, a woman in the lobby made giddy plans to get "that selfie" with a man who was her favorite actor, as she told her friends. Freeman smiled politely, then, photo done, said goodbye to his daughter, and climbed alone into a gleaming black sedan. His 160-acre ranch was somewhere in these hills. And, Freeman seemed eager to head home — to, perhaps, cave up in his safest place.
STORY Boyce Upholt PHOTOGRAPHY Melanie Thortis
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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.
Long. Lean. Beautiful.
Pilates and Yoga
Celebrating 15 years in business candles • art • books • food • children’s clothes • more largest selection of Melissa & Doug in the state
Andrea Tower Pilates Master Trainer Yoga • Dance • Movement Specialist • Arbonne Consultant
1601 A North Frontage Road Vicksburg, MS 39183 (601) 415-9501 www.barefootfitness.com
Peterson’s Monday-Saturday 10:00am-5:00pm
1400 Washington Street • Vicksburg, MS 39180
601-636-7210 www.petersonsaa.com
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'SIP TRIP
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Ta ke a we e ke nd roa d tr i p to vi s i t. . . 303 Jefferson 303 Jefferson St. (601) 924-1303 303jefferson.com Located in a historic 1870s building with an outdoor patio, enjoy delicious Southern style food for lunch or dinner.
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Brick Street Pops 400 Monroe St. (601) 990-9511 brickstreetpops.com Cool down on a warm spring day with a gourmet, allnatural popsicle or refreshing old-fashioned drink.
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Lions Club Park Corner of E. Leake and East Streets The caterpillar-shaped jungle gym inspired Calliope, the 50-foot long caterpillar that leads Olde Towne’s Caterpillar Parade every spring.
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Mississippi College 200 S. Capitol St. (601) 925-3000 mc.edu Take a stroll on the beautiful campus of the oldest college in Mississippi and the second oldest Baptist university in the nation.
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Meme’s Bakery 104 W Leake St. (601) 278-0635 Located in the historic Potter house, savor a delicious cookie, cupcake or other sweet treat.
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Pentimento Books 302 Jefferson St. (601) 924-2665 pentimentobooks.com A locally-owned bookstore with new and used books.
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Wyatt Waters Gallery 307 Jefferson St. (601) 925-8115 Browse and purchase original watercolor paintings, as well as prints, posters, calendars, t-shirts and more.
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For additional places to explore in Clinton, visit our website at thesipmag.com/sip-trip.
ILLUSTRATION BY CLAIBORNE COOKSEY
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Come for the… food shopping music friends community family peace festivals business faith arts…
Stay for the… well, you get the picture.
YOUBELONGINCLINTON.COM
MUSIC MUSIC
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Cedric Burnside
Hill Country blues legacy pays homage to ‘descendants’
Cedric Burnside and Trenton Ayers of the Cedric Burnside Project
When Cedric Burnside was 10, he began playing drums in a band led by his legendary grandfather, the late R.L. Burnside, whom he calls “Big Daddy.” Cedric and his uncle Garry Burnside, then a 12-year-old bass player, frequently played signature Hill Country blues music in North Mississippi juke joints, but, because they were children, they had to keep it quiet.
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“The police used to come in the juke joints, and they would have to hide us behind the beer coolers,” Cedric said. “They fed us cheeseburgers, and when the police left, we jumped back behind the instruments and started jamming again.” A musical prodigy, Cedric Burnside was 13 when he began touring all over the world with his grandfather. Years of musical dedication paid off, and this year, Burnside’s group, the Cedric Burnside Project, was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Blues Album category for their album “Descendants of Hill Country.”
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The album features Cedric Burnside on drums, acoustic guitar and vocals, and Trenton Ayers on guitar and vocals. Ayers is the son of guitarist Earl “Little Joe” Ayers, who played with a band led by Junior Kimbrough, one of the progenitors of Hill Country blues. Cedric Burnside was unexpectedly born in Memphis. “My mom was actually on her way home back to Mississippi, and her water broke with me,” he said. “I was born in Shelby County, and they brought me on to Mississippi.” Growing up in Holly Springs, he spent much of his time listening to his grandfather, R.L. Burnside, and father,
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Album producer Amos Harvey helps Cedric Burnside with his tie prior to the Grammy awards ceremony.
Cedric Burnside takes a break while performing Mississippi Night at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles in February.
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drummer Calvin Jackson, play music at weekend house parties. Cedric knew he wanted to follow their lead, and he did at age 6. At 13, he went on his first music tour with his “Big Daddy” to Toronto, Canada. “I had only played at juke joints my whole life,” he said. “I had never been to another town or another country to play music. I went there, and I had butterflies in my stomach, but my Big Daddy would always give me encouragement. He said, ‘Just do what you do in the juke joint.’ I just did what I know. After the first song, the people really liked it. I haven’t had any more butterflies since then. They all went out the window.” Burnside attended school through seventh grade in Holly Springs. Then, teachers would tutor him when possible; sometimes, he took schoolwork on the road. “I was very young, and I kind of wish I could have gotten a little more education before I hit the road,” he said. “But I’m also glad, because (touring) was a beautiful experience. The places I was learning about in school, I was actually going to those places. I got to see the Colosseum in Rome. I went to Paris. It was like 12 years of schooling at once.” One of his favorite locations was Australia. He has visited three times, performing in Sydney, Melbourne and Byron Bay, and he’s performed in Japan, France, Italy, Norway and Denmark. Wherever he goes, he said, Hill Country blues is unique, and people respond well to the “hypnotic” sound. “The rhythm is very unorthodox, and it’s also very comforting and warm to listen to,” he said. “I’m just really glad that people enjoy it so much, and that we can create more Hill Country blues and play the classics like Big Daddy and Junior Kimbrough did. As long as I’m loving it, I want to try to keep their music alive and write my own music so people will know where I got it from.” Cedric also has played and recorded with many artists, including Kimbrough, Kenny Brown, North Mississippi Allstars, Burnside Exploration, Widespread Panic, Jimmy Buffett, T-Model Ford, Bobby Rush, Honey Boy Edwards, Galactic, Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears and The John Spencer Blues Explosion. In 2006, he was featured in the film “Black Snake Moan,” playing drums alongside actor Samuel L. Jackson. According to Cedric’s website, the film is a tribute to R. L. Burnside. In 2010, Cedric collaborated with his younger brother, Cody Burnside, and his uncle, Garry Burnside, to create the Cedric Burnside Project. This was a new genre of music, infusing Mississippi Hill Country blues, funk, R&B and soul. Water Valley resident Amos Harvey produced Cedric Burnside’s recent Grammy-nominated album. He and Cedric go back to the performer’s early juke joint days, and Amos traveled with him many years as tour manager. “I knew if anybody knew our sound, it would be Amos,” Cedric said. “I gave him a call to see if he had any time to go into the studio with us. We went in the studio, and we recorded a CD in three days. It turned out to be pretty awesome.” Cedric said the album was produced quickly because he likes to have everything organized before he goes into a studio, and he wanted the music to have the raw sound that defines Hill Country blues. “Amos is an amazing person,” Cedric said. “He always brings a beautiful energy to the table. The dirty raw sound of Mississippi’s Hill Country is what we represent, and Amos knows that because he’s been listening to it all his life. He did not let me down.” Amos, 45, is a music tour manager and producer, who also works with the Rev. John Wilkins, a Memphis resident who performs Hill Country blues. Amos met Cedric 20 years ago at Junior’s Juke Joint in Holly Springs.
