Music in Mississippi

Bob Ferguson helped develop the “Nashville Sound” of the 1960s and ‘70s as the producer of hundreds of major recordings and writer of numerous classic country songs. […]

Mississippi Country Music Trail – Carl Jackson Trail Marker Location: Louisville Marker Front: 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. […]

The annual Choctaw Indian Fair showcases the cultural traditions of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians including food, arts and crafts, stickball (kabotcha toli), and the Choctaw Indian Princess Pageant. Since the late 1960s, the Fair has regularly featured major […]

Elsie Williamson McWilliams wrote or contributed to music and lyrics for thirty-nine of the songs that Jimmie Rodgers performed or recorded. Although she never received full credit for her work, she was the first woman to sustain a successful career […]

Choctaw County fiddler Hoyt Ming led a lively string band, “Floyd Ming & His Pep Steppers,” recorded at a Memphis Victor session in 1928. His “Indian War Whoop,” with its fiddling “holler,” became an old-time country music standby. […]

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.” […]

Johnny Cash spent the night at the Oktibbeha County Jail in Starkville following an arrest for public drunkenness. He memorialized the incident in the song “Starkville City Jail,” which he most famously performed and recorded for his 1969 album “Live […]

Mississippi Country Music Trail – Leake County Revelers Trail Marker Location: Sebastopol Marker Front: 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 […]

Marty Gamblin began his long career in the music business booking bands while still in high school. He worked closely with Mississippi songwriter/performer Jim Weatherly, ran Glen Campbell’s publishing firm, and helped launch the career of Alan Jackson. […]

Philadelphia native Marty Stuart began his country music career as a teenage mandolin player with Lester Flatt before becoming a Grand Ole Opry star, “hillbilly rock” hitmaker, accomplished songwriter, multi-instrumentalist bandleader, and prolific collector of country music memorabilia. […]

Moe Bandy became one of country music’s most popular singers of the 1970s and ‘80s. 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 […]

Rod Brasfield was the Grand Ole Opry’s top male comedian from 1947-1958 as a beloved sad sack foil for Red Foley and Hank Williams and a comic sparring partner for Minnie Pearl and June Carter. […]