There’s a certain mystery surrounding the number of successful musicians who have come from the Mississippi and Arkansas Delta.
From B.B. King to Johnny Cash, the question “Why here?” looms over industry aficionados. What is it about this place that’s allowed it to produce so many paragons of American music?
That mystery was part of the allure that gave the Cleveland Music Foundation an edge when, with the help of Greenwood graphic designer Allan Hammons, it approached L.A. Live about the potential of expanding the existing Los Angeles-based Grammy Museum to the Mississippi Delta.
L.A. Live is the organization that hosts the Grammys each year.
After an impressive pitch, the Cleveland Music Foundation got the company’s support. A $15 million Grammy Museum is in the works to be installed on the campus of Delta State University. Hammons said the project will have a crucial impact on the economic and social progression of the Delta.
“We’ve become immersed in what makes our country such a great birthplace for creativity. As Mississippians, we would be amiss if we did not recognize our rightful place in that creative mix,” said Hammons, who is serving as a consultant to the project.
Hammons is the CEO of Hammons and Associates, the Greenwood design and advertising agency responsible for most of the cultural heritage tourism landmarks that have been erected across the Delta in recent years. Among the many projects he’s helped execute are the Blues Trail, the Country Music Trail, the American Civil Rights Trail and the B.B. King Museum.
Representatives from the Cleveland Music Foundation approached Hammons a few years ago about a project to celebrate Mississippi’s role in the development of American music.
“I said, if we’re going to do this, we have to go over the top,” he explained.
It turned out that going over the top was the right move. Though Mississippians represent only .09 percent of the world’s population, 8 percent of all Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners are Mississippians.
That fact — coupled with the long list of groundbreaking musicians who emerged from, in many cases, abject poverty — was enough to move L.A. Live.
The museum will take a year to design and a year to build. Hammons said the project will employ the same exhibit designers who worked on the B.B. King Museum in Indianola to design the Grammy Museum at Delta State, and two architectural firms, one based in Jackson and the other based in Cleveland, have been called upon to design the package.
Eighty percent of the museum’s content will focus on the story of the Grammy award, and 20 percent will focus on the story of Mississippi. All of the museum’s content must be approved by L.A. Live.
Hammons said the museum will include much more than gallery space.
“There will be public spaces and a theater. When talent comes through, they can give performances at the museum. There will also be traveling exhibitions, so there’s always something new to see there,” he said.
“It’s really important, from my perspective, that we do these things really well. They have to be truly world-class,” added Hammons. “First of all, the recording academy would not be doing business with us if we hadn’t convinced them that we could do this in a world-class manner.”
Hammons said that between donations from the state of Mississippi, Bolivar County and the City of Cleveland, the project is already well on its way to meet its $15 million goal.
He pointed out that the museum is just the latest installment in a network of institutions that will draw visitors from around the world to an area more defined by its legacy than by its individual states.
“I really think that international travelers don’t see us so much as independent states as one big nation,” Hammons said. “We’ve begun working with the state of Arkansas and working with the city of Memphis, so that we’re all working toward a common goal of building the infrastructure in this area that really makes us one of the leading areas of the United States where people want to learn about American music.”
In addition to the importance of building and maintaining quality cultural institutions in their own right, these museums and the tourists who visit them bring much-needed money to the Delta.
Hammons said that at the time the B.B. King Museum opened, the statewide average for revenue was down by 9 percent, but the Indianola average was up by more than 10 percent.
“If you’re successful in bringing more people into a community ... they have to buy food, they have to buy a room to sleep in and they’re usually buying gasoline, so they’re having an impact on the local economy,” Hammons said. “So the more people you bring, the greater the impact. I’ve worked in economic development in this area for many many years now, but I consider this economic development just as fundamental as chasing a factory around.”
The stories of successful Mississippi musicians are also an important tool in mobilizing those in the area burdened by poverty, Hammons explained: “If you’re poor and you look around and you see people who are successful and they have cars and living in bigger nicer homes and everything, just because they are doesn’t mean you can’t. You just have to find a path forward. And what better way than to have a mentor or a good example like B.B. King? Many of these highly successful artists came from very modest backgrounds.”
• Contact Jeanie Riess at 581-7235 or jriess@gwcommonwealth.com.