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“When we came up to the door, I could hear the music pumping through, and it sounded great,” he said. “Once I got in, I couldn’t really see who was playing first. I kind of worked my way back through the crowd, and I saw Cedric back there playing the drums and R.L. on the guitar. That’s when I first saw him, and it was amazing. He was such a strong drummer and comfortable. He had a big smile on his face.” Harvey later began touring with Cedric and other artists who were part of the Fat Possom Records label. “We kind of grew up together,” Amos said. “I was in my 20s, and he was 13 or so. He was raised by his grandfather on the road. He really turned out to be a great, respectful guy. During that whole time, he was becoming a better drummer.” As the tour manager, Amos was responsible for acquiring contracts from booking agents, organizing travel and transportation and scheduling public relations opportunities. “We went all over the world — all over the United States,” he said. “Basically, he was a world traveler at 13 and 14 years old, and I think that helped shape him as an adult, as well as the love R.L. gave him. “He respected the music that he learned growing up so much and emanated it well. It’s a rare thing for a youngster to be able to recognize how important the work that he is doing is. That’s just another thing that makes Cedric a special person. He wants to keep this thing going, and it’s basically where he came from. He doesn’t get too far from that. It’s definitely North Mississippi Hill Country style. It’s not like Delta blues. It’s not like Chicago blues. It’s Hill Country blues.” Named after the hilly region in North Mississippi, Hill Country blues has a distinct driving beat and groove. “If you’re not moved by their music at least with your hips, it’s almost like you’re dead,” he said. “A lot of his lyrics, especially with this album, are very much about things that mean a lot to him, which are home and family. “I grew up working with this music. He grew up making this music. We knew this was great music from the beginning, but to be recognized by the industry, especially by the Grammys, it felt great. It felt pretty dang good to get up there with Buddy Guy and the others in the running.” Guy took home the Best Blues Album category win during the Feb. 15 televised awards show in Los Angeles, beating out albums by the Cedric Burnside Project, as well as Shemekia Copeland, Bettye LaVette and one by John Primer and various artists called “Muddy Waters 100.” Amos produced Cedric’s Grammy-nominated album and
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helped mix it with engineer Scott Bomar of Electraphonic Recording in Memphis. “I was thrilled and honored to be asked,” he said. “I knew while we were working and while they were recording, it was something special.” Amos’ wife, artist Coulter Fussell who owns Yalo Studio in Water Valley, designed the album cover using a profile photograph of Cedric taken by Oxford photographer Mike Stanton. “The biggest thing about this whole deal is it feels good to represent North Mississippi and Mississippi in a positive light,” Amos said. Cedric said they wanted “Descendants of Hill Country” to be about the origin of Hill Country blues, paying homage to Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside. “We wanted to show the people what we learned on this journey growing up from blues boys to blues men,” he said. According to his bio, Cedric is a five-time Blues Music Association Award winner. He has won Best New Artist, has four wins for Drummer of the Year and is widely regarded as one of the best drummers in the world. This also isn’t his first Grammy nomination. R.L. Burnside was nominated for a Grammy in 2003 for the album “Burnside on Burnside,” on which Cedric performed; but it was the first time he was nominated on his own. “We were in a category of 300 people,” Cedric said. “They picked five, and we were one of the five. I know I worked hard to get here, but it’s also kind of mind-blowing to be nominated for a Grammy. It’s been a beautiful journey.” After returning home from Grammy week in Los Angeles, a grateful Cedric addressed his fans on social media: “I want to thank everyone for the well-wishes for our Grammy experience last week,” he said. “We are back on the road today, doing what we love — playing the music that comes from the hills of North Mississippi. We would do it at the Grammys or on our front porch or anywhere in between. “Congratulations to Mr. Buddy Guy on his win, because the truth is, legends like him paved the way for us youngsters. Maybe we will be up for that golden trophy again. Maybe not. But we are still the most blessed men in the world because we get to play our songs to your smiling faces every night.”
STORY LaReeca Rucker PHOTOGRAPHY Alexander Koffler
10 ESSENTIAL Mississippi
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Emily Havens of GRAMMY Museum Mississippi's
Grammy-Winning Artists
We’re celebrating the opening of Grammy Museum Mississippi in Cleveland with this Top 10 list. Visit the museum on Sunflower Road Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. or Sunday from noon to 5:30 p.m.
1 ) Marty Stuart • This guitar and mandolin
6 ) The Band Perry • This sibling trio landed
wunderkind started his career playing with
on the country music scene in 2010 with a
Lester Flatt and Johnny Cash before striking
Platinum debut album and a string of hits that
his own success as a solo act.
continues today.
2 ) Conway Twitty • He notched 55 No. 1 hits
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7 ) Mavis Staples • Few careers in music last
during his lifetime and recorded a string of hit
a lifetime, but Mavis Staples, whose recording
duets with Loretta Lynn.
career began in 1969, still records today.
3 ) Elvis Presley • The King of Rock & Roll’s
8 ) Craig Wiseman • This Hattiesburg
trio of GRAMMY awards includes a Lifetime
native has written for LeAnn Rimes, Blake
Achievement Award, which he received at the
Shelton and Kenny Chesney and was named
surprising age of 36.
Songwriter of the Decade in 2009.
4 ) B.B. King • Riley “Blues Boy” King played
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9 ) Eddie Willis • This Grenada native played
his prized guitar “Lucille” at hundreds of live
guitar on dozens of No. 1 hits in the 1960s and
performances every year, wowing audiences
‘70s as a member of The Funk Brothers, the in-
up until his passing at age 89.
house band for Motown Records.
5 ) Faith Hill • This Star native had already brought home five GRAMMY awards for
10 ) Charley Pride • Pride followed Elvis’ 7
footsteps to RCA Records in the ‘70s, where he
performances like “Breathe” when she landed
became the label’s best-selling artist since the
the crossover gig singing the theme to “Sunday
King himself.
Night Football” from 2007-2013.
Havens, executive director of Grammy Museum Mississippi personally curated our list of essential artists. Plan your pilgrimage at grammymuseumms.org and learn about Mississippi’s Grammy legacy at the Birthplace of America’s Music.
