A "Music City" in the Delta
Cleveland, Mississippi reenvisions itself as a launchpad for new artists and a hotbed of musical experiences
The story of Cleveland, Mississippi is the story of many a small farm community. Over the last century, as agriculture became more mechanized, small family farms went under and mega farming conglomerates took over the landscape. Big-box stores drove out Ma and Pa businesses and the charming, historic downtown was boarded up. Young people fled for anywhere-but-here, the population aged. What had once been a unique and thriving farm community was becoming just one more struggling, drab small American town.
That’s when the story shifts, though, as people like Cleveland’s Music Ambassador Tricia Walker said: “Not on our watch”. In early 2020, Walker and others took steps to breathe life back into the town through one of its most spirited natural resources: music. Today, this slice of the Mississippi Delta is a vibrant music city that celebrates its history and nurtures its musical talent reminiscent of larger cities like New Orleans and Austin. The message Walker and others hope to convey is, “In this day of internet and technology, you don’t have to go to Los Angeles or Nashville to launch a successful music career. You can stay in the place you love, surrounded by people you love, and find success—and an audience for your music.”
“In this day of internet and technology, you don’t have to go to Los Angeles or Nashville to launch a successful music career. You can stay in the place you love, surrounded by people you love, and find success—and an audience for your music.” —Cleveland Music Ambassador Tricia Walker
Deep Roots Initiative
Walker herself understands the anywhere-but-here mentality. She fled her own hometown as a young woman, headed for the bright lights of Nashville, where she spent decades performing with top-name musicians, developed lifelong friendships and partnerships, and even earned a Grammy for one of the songs she penned. Now in her sixties, she’s doing everything she can to support up-and-coming singers, songwriters, and musicians, so they might have their own robust music careers without having to leave the Mississippi Delta.
Her organizations Deep Roots and Big Front Porch Productions are not only taking young musicians in hand and walking them through the business side of the industry, but offering them ample opportunities to hone their craft right here in Mississippi.
“The beauty of a place like Nashville or New Orleans is the way they value and support their musicians,” Walker said. “I wondered what we could do if we offered that same kind of support to our musicians here. Delta State University has amazing professors who came out of the music business and have been there, done that.” Walker began by collaborating with some of those seasoned professors to see how they might get such a campaign off the ground, then approached city officials and requested funding to pay local musicians to offer free live music five nights a week somewhere in or around Cleveland. Next, she liaised with local businesses to secure venues and began promoting the shows.
Now on any given night, you can pop into a restaurant, the historic Ellis Theater, or during milder weather, bring your beach chairs and ice chest to an outdoor venue to enjoy musical talent you'd expect to hear only in a large city. Audiences at the shows range from young families with dancing toddlers to business-suited executives, to retirees, to students from nearby Delta State. The music itself usually falls under the umbrella of "roots music" which might include jazz, blues, R&B, soul, zydeco, or any of the South's indigenous genres.
A Blues Pilgrimage
Even before the city’s current tourism initiatives, Cleveland was already hallowed ground to blues devotees. Just four miles outside of town is Dockery Farms, where revered bluesmen such as Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, "Son" House, “Pops" Staples, and Howlin' Wolf got their start. The influence of Dockery Farms goes back to just after the Civil War, when Will Dockery bought 28,000 acres and turned it into a cotton plantation. While most plantations forbade alcohol, Dockery set up what was called a “frolic house” on his property—which quickly gained a reputation throughout the Delta for its musical performances.
Cleveland Tourism Director Sean Johnson likes to take his guitar up to Dockery Farms to play and wax poetic about the environment that, historically, was ripe for creating a new musical artform. “When Will Dockery converted this land from timber to cotton, he didn’t chop down the trees, but set them on fire to slowly kill them,” Johnson said. “Imagine tens of thousands of acres of skeletal trees slowly burning. Delta sunsets are like ocean sunsets because it’s so flat here. It’s one hundred degrees and ninety percent humidity. The air is perpetually filled with smoke. The sun’s just setting and the first cords of the blues are being played. When you visit this place, you can almost hear the music.”
There are over fifty other historic blues sites within an hour’s drive of Cleveland including, The B.B. King Museum in Indianola, the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, and just outside of town the “crossroads” where famed bluesman, Robert Johnson, was said to have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for mastery of the guitar.
Grammy Museum
It’s natural that Los Angeles, the second largest city in the U.S. and host of the annual the Grammy Awards, would be the site of the Grammy Museum. But did you know Cleveland, Mississippi is home to a sister museum, The Grammy Museum Mississippi? That might seem incongruous until you consider that Mississippi has produced more Grammy winners per capita than any other state, notably including B.B. King with his fifteen Grammys, Muddy Waters with six, and Elvis Presley with three.
Mississippians with Grammy Lifetime Achievement Awards include Elvis, Robert Johnson, Sam Cooke, John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley, Pinetop Perkins, and Hank Jones, not to mention groups with Mississippi-born members such as the Allman Brothers Band, Blind Boys of Alabama, Earth Wind & Fire, the Staple Singers, and the Temptations. The 28,000-square-foot Grammy Museum Mississippi pays homage to these and other Grammy winners with interactive displays covering all music genres—from opera to funk—and outfits worn by Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Charli XCX, and more. The museum also includes films, theatrical presentations, music education programs, and a state-of-the-art soundstage and studio.
Delta State University
Another music-centric aspect of Cleveland is Delta State University, which through its Delta Music Institute offers students education in the technological, creative, and business areas of the entertainment industry. The University also operates The Bologna Performing Arts Center, bringing world-class entertainment, including Broadway shows, to Cleveland.
In addition, Delta State also operates tourist-worthy destinations including the Wiley Planetarium, The Hazel and Jimmy Sanders Sculpture Garden, and the “Boo” Ferris Museum, which chronicles the story of this Delta native son and his fabled Boston Red Sox career. Then, there are the sculptures. Cleveland boasts “the most sculpture pieces of any small town in the South”.
The perfect base camp for your music exploration is Cotton House. Situated on Cotton Row in the heart of Cleveland’s walkable downtown and surrounded by shops, boutiques, and galleries, the boutique hotel includes farm-to-table cuisine at its Delta Meat Market and a rooftop bar, Bar Fontaine.
If music is a consideration when you plan your next trip, consider New York, Austin, Las Vegas, New Orleans, or Chicago. But don’t dismiss Cleveland, the little Delta town at the heart of the state that calls itself “The Birthplace of America’s Music”.