Courtesy of the Grammy Museum
Early next month, the first Grammy museum outside of Los Angeles will open its doors in Cleveland, Mississippi. For anyone inclined to ask “Why Cleveland?”, Grammy Museum Director Emily Havens has a ready answer: “There are many music historians who credit Mississippi as being the cradle of American music.” The state has produced more Grammy nominations on a per-capita basis than any other, and since the Mississippi Delta has legitimate claims to the parentage of blues, jazz, soul, R&B, rock and roll, gospel, and country, it makes sense that a museum built to celebrate the legacies of all forms of music should stand in Mississippi’s heart.
Havens explained that the 27,000-square-foot museum will offer more than two dozen exhibits, half of them interactive. “Rather than being organized around the different musical forms, they’re about highlighting and educating about the evolution of the Grammy Awards, allowing visitors to search the Grammy archives for great performances, albums-of-the-year, and more.”
The museum includes a gallery celebrating Mississippi musicians as well as resources that will direct the 65,000 visitors expected to attend each year to other Delta music landmarks, including the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center, The Mississippi Blues Trail, The Country Music Trail, the Delta Blues Museum, and the birthplaces of various Mississippi music legends. Public performances, artist workshops, and educational collaborations with the Delta Music Institute, at Cleveland’s Delta State University, are also planned.
On March 5, the museum will open, featuring the traveling exhibit, Ladies and Gentlemen … The Beatles, which focuses on the Fab Four’s paradigm-shifting first American tour from 1964 through mid-1966. Through spring, the museum will host a series of programs to explore the profound influence that the Beatles had on contemporary pop music, then and since. A Beatles Symposium 2016: From Cavern to Candlestick is scheduled for April 1—2. “The exhibit has been to five other cities, but hasn’t been seen on this side of the country,” noted Havens. “So it was a great opportunity. We felt that it was the way to open the museum.” Grammymuseumms.org.