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路 LUTHER DICKINSON 路 RETURNS TO HIS HILL COUNTRY ROOTS 44
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S O U N D C H E C K is running long at Ruby Diamond
Concert Hall in Tallahassee, Fla., where Luther Dickinson is playing alongside friends JJ Grey, Anders Osborne and Marc Broussard. Tonight is a one-off gig for their band, Southern Soul Assembly. In less than a week Luther will play a handful of solo dates, and in two weeks he'll be back on stage with the North Mississippi Allstars, the gig that has made it all possible. It’s the life of a traveling musician circa 2016, and despite his successes bringing the musical style pioneered by Hill Country forefathers R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and Otha Turner to new audiences, being a bluesman still isn’t easy. But like his many collaborators and heroes, Dickinson fills the gaps by staying busy. By the time he wraps preparations for the night’s gig, his tongue is as loose and inspired as the music he plays. “Growing up in Mississippi was so awesome, and we’re so honored that the elders took us under their wings when we were young and showed us the way, taught us their music.” Saying Dickinson grew up in a musical household is an understatement. His father, Jim Dickinson, played with Aretha Franklin and Bob Dylan as a studio sideman. He famously played piano on The Rolling Stones ballad “Wild Horses,” and later became known as a producer for such artists as Big Star and The Replacements. The elder Dickinson moved his family from Memphis to the Hernando area when the boys were young. Luther grew up loving classic blues music, but felt it was the music of the past. It wasn’t until he heard the records released by Oxford’s Fat Possum label in the early ‘90s that he discovered the music of the Hill Country. “That blew my mind and changed my life,” Dickinson said. “I did not expect to experience this in my own backyard.” Soon, he found Junior Kimbrough’s juke joint in Chulahoma, where the hypnotic blues of the Hill Country he had heard on records came alive. He made frequent trips to Kimbrough’s Sunday afternoon jams, where he became familiar with R.L. Burnside and his longtime sideman Kenny Brown, and he came to know fife-and-drum traditionalist Otha Turner, whom he had met as a teenager at one of his father’s shows. "Otha and I would spend evenings on his porch, playing Hill Country riffs on guitars, drinking moonshine and shooting the breeze.” After Dickinson had soaked up enough of the music and surely a fair amount of the mash, Burnside took him on tour as part of his backing band, alongside Brown and drummer Cedric Burnside — before the Allstars were
“WHEN THE ELDERS BEGAN PA S S I N G O N, I R E A L I Z E D T H AT M Y FA M I LY, F R I E N D S & H E R O E S SHOULD BE MADE INTO FOLK HEROES & THEIR VERNACULAR & S T O R I E S S H O U L D B E S U N G ."
·L U T H E R D I C K I N S O N ·
discovered on Beale Street, and before he had traveled much at all. “Kenny hired me to go on the road to play with R.L and Cedric, and they took me around to New York and taught me how to play. [After that], I got to know Cedric, Garry and DuWayne [Burnside, grandson and sons of R.L.].” All of these connections coalesce on Dickinson’s latest solo collection, an ambitious double album of Americana music titled Blues & Ballads (A Folksinger’s Songbook), Vol. I & II, which honors those tangled roots of Hill Country blues without trampling them. While Dickinson has played and recorded many of the songs before in different ways, there’s a sense that this record is the purest expression of what inspired him back in the early ‘90s at Junior’s place. To hear Dickinson describe it, the album itself went down much like one of those evenings long ago. Groups of friends — such players as Jason Isbell, who lends his slide guitar to “Up Over Yonder,” plus JJ Grey, Mavis Staples and many of the friends who have appeared on albums or stages with the Allstars — would gather to collaborate casually, wherever they happened to be, from Chicago to Nashville to Zebra Ranch, the studio his father founded in Coldwater. Songs like the once-electrified “Moonshine” took on
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another life in this setting, with a fingerpicked acoustic guitar backing Dickinson’s tribute to those hot nights at Junior’s. Shardé Thomas, Otha Turner’s granddaughter, duets with Dickinson on “Hurry Up Sunrise,” a song he worked into form from tapes of jams he had recorded with Otha years ago. “Blues & Ballads celebrates the American oral tradition of blues and folk songs,” said Dickinson, “not only being passed down and evolving but being transcribed — the original recording technique — and entered into the discipline of written sheet music and songbooks.” A soulful duet with Mavis Staples on “Ain’t No Grave,” a song Dickinson wrote after his father’s passing, inspired him to take the path toward creating what he describes as a “community project” with his friends. “Where we grew up, the music has brought so many people together,” said Dickinson. “The repertoire is the most sacred thing. Those ancient songs — like everybody recording ‘Drop Down Mama’ and ‘Shake ‘Em On Down,’ in different ways, that's what keeps the region’s music alive. That’s the legacy.” Dickinson also keeps alive another part of the Hill Country’s musical legacy by bringing his friends along for the ride. Collaboration and community are parts of the experience, and the collectivist spirit that weaves together the Allstars’ extended family was part of Dickinson’s original vision — no doubt inspired by those nights passing the guitar around the porch. Even the credits on those early Allstars albums read like a who’s-who roster of Hill Country blues figures. Those days began to change with the passing of Kimbrough in 1998, followed by Otha in 2003, R.L. in 2005 and his own father in 2009. Over time, Dickinson became one of the torchbearers tasked with keeping the traditions of the Hill Country alive. He gravitated back to the songs of his musical awakening with renewed zeal and issued Blues & Ballads as a tribute to his heroes and the idea of an American songbook. “When the elders began passing on, I realized that my family, friends and heroes should be made into folk heroes and their vernacular and stories should be sung.” Dickinson’s patron saints of the Hill Country, now canonized in wax on Blues & Ballads, surely wouldn’t mind that tribute. STORY Jim Beaugez PHOTOGRAPHY Will Smith
Blues Man
North Mississippi native and Allstar Luther Dickinson hits a few licks between the barrels before a show at The City Winery in Nashville Feb. 25. Dickinson was a guest of on The Buddy & Jim Radio Show hosted by longtime legends Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale.
Homemade
Luther Dickinson’s coffee can diddley bow was custom made for him by Baxendale Guitars. The single-stringed diddley bow is considered a staple in the blues sound.
"GROWING UP IN MISSISSIPPI WAS SO AWE S O M E , A N D WE 'R E S O H O N O R E D T H AT ELDERS TOOK US UNDER THEIR WINGS WHEN WE WERE YOUNG AND SHOWED US T H E W A Y , T A U G H T U S T H E I R M U S I C ."
·L U T H E R D I C K I N S O N ·
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ILLUSTRATION BY JAMIE RUNNELLS
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N Composting : organic miracle grow for your garden
It has been said that the path to a garden of one’s dreams leads right through the middle of the compost pile. Compost — a gardener’s black gold — is a magic additive that will give life to fruit, vegetable or flower gardens. With a few tips and pointers, a gardener can create a wonderful and beneficial compost heap using only yard waste and select kitchen scraps. Compost consists of partially decomposed organic matter and a host of microbes and bacteria responsible for breaking down plant material. As plant material breaks down gradually, soil organisms slowly release nutrients at a rate that plants can use. Although tons of ideas and theories exist on how to compost, this is how I have been successful. The first consideration for a compost pile is location. Select a spot that is well-drained and receives sufficient sunlight to add warmth for microbial activity to occur. At my home, I situated my compost pile at the edge of my yard against a forested edge. I used a few freely available pallets, stood on their ends, to create a vented wall for holding in plant materials. After selecting a spot, loosen the ground where the compost will go to facilitate worm access to the added organic materials. Worms will speed up breakdown processes and also provide worm castings that are excellent for compost and will make vegetables grow even better. I use all the plant materials from my yard that I can. From garden and flower bed weeds to trimmings from shrubs and small trees, it all gets added. In autumn, leaves — particularly oak species — provide the most important component of a compost pile and are loaded with plant-essential nutrients. All the leaves should be
shredded to eliminate the risk of foul-smelling anaerobic bacteria and to not smother aerobic processes that a compost heap demands. I also use biodegradable waste from the kitchen — with the exception of meat or bones. The best compost additions from the kitchen are nitrogenrich spent coffee grounds. Egg shells are also great. Just be sure to crush them when you add them for a faster breakdown. In general, two types of compost additions exist — brown compost, the source of carbon, includes straw, autumn leaves and other driedout plant parts; and green compost, the source on nitrogen, includes fresh plant material. Composting will occur most efficiently when the ratio of 30 parts carbon to one part nitrogen, by weight, is maintained. Aim for that ratio, add all the shredded leaves possible and be on the way to the best compost pile ever. Although some compost guides suggest layering brown and green compost in the pile, often explained as creating a “garden lasagna,” I don’t recommend this method. Instead, I visit my compost piles as often as I can and keep the materials thoroughly mixed using a pitchfork to ensure an even-distribution of bacteria, microbes and moisture. With only two inches of yard-waste compost added each year, the plants will have access to all the nutrients and protection from disease they require. Compost is a must-have to an avid gardener — plus, it’s free to create and takes minimal effort. If you have questions about composting, send me an email at outside@thesipmag.com.
