Born on a small Tennessee farm in 1923, Larry Armstrong soon looked for a way to get out from behind his father’s mule and embarked on a life that has taken him all over the world. His experiences included running off to join the circus at a young age, spending time on the southern railroads […]
Starkville resident Larry Wallace is one of the nation’s top bluegrass banjo players and has been active for over thirty years. He was born in 1961 in McCall Creek (west of Brookhaven) in Franklin County and grew up listening to the fiddle playing of his maternal grandfather, Lewis Rushing. According to Wallace, Rushing was one
“Big” Joe Shelton was born in the Black Belt Prairie region of northeast Mississippi in 1951. The region is the birthplace of several legendary blues performers and Shelton was exposed to a wide range of African American music while growing up. He went to barbecue picnics that featured local music, and listened to blues musicians perform
The Mighty Gospel Warriors are a group in the quartet tradition based out of Bruce, Mississippi. The Warriors were founded in Bruce in 1987 when brothers Homer and Sammy Judon decided to create a new group together with David Welch and C.W. Vance. Homer, the group’s leader and booking manager, plays guitar and sings background
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Terry “Harmonica” Bean is still relatively young but has decades of experience with the blues. A lifelong resident of Pontotoc, Bean first heard downhome blues at home. His father Eddie Bean, a native of Bruce, sang and played blues guitar and prior to Terry’s birth traveled with an electric blues band. For many years Eddie
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Mack Elmore Banks was born on September 17, 1934, in Jasper, Alabama, and moved with his family to Columbus, Mississippi when he was six months old. The family lived for a while in the Hogeye community in Noxubee County, where his father worked as a sharecropper, and later settled in Artesia when Mack was in
Bessie Johnson is a native of the Tibbee community just south of West Point. Both of her parents were active in traditional crafts. Her father wove chair bottoms and baskets and her mother quilted. Johnson was fascinated with their work and began making baskets herself over thirty years ago. She creates them using a variety
Colby Horton has always loved music and finds building fine guitars very satisfying. He lives in Tiplersville, a tiny town in far northern Mississippi. He was born in nearby Ripley, where his father (whose family is from this immediate area) has a small veterinary hospital. His mother also helps out at the clinic now that