The Delta Cultural Center will host an evening of song with blues master Johnny Billington of Lambert, Miss., tonight at 5:30 p.m.
The free performance at the DCC Visitors Center at 141 Cherry Street is held in conjunction with the museum’s current “Rhythm & Roots: Southern Music” exhibit. The public is warmly invited to attend.
The new “Rhythm & Roots” exhibit examines the rich variety of traditionally recognized Southern music forms - including blues, bluegrass, Cajun, country, gospel, Appalachian, and bluegrass - as well as musical traditions less readily associated with the South, including the cultural sounds of Native American, Asian, Caribbean, and Latino communities. South Arts, the Atlanta-based regional arts organization, created the exhibit.
Handheld audio guides that allow museum visitors to hear samples of the music referenced in “Rhythm & Roots” augment the exhibit. Also, the DCC is displaying two new museum artifacts purchased in association with the exhibit - a “gui-jo” and a six-string diddley bow created by musician and artist James “Super Chikan” Johnson of Clarksdale.
“Rhythm & Roots” is the latest addition to South Arts’ Southern Visions: The Southern Arts & Culture Traveling Exhibits Program. Since 1995, Southern Visions has provided more than 500,000 people with access to exhibits celebrating the South’s artistry and cultural heritage. “Rhythm & Roots: Southern Music” is presented in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. The Hart Law Firm of Atlanta provided additional corporate support.
Johnny Billington recalls listening to “King Biscuit Time” as a young man growing up in Mississippi and learning to play guitar and the blues before life drew him to Arizona and then to Chicago. Upon returning to the Delta and the Clarksdale area in the late 1970s, he soon found himself involved in working with area youths, a talent that has drawn his attention now for three decades. In addition to being a popular veteran musician, Billington has founded the Johnny Billngton Blues Academy, an outreach program of the Boys & Girls Club of Northwest Mississippi, which offers music education to area youths.
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The Delta Cultural Center will host an evening of song with blues master Johnny Billington of Lambert, Miss., tonight at 5:30 p.m.
The free performance at the DCC Visitors Center at 141 Cherry Street is held in conjunction with the museum’s current “Rhythm & Roots: Southern Music” exhibit. The public is warmly invited to attend.
The new “Rhythm & Roots” exhibit examines the rich variety of traditionally recognized Southern music forms - including blues, bluegrass, Cajun, country, gospel, Appalachian, and bluegrass - as well as musical traditions less readily associated with the South, including the cultural sounds of Native American, Asian, Caribbean, and Latino communities. South Arts, the Atlanta-based regional arts organization, created the exhibit.
Handheld audio guides that allow museum visitors to hear samples of the music referenced in “Rhythm & Roots” augment the exhibit. Also, the DCC is displaying two new museum artifacts purchased in association with the exhibit - a “gui-jo” and a six-string diddley bow created by musician and artist James “Super Chikan” Johnson of Clarksdale.
“Rhythm & Roots” is the latest addition to South Arts’ Southern Visions: The Southern Arts & Culture Traveling Exhibits Program. Since 1995, Southern Visions has provided more than 500,000 people with access to exhibits celebrating the South’s artistry and cultural heritage. “Rhythm & Roots: Southern Music” is presented in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. The Hart Law Firm of Atlanta provided additional corporate support.
Johnny Billington recalls listening to “King Biscuit Time” as a young man growing up in Mississippi and learning to play guitar and the blues before life drew him to Arizona and then to Chicago. Upon returning to the Delta and the Clarksdale area in the late 1970s, he soon found himself involved in working with area youths, a talent that has drawn his attention now for three decades. In addition to being a popular veteran musician, Billington has founded the Johnny Billngton Blues Academy, an outreach program of the Boys & Girls Club of Northwest Mississippi, which offers music education to area youths.