Bring your pitchfork to a gardener's heaven!
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OUTSIDE
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Gardening
VIC KSBURG
Mississippi soil proves good for the soul
I’ve loved gardening from the time I was old enough to watch my father work in his garden. On a warm spring afternoon, nothing compared to spending time with him in the garden. I recall running around barefooted to feel the cold earth between my small toes.
PORTRAIT BY MELANIE THORTIS
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NATHAN BEANE THE ‘SIP OUTSIDE EDITOR
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When my playful ways unintentionally messed up the rows, my father often handed me the trivial duty of mounding up “hills” to plant watermelons. This call-to-action was a fairly simple task for a young boy; however, I was thrilled for the opportunity. With the handle of a garden hoe swaying above my head, I mounded each hill with diligence. My ultimate goal was to please my father and show him I was big enough to help him, but, even at a young age, I knew a reward for my labor would come in months. On a hot summer afternoon, my father sliced into a ripe melon with his pocket knife as I knelt beside to taste the actual fruit of our labor. He cut sections out of the chosen watermelon’s heart for us to sample. These childhood memories are partly why I enjoy gardening so today. Of course, now, as an adult, I can better understand my father’s passion for getting his hands dirty and, after long work days, spending his evenings arranging parallel rows and proudly bringing home his harvest. I always was amazed at how my father preferred
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working in his garden over a comfortable recliner. His line of work as a diesel mechanic certainly warranted him relaxation after a hard workday, but, to him, gardening offered comfort. Perhaps it was a comfort more suiting to his mind and spirit than his body, but he never was the type to sit still. Fortunately, his tendencies were passed to me, and today I grasp his appreciation for gardening. Now, here at Beane Farm, I’m more limited in garden space than the expansive flat and fertile ground of my childhood. I live just south of the Mississippi Delta where the Loess bluffs along the Mississippi River create an almost mountainous terrain, minus the rocks. The wind-deposited soils of the hills lack the fertility of the nutrient-rich Delta soils, and I lack a suitable flat spot for my garden. So, I’ve settled for a smaller garden and work a little harder to amend my soils. In addition, the complexities are compounded by having 70 chickens running around and more deer per square mile than anywhere I’ve lived, I’ve had to exclude both from my garden. I’ll admit to keeping the deer herd thinned out with my archery equipment when hunting season permits; however, the attraction of a green, lush garden space to whitetail deer is undeniable and will attract them from miles around. To battle that demon, I use an electric fence to keep them at bay. To tackle the poultry concern, I use black plastic netting inside my electric fence to keep chickens from invading and eating my young plants. From time to time, I let a few chickens in the garden to thin out bug densities, particularly pesky aphids, but only after the plants are hearty enough to endure chickens in the rows. And now that Beane Farm is raising heritage pigs, I can barely contain the excitement of feeding them weeds and scrap produce from the garden that normally would go to the compost heap. For me, backyard gardening requires two tricks. The first is to create deeply tilled soils. I force my tiller to pull its weight. Once the ground is well broken up, I amend my less-than-ideal garden soils with composted soils — created primarily from yard waste and kitchen scraps — to improve the organic content. In addition to compost, I supplement dried chicken manure as it’s readily available and is an excellent fertilizer. Both compost and manure are tilled into the soil each spring. The second trick is to create deep and wide rows (up to 1 foot deep and 3 feet wide) instead of the single rows most gardeners use. The purpose of deep and wide rows is
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OUTSIDE to ensure ample room for root development of plantings, and, more importantly, to grow more plants. Incorporating wide rows has made me more efficient at gardening in my limited space, planting more per unit area — less weeding and watering. In my first two years of gardening, I used traditionally spaced rows, and, now that I’ve started using the wide-row method, I’ll never go back. The only vegetable I grow using traditional narrow rows is corn — due to the tall, spreading growth-form and the outcompeting of other garden plants. For all other vegetables, I use 3-foot-wide rows and leave about a foot for walking space. I can reach every part of the wider rows when weeding and can fit more plants in each row by staggering them. For example, I stagger squash and zucchini plants along the center of one of my wide rows, placing shorter statured and smaller plants, such as greens, onions, broccoli or carrots, along the perimeter. The possibilities are endless. Part of the fun is figuring out where to place what vegetables for maximum yield and cohesiveness with everything else growing around it. Regardless of space — a few containerized tomato and pepper plants or a small spot for a raised bed garden or even a large area to try out wide-row gardening — I just say grow something. Gardening is a fun adventure, and I believe it’s a practice that’s good for the soul. It definitely provides a sense of pride and excitement to bite into gardenfresh, homegrown produce. Before you know it, you’ll be as carried away as I am; growing your own herbs for tea, grilling fresh squash and zucchini and canning greens and beans for winter. One of my favorite garden products each year is salsa. I grow onions and garlic year-round, and each late summer, as tomatoes ripen and jalapenos are ready for picking, so begins the salsamaking. The only product added that doesn’t derive directly from the garden is a can of tomato paste, which thickens the salsa to a consistency I prefer over typical fresh garden salsa. All the ingredients are blended and added to a large pot to be heated. Periodic taste-testing and additions of spice and onion or garlic help reach that perfect taste. For questions about how to start your own gardening journey, email me at outside@thesipmag.com. Life’s a garden.
