Miss. Country Music Trail

A native of Hollandale who picked cotton as a child, a University of Southern Mississippi graduate and Navy pilot, Ben Peters (1933-2005) went on to become a Nashville songwriting legend, penning fourteen number-one hits, including three of the most performed songs in country— “Kiss an Angel Good Morning,” “Daytime Friends and Nighttime Lovers,” and “Before the Next Teardrop Falls.” Briefly a solo recording artist himself, Peters created hits for the cream of country vocalists for forty years.

Long-time Neshoba County resident Bob Ferguson (1927-2001) was a key shaper of the “Nashville Sound” of the 1960s and ‘70s, as the producer of hundreds of major recordings and writer of such classic country songs as “Wings of a Dove” and “Carroll County Accident.” Also a naturalist, filmmaker, and anthropologist, his documentation and advocacy of Southeastern Native American culture, particularly for the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, were historic contributions.

Born in Louisville in 1953, Carl Jackson played banjo here as a boy, and by age fourteen was backing Jim & Jesse on the Grand Ole Opry. By the age of twenty he had established a versatile career as a recording vocalist, instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer in bluegrass and mainstream country music that made him one of the most sought after contributors and collaborators in both genres well into the twenty-first century.

The son of a Sledge sharecropper, Charley Frank Pride first won notice as a singer when music was just a sideline to his early baseball career. Taking a shot at what seemed an unlikely career in Nashville, he went on to record fifty-two Top Ten singles, twenty-eight of them No. 1 hits. Singing honky tonk songs in his remarkable baritone, Charley Pride became a country music legend and
the most successful African American artist
of the genre.

Born in Friar’s Point as Harold Lloyd Jenkins, son of a ferryboat captain, Conway Twitty (1933-1993) first achieved stardom as a bluesy rockabilly singer. Beginning in the 1970s, he became one of country’s bestselling balladeers ever, with fifty-five No.1 singles, many self-penned and five of them duets with musical partner Loretta Lynn. He brought a new level of sensuality, drama, and emotional directness to country, live and on record, developing a huge following so fervent that he was dubbed “The High Priest of Country Music.”
 

Meridian's Jimmie Rodgers Day festivals of the 1950s, the first held May 26,1953, became known as National Country Music Days, marking a turning point in the nation's enthusiasm for country music. Stars and fans from every country music style, from old-time hillbilly to pop balladry and rockabilly, came together in this celebration of music that was to win fans around the world.

Raised on country here in Tupelo, first introduced as “The Hillbilly Cat,” then by RCA Victor as “the hottest new name in country music,” Elvis Presley’s revolutionary musical mix always had country as a key ingredient. Appearing on the country charts over 50 times, Presley’s music pushed traditional country towards the modernizing Nashville Sound, which followed the pop, if not the rock ‘n roll path he’d fashioned. Elvis would record the country songs he loved throughout his career.

Elsie Williamson McWilliams (1896-1985), the sister of Jimmie Rodgers's second wife Carrie, wrote or contributed to music and lyrics for thirty-nine of the songs that Rodgers performed or recorded, although she never received full credit for her work. A Meridian housewife, mother, and Sunday school music teacher, she became the first woman to sustain a successful career as a country songwriter and was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1979.

A Liberty native, Jerry Clower (1926-1998) brought his colorful, observant, comic stories of southern life—developed as a sales tool as he worked as a fertilizer salesman—to live shows, recordings, television, bestselling books, and, for over twenty-five years beginning in 1973, Grand Ole Opry broadcasts . He became one of the most successful and acclaimed country comedians of all time.

FATHER OF COUNTRY MUSIC
Singing winningly, with storytelling clarity and physicality, of the real lives and fondest dreams of his down home audience, with varied musical backing that ranged from his own solitary guitar to rural pickers, horns, and Hawaiian bands, in just five years as a star before his early death in 1933, Jimmie Rodgers placed a defining stamp on what country music would be. Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame simply calls Meridian’s Singing Brakeman “The Man Who Started It All.”

