Performance

Mario Garcia Group

Many of the immigrants from Mexico to Mississippi’s Gulf Coast attend Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church, which welcomes many international parishioners. There’s a Filipino mass every Wednesday evening, and a Spanish-language mass every Monday, at which Mario Garcia, Lalo Herrera, and Leopoldo Villegas sing and play their guitars, along with a rotating crew of […]

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Charles Fairley

Charles Fairley, Jr., was born in 1932 on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in Moss Point. He began playing saxophone at eight years old and received his first instrument, an alto saxophone, from his paternal uncle Ollie John “Boss” Tatum, who had worked in minstrel shows with artists including Bessie Smith. Fairley later received a tenor

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Hezekiah Early

Natchez-based drummer, harmonica player, and vocalist Hezekiah Early was born on October 7, 1934, on a farm in the community of Anna’s Bottom, located about a dozen miles north of Natchez adjacent to the Mississippi River. Some of the first music that Early heard as a young man was that of local fife and drum

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YZ Ealey

YZ Ealey—“YZ” is his given name—was born in Sibley, about 14 miles south of Natchez on March 8, 1937, and grew up on a self-sufficient farm where his family raised crops and livestock. He is the middle of eleven children, with three sisters and two brothers both older and younger than him. He first began

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Eddie Cusic

Eddie Cusic was born January 4, 1926, in the Wilmot community south of Leland, Mississippi. He grew up farming with his family and was first inspired to play the blues from hearing men play at suppers and other get-togethers in his community. Like many Delta musicians of his generation, his first attempts to play were

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Walter Cooper

Durant native Walter Cooper got his start as a performing musician at the age of nine. After a few years following the Mississippi bluesman tradition of starting out on homemade one-string diddly bows, he got a guitar from the local Western Auto Store and was soon asked to perform in his grandmother’s church. St. Allison’s

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