Dig it! STORY Nathan Beane PHOTOGRAPHY Nathan Beane
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H O M E TO W N
Laurel couple loves big in their small-town in new HGTV series
She’s a petite, independent woman who is an artist and eclectic designer by nature, and he’s a burly, manly man who has been dabbling in woodworking since their early dating days. Together they are a dynamic duo taking small-town Mississippi, as well as the national design world, by storm. 52
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LAUREL — Erin and Ben Napier’s love for one another is matched only by their love for the City of Laurel. “Laurel is an eclectic little town. The way it's both a highly cultured arts town just as much as it's a working class boots and lunch-pail town looms large and mingles well,” Erin said. “It's all the best things about Southern culture — the grit and the glamour of it. There's a level of mystery, as well as history, art, culture, industry and entrepreneurship — that you'd be hard-pressed to find in other towns this size.” The entrepreneurial spirit that the town of 19,000 exudes is part of what drew the couple, but more on that later. Erin, 30, grew up in Jones County about 10 miles outside of the city limits. She met Ben, a minister’s son, at Jones County Junior College. “He was so funny, the biggest guy in the room with the biggest laugh. He has a magnetic personality that makes you feel important when he speaks to you,” she said. “I would have felt lucky just to call myself his friend, honestly, but we never really spoke until the last day of freshman year.” Erin was the design editor for the yearbook, so, when the opportunity came along to feature Ben as one of the most interesting people on campus, she jumped at the chance to take the lead on the story. “He came to the yearbook office that afternoon and hugged me for the first time. Six days later, we said ‘I love you’ and decided we would get married someday. We've been 100 percent attached at the hip since then,” she said. Unbeknown to her, Erin’s sweet nervous butterflies were reciprocated. “Erin didn't know it, but I had a crush on her too all along,” Ben said. “She had super short hair like Meg Ryan's, which was very unusual, so I always noticed her. She was different from every other girl. She wouldn't let me carry on and flirt. She was so smart. The first day we hung out, I knew I had to be with her.” The two finished their college years at Ole Miss — she with an art degree, he with one in history — and were married in 2008, with Laurel being the obvious place for the lovebirds to start their life together. “Growing up, I used to relish our trips into the ‘city’ when I could look at the beautiful historic homes,” Erin said. “When I would come home to visit during college, I would take long walks in the historic district with Ben,
and we would choose our dream houses.” While some of the larger historic homes remained on the daydreaming list, a downtown loft that once served as a toothpaste factory during World War II fit the bill for their first “together” space. “We couldn't be normal and just get a good little starter house in a neighborhood. We had to get the historic city living experience even if we were living in little-bitty downtown Laurel,” she said. It was from inside the loft that Erin started her business, Lucky Luxe Couture Correspondence, a wedding and event stationery boutique. The idea for the business originated from Ben’s proposal when Erin started designing the paper pieces that would concisely reflect their relationship as well as the city in which they would be married, Oxford. “I knew I wanted to make these same aesthetic connections for other couples, to tell their story, to express their style. I have an old soul. I love the imperfections of weathered and worn books, boots, quilts, labels and art, the quaintly sophisticated South and all our eccentricities — so it’s no surprise my stationery work always reflects that vintage sensibility,” she said. Lucky Luxe has since been featured in bridal magazines, blogs and features throughout the country, and with the addition of online business offshoots Lucky Luxe Dry Goods and Scotsman Co., the company grew larger than the loft space could support. It was time to house hunt. One in particular had always had the Napiers’ attention — the yellow craftsman cottage in the historic district, just across from the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art. “I never could have guessed we would own it! We never really meant to, in fact,” said Erin. “The sweet lady who owned the house was on her porch one day while we were taking a walk and invited us in. I told her how I had loved it my whole life and, jokingly, if she ever wanted to sell it, she should call us. Three days later, she called us.” The yellow cottage — it is known formally as the George F. Haynes House — had been nearly completely renovated after storm damage from Hurricane Katrina. It officially became Erin and Ben’s real-life dream house in September of 2011. The couple took on the remaining renovations — they included a complete kitchen redo and some painting
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“The opportunity to do something big to help restore the morale in this little town, to change perceptions about smalltown Mississippi was a no-brainer.” BEN NAPIER and some wallpaper removal — to add their style to the space. Their walls are covered with old family photos and framed collectables-turned-art, such as an 1876 centennial flag that was an estate sale find for $3 or vintage maps of Mississippi. Ben has built a good bit of their custom furniture with his own hands. It was this eclectic design style that Erin featured on her social media accounts that caught the eye of a programming executive with Home and Garden Television (HGTV). “When she found my Instagram photos, she felt like Laurel was special. Something about our little town gave her a gut feeling that she needed to reach out, that something was here for her and something about our small town life could make people all across the country nostalgic for a place they’ve never even been,” Erin wrote on her blog. That was in June 2014, and, by the spring of 2015, the Napiers and small-town Laurel, Mississippi, were scheduled to begin filming an HGTV pilot series called Home Town. “In total honesty, the whole thing has been a God-led event that we never sought out, that we felt in our gut after praying for discernment was the crazy thing He had chosen for us,” said Ben. “The opportunity to do something big to help restore the morale in this little town, to change perceptions about small-town Mississippi was a no-brainer.” As if a pilot episode of a TV show wasn’t enough to mark off the bucket list, Erin and Ben received news in February that the pilot had been picked up by the network, and filming for the first season is set for May. According to the HGTV website, the premise of the show is that Erin and Ben will help new people moving to town find a house and renovate it into their dream home complete with Southern charm. Using found materials and old textiles, they're keeping the character of these classic homes but giving them modern and affordable updates. And, truly, these two are the perfect hosts for this type of show. Their passion for designing and creating matches their passion for their beloved city, and their love for one another is just downright adorable. “He's my protector and friend and loves the people in his life so well,” Erin said. “I don’t know what I’d do without him.” Ben feels the same about his bride, providing her with a unique anniversary gift each year — a handmade book of love notes. “Books have kind of been a theme in our relationship. At Ole Miss, I spent a lot of time in the art
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department because Erin spent a lot of time there,” Ben said. “Bookmaking was always going on, and I would hang around and watch people working away on little matchbooks, or books displaying art, or journals, or whatever students were making. “When I decided to propose, I knew I wanted to do it on the balcony of Square Books. I wrote and assembled a little book about a couple that met in college, who didn't seem like a match to their friends, but fell in love fast. Now, fast forward to our first wedding anniversary, for which the traditional gift is paper. Books are a pretty standard gift for this occasion, but I wanted to do something special,” he said. He compiled a book of the best things that happened each month of their first year of marriage and ended each month’s entry with the words, “I love you.” With each year’s traditional anniversary theme — cotton, wood, copper, wool — Ben has made a book for Erin with the cover made out of that year’s specific material. “As the anniversary gift theme changes, I have new challenges. Copper and wool last year were actually pretty easy compared to iron the year before. I think the fifth anniversary book, with the wood-themed cover, has been my favorite one to do. I'm sure you can guess why,” he said. He uses that same eye for detail on his woodworking, crafting each piece with patience and creative intent, Erin said on her blog. “He works very slowly and intentionally,” she wrote. “He’s quick to tell people he’s no artist, that he leaves that to me. But, I disagree.” It’s the combined effort of teamwork and the desire to create unique beauty and give new life to old things that will be the driving force behind Home Town. Erin believes there is no better town for the show than Laurel. “There's no place in America where the cost of living is less and the benefits of doing business are higher. Our real estate is beautiful and inexpensive. The chief of police gives everyone his cell phone number with the urging to call him anytime at all. You know everyone's story — and there are many stories — and they know yours, too. There's no place we'd rather be,” she said. For the Napiers, Laurel is the quintessential “home town.” STORY Elizabeth Grey PHOTOGRAPHY Melanie Thortis
Porch Sittin'
Erin and Ben Napier will soon begin filming the first season of Home Town for HGTV in their town of Laurel. The Napiers regularly host friends on their front porch. BOTTOM LEFT: Ben Napier crafts books for his wife, Erin, for each wedding anniversary.