The most renowned Mississippi string band of the 1920s, the four Revelers—fiddler Will Gilmer, mandolinist R. O. Mosley, banjoist Jim Wolverton and guitarist Dallas Jones—were based here in Sebastapol, and played live across the Southeast. They had a widely heard Saturday night radio show on WJDX in Jackson, and cut 44 diverse instrumental and vocal sides for Columbia and Okeh Records between 1927 and 1930. Their biggest hit, “Wednesday Night Waltz,” was among early country music’s biggest sellers.

Lyman Corbitt “Mac” McAnally, Jr., grew up in Belmont, where he sang and played piano at the Belmont First Baptist Church before becoming a session musician and songwriter at the age of fifteen. McAnally wrote and recorded hit songs, their insightful lyrics expanding the range of country music and powerfully evoking the flavor of southern life. He was also a producer and an award-winning guitar player in Nashville from the 1970s into the twenty-first century.

From his boyhood days performing here, Marty Stuart displayed singular zest for every flavor of country music. Beginning as a teenage mandolin player with Lester Flatt, he became an ebullient Grand Ole Opry star, “hillbilly rock” hitmaker, accomplished songwriter, multi-instrumentalist bandleader, and country artifact collector. With a musical missionary’s zeal and a bold showman’s style, Stuart committed himself both to preserving country’s history and contributing to its future.

Born in Meridian and the grandson of the railway yard manager where Jimmie Rodgers worked, Moe Bandy became one of country music’s most popular singers of the 1970s and ‘80s. A master of honky tonk as well as cowboy songs that reflected his early rodeo work, he was successful as a solo recording artist, as a member of the “Moe and Joe” duo with Joe Stampley, and later as a prime live attraction in Branson, Missouri.

Country music singer and composer
O. B. McClinton, born and raised here in Senatobia, found his first musical success as
a songwriter for 1960s Memphis soul labels. When Stax-Volt founded the Enterprise imprint for release of his country records, McClinton emerged during the 1970s and ‘80s as one of the most successful African American artists in the field, with fifteen chart hits.

Raised here in Vancleave, through the 1980s Paul Overstreet became one of Nashville’s most consistently successful and honored songwriters, penning major hits for George Jones, Randy Travis, Tanya Tucker, The Judds, Kenny Chesney, and Alison Krauss, while becoming a chart-topping singer himself. Some of his songs about family, marriage and religion such as “On the Other Hand,” “Sowin' Love,” “Seeing My Father in Me,” and “When You Say Nothing at All,” became modern country classics.

Born in Smithville, Rod Brasfield was the Grand Ole Opry's top male comedian from 1947-1958, a beloved sad sack foil for Red Foley and Hank Williams and a comic sparring partner for Minnie Pearl and June Carter. He played dramatic and comic roles in traveling tent shows before his Opry fame, and appeared as Andy Griffith’s sidekick in the Hollywood drama “A Face in the Crowd”. Brasfield was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame posthumously, in 1987.

Formed in 1987 when three local musicians
—Joe Lee Huffman, Willie Gene Huffman, and Robert Eaton—got together to play music and share supper, the Sparta Opry has become a community institution. Having offered more than 100 country, bluegrass, blues, and gospel performances some years, all staffed by volunteers, the Opry has become a beloved destination for residents of Chickasaw County and beyond.

Born Virginia Wynette Pugh and raised on her grandparents' farm near Tremont, Tammy Wynette (1942-1998) might have remained an unknown local hairdresser, but with fierce determination and a voice and resilient life story that touched millions, she built on an after-hours singing job to become one of the most acclaimed performers in country history. With twenty era-defining No. 1 records, she became celebrated internationally as "The First Lady of Country Music."

Raised in Osyka, the versatile T. Tommy Cutrer succeeded as a country and gospel singer and instrumentalist and also as a businessman and politician, but his greatest fame came as a radio/television personality from the 1940s through the 1990s. As an announcer on the Grand Ole Opry and country music television shows, and as the host of nationally syndicated radio broadcasts, he became one of the best-known entertainers in country music.