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HISTORY
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'The Crisis'
Vicksburg was the stage for first film shot in Mississippi
Bombs were bursting in air, men were grappling in hand-to-hand combat, shells streaked through the night sky toward the city, but it was in 1916, not 1863 — half a century after the Civil War.
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“The Crisis,” the first movie made in Mississippi,
beauty who was the idol of theater patrons. About 20 other
was being filmed in Vicksburg. It was a war story,
actors and actresses accompanied her, and almost 500 extra
a melodramatic chronicle of a girl torn between
roles were filled by members of the Mississippi National
two lovers, one who wore gray, the other blue.
Guard and by rank and file of Vicksburg citizens.
And there was a real soap opera that unfolded when the leading lady fell in love with a local swain. The Selig Polyscope Company, an early film producer, hoped the movie, based on a book by the same name and set in St. Louis, would become a classic. It was produced entirely
One day, Miss Eyton appeared on the set escorted by a Vicksburg man best known as a pool-shooting shark who hung out at Jones’ Smoke House downtown. He was exceedingly handsome. Another young Vicksburger, 16-year-old Pvy. LeGrande
in Vicksburg with most of the action taking place at the Old
“Doc” Capers, who had fibbed about his age in order to join
Court House, Cedar Grove, Fort Garrott, South Fort and the
the Guard, and who appeared in the movie as an extra,
Hardaway-McCabe house (which stood where Carr Central
remembered half a century later that Miss Eyton, who was
School was later built).
probably about 30, looked much older to him and “was not
The star of the show was Miss Bessie Eyton, a raven-haired
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nearly as pretty in person as she was in pictures.”
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Her escort, whose name has not been preserved by historians, probably thought differently. He met Miss Eyton
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building. It was too realistic, too reminiscent of 1863, and folks fled panic-stricken into the streets.
quite literally by accident one afternoon when she decided to
Vicksburgers made a social occasion of the filming,
go horseback riding. She rented a horse at Bazinsky’s Livery
entertaining members of the cast in their homes, and the
Stable, saying she wanted a spirited animal.
movie company reciprocated by staging a grand ball in the
When an automobile came down Washington Street, the horse showed more spirit than Miss Eyton had bargained for,
National Park Hotel. It was a year before “The Crisis” was shown in Vicksburg
and the damsel in distress was rescued by the guy who was
opening at the Alamo Theater, but to most it was a
loitering at the pool room. He was in the right place at the
disappointment — for many scenes had been cut and those
right time.
who had been extras could seldom find themselves in the
The movie soldiers, who were camped on Rifle Range Road, weren’t so fortunate. They were promised transportation and
crowds. They weren’t the only ones who were unhappy. A critic in
food, but they found themselves hiking long distances on a
Wid, a New York magazine, thought the film “overburdened
hot summer day with rifles on their soldiers, then charging
with story…tiresome and ineffective…draggy” and the
the enemy after which they were given a cup of coffee and a
portrayal of Lincoln lacked dignity. The writer objected to the
sandwich. The fare was poor and so was the pay — $1 a day.
use of patriotic music in the score as people stood, blocking
The only way to make more money was to play the part of a
the view. In the South, when the pianist played “Dixie,” the
Yankee, but no Southern boy would don a blue uniform unless
crowds probably stood and cheered just as they did in later
the price was right.
years in “Gone With the Wind” when Miss Scarlett shot the
The producer chose Vicksburg because he wanted realism, but Capers said he sometimes got more than he bargained for as the troops got caught up in the excitement, clubbing the “enemy” with their rifle butts. At other times, scenes had to be re-shot when troops got
Yankee on the stairs at Tara. To the movie company, “The Crisis” was a disaster as they went broke. Almost everybody in Vicksburg went to see the movie — everybody except the young man who had rescued Miss
the giggles and townspeople mingled with the soldiers and
Eyton. When she boarded the train to leave, he was with her,
actors on the set and laughed heartily at almost everything
so the two rode off into the sunset together. Presumably
the director said. To them, the $75,000-budget movie was not
Prince Charming and Sweet Bessie lived happily ever after.
serious business at all. One one occasion, to thwart public interferences, a night bombardment scene was filmed from the top of The Valley
STORY Gordon Cotton PHOTOGRAPHY Courtesy of Old Court House Museum
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C A MB O D I A
The Hard Places Community
Clinton native makes anti-sex trafficking her mission Clinton native Alli Mellon has sought out some of the darkest parts of the world — the places where children live on the street, sexual predators lurk in every corner and Christians are often persecuted for trying to help.
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Help in the Hard Places Find out how to donate or become involved in the Hard Places Community: hardplaces-community.org @HardPlacesAsia /thehardplacescommunity
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Those places, dark and riddled with gruesome injustices, are the hard places and they are where she feels she can help the most. For Alli, it all started when she was in 11th grade and went with her church youth group to Memphis. “Service Over Self was the first mission experience I had, and throughout my life, when I was making decisions about school, when I was making decisions about career, everything led back to those weeklong trips in the summer where I was not thinking about myself but serving other people,” she said. “That’s how I just fell in love with mission work.” It was about 20 years later, while balancing a career of songwriting in Nashville with mission work in 28 different countries through Adventures in Mission, that Alli felt a strong calling. “I was sitting there at about 11 one night — flipping through the channels — and I came across a movie called Human Trafficking. It was a Lifetime TV special. I had heard of sex trafficking — barely. At the time, it was definitely not something that many people had heard of. It was kind of hush-hush. It was easy to dismiss because nobody knew much about it.” Something about that documentary blew her mind, she said. “At the end of that, I was just like, ‘God, don’t let me get up from this couch and walk away and pretend that this doesn’t happen somewhere in the world,’” she said. “There was something about the fact that little-bitty children were being sold for sex that just wouldn’t leave me. It got my attention, and I knew I wanted to do something to help fight it.” Adventures in Missions, or AIM, where Alli had been working for years, already had mission teams in New Orleans after Katrina, in African refugee camps, in slums teaching informal school and in India where orphans lived on the streets. She had no intention of starting a new organization. “But (young mission workers) were coming back from these trips and they were so excited and so passionate about what they were doing. They wanted to be challenged more,” Alli said. “They wanted to be stretched further. They weren’t content to just go back to normal life. They wanted to go to the next hardest thing. And I was amazed, because we were sending them to some really hard places, but it wasn’t enough for them.” The Hard Places Community officially launched February 2008. After finishing up her work with AIM, Alli, as the founder and executive director, went straight to Cambodia, a place where children as young as 3 were being exploited. Her first trip was for a few weeks to begin the set-up process — building relationships, learning the culture and beginning the process of fighting the child sex trade.
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LEFT: Alli Mellon, founder and director of the Hard Places Community, holds her youngest daughter, Nadia. RIGHT: Alli walks with her four children in Cambodia, where she works to fight child sex trafficking.
“For us, we measure success in the little, tiny baby steps.” ALLI MELLON, founder/executive director,
“I went back with a set-up team in January 2009 and I was only going to stay for three months. However, instead of coming home, I got my first daughter and the government wouldn’t allow me to leave. So, it’s been seven years, and I’m still there.” In those seven years, Alli has adopted four Cambodian children, each with his or her own heartbreaking birth story. “I had wanted to adopt for 15 years. I found myself 40 without a family and was praying, ‘God, where is my family? Where are my children?’” she said. “I didn’t think it was possible at all for me to adopt in Cambodia.” It was with “an ounce of hope” and a lot of love that Alli was able to adopt Bella, then only 5 1/2 weeks old and swollen from being fed only sweetened condensed milk, which was all her mother had to feed her. “I stopped at a quick-stop. I had $70 in my purse and I spent it all on bottles and formula and whatever they had and took her home,” she said. “And, the process began of trying to adopt her. Every door was closed in my face, but I quickly got all the legal signatures I needed locally for her to be with me." About four months later, Alli received a call to rescue Anna Claire, a 2-day-old malnourished, premature baby covered in ant bites and scrapes from where her mother left her crying.
Hard Places Community
“She didn’t even care enough to move her,” Alli said. “So, I scooped that baby up and took her home.” Alli’s family has grown to include Bella, now 7; 6-year-old Anna Claire; 3-year-old Nash; and Nadia, who will turn 2 in May. Nash and Nadia are biological siblings, and their birth mother is an HIV-positive victim of sex-trafficking. The children have been tested for HIV and “as far as we know they’re negative,” Alli said. Dr. Hannah Gay, the world’s leading pediatric HIV specialist who works at University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson worked with Alli through Nadia’s birth and sent medicine to Cambodia for her to take. The medicine helps prevent the crossover of the infection from the mother’s blood. “I knew, even if they did have it, she would have their best interest in mind and would know what to do,” Alli said. Upon moving to Cambodia, Alli, who has a master’s in counseling from Vanderbilt, was surprised to find how horrific the situation there actually was. “Even though I am a professional counselor, I didn’t know anything about the culture. I can’t counsel someone in a different language without the cultural knowledge,” she said. “I had done research for about four years at this point. I had studied a lot,
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Alli Mellon, founder and director of the Hard Places Community, trains her staff in Cambodia.
but we wanted to find out if the things that we’re reading and seeing online line up with reality. “A lot of things are not really accurate. The books I had read said that kids as young as 5 and 6 years old were being sold by their parents for sex. When I got there, I found out that it’s actually much worse than that. To this day, our youngest girl is 3 and our youngest boy is 4 — and we have a lot of 4-year-old boys.” Alli has centered her organization’s efforts on helping young boys who had few resources before. “There was nothing for boys. There was not one shelter, there was not one day center, there was nothing at all,” she said. “We didn’t dismiss girls, and we never said we don’t want to work with them. We just began to focus on boys’ issues. And, we found the issue with boys is horrific. But, it was under a deeper level of darkness than what was happening with the girls.” Alli said the origin of sex-trafficking in Cambodia is pretty easy to pinpoint. It’s a direct result of the Khmer Rouge Regime, the Civil War that happened just 35 years ago. “This problem that we have is a direct domino effect of a horrible civil war that a lot of people in Mississippi have no idea happened. The war ended in about 1979," she said. “After the war, people’s hearts were so hard, because they had seen everyone they know brutally murdered. “Everybody was about survival. Because everyone was in survival mode and so much rape had happened — so much torture, so many horrific things had happened — people had gotten to the point that, to survive, they couldn’t feel. They were completely numb. So, parents began selling their children for sex as a means to an end.” The Hard Places Community works with 295 children — 80 who go to the center — and many who have been sold by their parents or grandparents for sex. "It’s epidemic. Different countries have their issues with drugs, issues with whatever, but we have an issue with parents selling their children for sex,” Alli said.
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The center where Alli and her team — a combination of American missionaries and Cambodian staff — provide programming for the neighborhood children is in the middle of the sex tourist district of Phnom Penh. “I mean, those are two words that should never be in the same sentence — sex and tourist,” she said. “So, what happens is, most of our cases — the big ones you’ll hear us talk about — are all foreign pedophiles who come to Cambodia for the sole purpose of having sex with a child.” Tourists come to the area relying on pedophile websites, she said, to show them where to go to prey on the children. “People ask me all the time, ‘How do you find the kids? How do you know who’s abused?’” she said. “All we do is open our door, because we work in the sex tourist area, so every single one of our kids has either been sold, been approached for sex or is in our prevention program.” Not all of the children have been sold, which means Alli and her staff focus on prevention rather than restoration. Unfortunately, in order to run the organization legally, the Hard Places Community often has to work with children while they are still being trafficked. “We are a community-based program,” she said. “Our kids aren’t taken out of their environment and put into a safe place. Our kids come to us and they’re there with us for the day and then they go back out and, that night, they are forced to have sex with a grown man.” The harsh and hard reality with which Alli and her staff are faced seems cruel, but it’s the only way to help, she said. “People ask us all the time, ‘Why don’t you snatch those kids off the street?’ Well, the reality is that every single step we take has to be approved by the Cambodian government and we have to follow all the rules and protocols,” she said. “If we just snatched kids off the street, we would be forced to leave the country and, then, we couldn’t do any good at all.” So, she and her staff work with the children, and, when they suspect abuse, they immediately contact the authorities. “But, the thing is, the authorities in Cambodia will not
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move on a suspected case. They don’t care if you’ve seen a grown man take a 9-year-old into a guest house,” she said. The average amount of time between finding out a child is being trafficked and rescuing that child is 22 months, Alli said. “So, day in and day out, we work with the children while they are still being trafficked. That, to me, is the most difficult,” she said. “They’re not taken into the after-care home. They’re not rescued yet. They’re not behind the safe walls. They are vulnerable children living and working on the streets while we work to get them to a place where it’s not happening anymore.” The Hard Places Community is currently the only residential after-care program for boys in Cambodia. All of the counseling and restoration work is done within the child’s community, ideally by keeping the child with his or her parents, Alli said, noting the extra work that must be done, first, to break down the walls that allow parents to sell their own children. “We have a holistic program and we work with the parents. The first thing we try to do with the parent who’s selling their child is break down those walls and help the parent learn to feel again,” she said. “It says in The Bible that God takes a heart of stone and can turn it to flesh. When the parent becomes human — when they begin to feel again — they sit in my office and weep when they realize what they’ve done with their child.” Witnessing such heartbreaking situations makes even the smallest successes seem like huge milestones. “For us, we measure success in the little, tiny baby steps. Our goal is for them to be set free from the shame and the trauma of what’s happened to them and for them to be productive, functioning, happy, healthy members of society,” she said. “Our goal is for them to know the hope and future that was destined for them from the time they were born — not the trauma and heartache that they’ve been through. Sometimes our success is measured by the fact that a kid actually went into the classroom that day or by the fact that so-and-so smiled.” In the biggest case to-date, 40 boys from the Hard Places Community provided testimony, which led to the arrest of Australian professor and pedophile called “Mr. George” by his victims. Six young boys, all regulars in the program, testified to having lived with the professor and received regular sexual abuse. While his arrest was a victory, the professor was only sentenced to only five years and convicted of child abuse. “The law in Cambodia for child sex trafficking — he would
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have gotten 10 to 18 years per offense — but because money never exchanged hands, all they gave him was a child abuse charge, and there’s a very low penalty for child abuse of boys in Cambodia,” Alli said. Alli said she is able to do the work she does and live in the hard places because of her background in counseling and the strength she receives from God. Having four young children of her own has strengthened her passion. “I know so much now about what can happen, so I probably scrutinize men and situations more than someone who doesn’t work in this field,” she said. Being from Mississippi has also given her a certain strength that comes from being part of a community that not only presented an opportunity for her to experience serving others but also supports her mission in huge ways. “Everything we do in Cambodia is largely supported by Mississippians. All of our major donors are individuals. We don’t have any corporate sponsors. We don’t have grants,” she said. “The churches and individuals who support us in Mississippi make all the wheels go ‘round. Everything we do is directly a result of people who are giving. “We are sharing this journey and our experiences and all of our victories with hundreds of people right here in Mississippi who are making a difference. And, literally, if you look at our donor list at the people who are giving, I would say 97 percent comes from Mississippi.” While she and her team still have more work to do in Cambodia, including building a short-term trauma center for boys, Alli hopes to expand to other parts of the world, as well. “Our program is very successful in Cambodia in reaching these kids, and we feel like we can go to another country where children are being sold on the streets and really make a difference,” she said. Alli and her team, staying true to their mission and their name, relying on their tagline — “A glimpse of hope for the hopeless in the darkest corners of this world” — will not leave the hard places. “There are so many places where this is an issue, it’s just — the sky’s the limit. We want to go to where it’s the worst,” she said. “So, when we have the money and when it’s time to do the next thing and we have all the funding bases covered for what we’re already doing, then we’ll look at the next thing.”
STORY Lauchlin Fields PHOTOGRAPHY Melanie Thortis
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Small-Town Spring-Time
By Alexe van Beuren
I am writing this on a bitingly cold, wet and windy day, where the only true green to be seen is the shocking chartreuse of the moss and the deeper green of the resurrection ferns on the oak trees. But spring is inching its way here. I’ve also got a bud vase of those tiny, intensely fragrant, three-headed narcissi on my desk, and a spray of half-open forsythia on the dinner table. My children have been more restive than usual, and, for the first time all winter, last night, 6-year-old Caspian started talking dreamily about fishing. It’s not here yet, but spring is a’comin. The best thing about spring is that it’s free. We can’t order it, we can’t buy it, but, in its own sweet time, spring will make its way here, free of charge. And, with its advent, the little world of my town, Water Valley, will remember that there are some truly good things that money can’t buy. People stand up straighter and move easier in the spring — no need to hunch against the wind or the cold. The first touch of sun on bare arms is a blessing as tangible as a Pyrex dish full of homemade macaroni and cheese. Food tastes better, the streets fill up with kids on bikes and the ball field turns its lights on and starts selling hotdogs and sending tinny speaker announcements to compete with the peepers in the warm-cool evenings . Maybe a small-town merchant shouldn’t say this, but I’m a fan of things money can’t buy. Standing behind a counter, watching people decide how to spend money gives me a unique perspective on goods sold and services rendered. In my personal opinion, folks are crazy about money. Did you know it’s easier to sell a $4 bottled drink of kombucha, a
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fermented kind of health-tea that nine out of 10 folks won’t even like, than to sell a $3 pint of strawberries picked that morning and taste like sun-warmed strawberry jam, except better? (A quick word to grocery shoppers: if ever you have the chance to buy anything that was picked that morning, do it.) I’m going to go ahead and say that people, in general, don’t know how to spend their money in a way that will maximize their happiness. That’s why the weather is so great. Number one, it gives me something to talk about with most of my customers. And, number two, when it’s good, it’s a blessing that costs us nothing, a blessing we are powerless to refuse. That brings me to roasted turkey and church ladies. Church ladies are the living embodiment of blessings you can’t refuse. When I was a whippersnapper of 25, I knew everything about everything. And, thus, becoming a mother didn’t daunt me in the slightest. I’d read the books. I’d surfed the net. I had a beautiful nursery with homemade curtains, a dresser with tiny, immaculately folded onesies and a ready-to-help husband who had two weeks of paternity leave. What more could I need? Well. Three days after Annaliese’s entry into the world, both Kagan and I were ready to throw in the towel. Delivery, all 25 hours of it, hadn’t gone as planned. The baby slept six hours the first night and then seemingly never shut her eyes again. She cried a lot. I felt depleted and wrung out and, when the doorbell rang, I was wearing stretchedout yoga pants and a pajama top that had seen better days. To tell the truth, I mostly resembled a vampire with jaundice.
Miz Cecil didn’t blink an eye. She just sailed into my kitchen, kissed the baby’s head and placed a fully roasted turkey on my counter. Then, she left. Bear in mind this was a woman I barely knew. And it felt as though she’d saved my life. A few weeks later, we were, despite continuing to sleep less than I ever thought humanly possible, still alive. And Kagan and I had a meeting we both desperately needed to attend, a newborn who cried at the drop of a hat and absolutely no family in the town where we’d lived for a scant year. Another church lady came to our rescue: Miz Dot, who’d raised a family of her own and told us she could handle our little girl for an hour or even a night with no problem at all. We were dubious, but we were desperate, so we took her at her word. We went to the meeting — drove too fast back to her house, about an hour and three minutes after we’d dropped her off, expecting to find Miz Dot with her hair on end and the house filled with screams. Instead, she was sitting on her couch with the TV on low, Annaliese peacefully asleep in her arms. “She was no problem at all,” she said. To this day, Miz Dot and Annaliese have a special fondness for each other. I think we should all be on the hunt for moments of grace in our lives. Sometimes, these moments can be purchased (remember? Strawberries in spring?), but mostly, they just appear. It’s easy to spot them this time of year — the wild plums in flower on the side of the road, the sound of kids playing into the dusk as the first fireflies appear, the fresh air sweeping through the screen doors. And the outreach of a hand, just when we need one.
Alexe van Beuren grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. She moved to Water Valley, Miss., in 2006 with husband Kagan Coughlin of Vermont. They have two Mississippi-born children, Annaliese and Caspian. In 2010, Alexe opened the B.T.C. Old-Fashioned Grocery, which has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Southern Living, Garden & Gun and, most importantly, Miss Betty's Week. Alexe and her business partner, Dixie Grimes, authored the B.T.C. Old-Fashioned Grocery Cookbook: Recipes and Stories from A Southern Revival in 2014. She will contribute to The 'Sip regularly as a columnist for SmallTown 'Sip.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY CLAIBORNE COOKSEY
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Under One Roof clothes • pottery • candles
hair • nails • massages waxing • facials • electrolysis
Willingham’s Gift Shop 601-631-0081
The Loft Salon & Spa 601-636-4487
1305 Washington Street • Vicksburg, MS 39180
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delta fog
photo by Melanie Thortis TH OR T I S P HOT OGRAP HY.C OM
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It’s a beautiful state. Enjoy the drive.
MDOT Travel Resources gives you the info you need for a smooth, carefree road trip. From traffic alerts and road conditions to weather forecasts and more. And you can access it from our mobile app, your computer or by calling 511. Find out more at MDOTtraffic.com.
April 15-16, 2016
••••••••• Live Music Concerts featuring Parmalee & TK Soul
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Tickets $10 for concerts Free Daytime Activities 8 a.m. - 4 p.m. www.riverfestms.com
••••••••••••••••••••••• Saturday Arts & Crafts Show Kids’ Land Festival Food Street Performers 5K Run
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