Joyce Cobb and Brody Buster
As a singer, teacher, and actor, Joyce Cobb has done it all: signed a deal at Stax Records; cut a Top 40 hit, "Dig The Gold," for the Cream label; opened shows for The Temptations, Muddy Waters, and Al Jarreau; toured Europe; travelled with the Center's production of Beale Street Saturday Night which she co-wrote, performed with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra; and starred in local productions of Theatre Memphis'  Ain't Misbehavin' and  The Devil's Music: The Life and Times of Bessie Smith. Cobb hosts a popular radio show on Memphis' Community Radio Station WEVL-FM and continues to perform very popular shows including blues, jazz and rock throughout the region and nationally. Born in Oklahoma and reared in Nashville, Joyce Cobb has been immersed in music since her childhood days singing in her grandmother's church.  She is also an adjunct faculty member at the University of Memphis' Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music, where she teaches jazz vocals.  For more of Cobb's music: Beale Street Saturday Night: The Soul of Memphis Music, CD and Illustrated Booklet.

The young Brody Buster is shown performing with Joyce Cobb at the Center's 1994 Music & Heritage Festival.  Partnering with the Society for the Preservation for the Advancement of the Harmonica, hundreds of harmonica players converged on the Festival with outstanding performances and special shows.

Brody Buster began playing blues harmonica at the age of seven in Paola, KS. By eight, he had become a professional musician travelling to Memphis to on Beale Street. At ten he appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and opened B.B. King's Blues Club in L.A where he had the opportunity to jam with B.B. King. Buster has been regular performer at the Kansas City Blues and Jazz Festival since 1994  and  currently  performs in Kansas City and in  special performances in Los Angeles, Chicago and other regional venues.
Photo by Robert Dye, Jr.

Jim Dickinson Jim Dickinson ranks as one of Memphis music's top movers and shakers.  Following his first real break from Bill Justis in Nashville, he became a well regarded session player in the 1960s for Chips Moman at American Studio, John Fry at Ardent Studio, and Sam Kessler at Sound of Memphis Studio.  In 1968, he signed on as the keyboardist in the rhythm section that became known as the Dixie Flyers moved to Miami, Florida, contracted to Atlantic Records and backed like Aretha Franklin, Sam & Dave, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Carmen McCrae.  His outstanding musical career includes playing piano for the Rolling Stones for "Wild Horses", working with Ry Cooder and Big Star and touring with Arlo Guthrie. He was instrumental in the '70s and '80s developing the legendary hard rocking legendary Memphis band, Mudboy and the Neutrons.

As a music producer Jim Dickinson has worked on such classic albums as The Replacements' masterpiece, "Pleased To Meet Me", Toots Hibbert's blend of reggae and soul "Toots In Memphis" and Bob Dylan's Grammy-winning "Time Out Of Mind".  While continuing to produce a few choice projects, Dickinson has concentrated his efforts on the family recording complex, Zebra Ranch, and launching the careers of his sons, Luther and Cody, of The North Mississippi Allstars.
Photo by Robert Jones

Junior Kimbrough
David Junior Kimbrough figured out early in life that if he was going to make his mark in the world, he'd have to do it with a guitar - and he wasn't going to do it covering other people's work.  He was only going to play Junior.  Throughout his life, he was famous for throwing some of the biggest house parties in northern Mississippi.  Junior Kimbrough's barn became more than a club.  It was an entity.  Without help from a sign or telephone calls, locals gathered on Sunday nights at Junior's Place on Mississippi Highway 4 to listen to music, drink and dance.  In his later years, it was so well known it became a mecca for rock royalty such as U2 and the Rolling Stones.

In 1979, historian David Evans, a professor of music at the University of Memphis, chanced upon Junior Kimbrough playing at Ethel's Juke Joint in Holly Springs.  The University had recently created its own record label called High Water and he brought Kimbrough, along with Jessie Mae Hemphill and longtime friend, R.L. Burnside, in to cut some sides, including his next single titled, "Keep Your Hands Off Her".

Kimbrough released his first album in 1992, when he was 62. "All Night Long" was produced by noted musician and writer Robert Palmer for Fat Possum Records and the music world took notice.  Noting its tricky syncopations between his droning bass strings and his mid-range melodies. Rolling Stone Magazine dubbed the music "hypnotic" and awarded the album four stars.  When Junior Kimbrough died in 1988 long-time friend, neighbor and fellow bluesman, R.L. Burnside called Kimbrough "the beginning and end of all music".  This is the epitaph written on Kimbrough's tombstone.
Photo by Ray Allen

Charlie Musselwhite
Born in the Mississippi Delta, Charlie Musselwhite's family moved to Memphis when he was a young child. He heard his share of rock and country growing up, but remembers, "There was something special about the blues."  As a teenager he hung out with and learned from performers Gus Cannon, Furry Lewis and harmonica player Will Shade of the Memphis Jug Band. He moved to Chicago and found himself in the right place at the right time.  One day after work, a waitress introduced him to Muddy Waters.  That was it. Muddy would always have me sit in with him. I started doing more and more, people started offering me jobs and it turned into this.

While in Chicago he signed with Vanguard Records and recorded his classic debut album Stand Back! in 1966.  He relocated to San Francisco and his reputation grew.  Musselwhite continued to stay in touch with his bluesmen buddies because they shared similar Southern routes.  One of his closest friends in the Bay Area was fellow Mississippi expatriate, John Lee Hooker, with whom he shared many club and studio dates over the years.

He has released over 30 albums, earned 18 W.C. Handy awards, and 6 Grammy nominations while performing across the United States and around the world. He has performed the 1994 and 1996 Memphis Music & Heritage Festival. Charlie Musselwhite sums up his attitude about his music like this, Blues is loaded with feeling. It's about connecting to the truth and communicating with people.
Photo by Robert Dye, Jr.

Effie Parker and Vance Ensemble
Effie Parker, along with Pearl Jean Bell and Bonnie Bodyes, founded The Vance Ensemble which was one of Memphis' premier acapella female gospel groups.  Parker would sing tone and lead, Bell handled the tenor parts and Bodyes sang lead and tone. Members of the group changed its thirty year history.

The group evolved from the Vance Avenue COGIC Church's Gospel Chorus. Originally The Vance Ensemble was accompanied by music. When it became difficult to schedule rehearsals with band members, musical accompaniment was discontinued.  In the late 1960's one recording session resulted in "My Feet Got Light" and "Go and I Will Send Thee". However, they are best known throughout the gospel community for their classic rendition of "This Train", their signature song.  Effie Parker played the role of the conductor, and would end the song by calling out, "Last Stop, All Aboard" as the rest of the group blew the whistle. The Vance Ensemble performed at numerous Center Festivals and events beginning in the 1990s. In addition to exhaustive travels to regional churches for special programs they performed in 1998 at the Lincoln Center Outdoors Festival in New York City.
Photo by Judy Peiser

Bing Seid
For Bing Seid, Tai Chi Chuan was more than a form of the martial arts.  It represented a way of life that has been practiced in China for over 1000 years.  He took lessons at a Baptist Church with 40 other interested students, but he and only one other student graduated from the class.  The others apparently didn't do their homework.  Mr. Seid eventually could assume the 84 body postures of Tai Chi Chuan that imitate the movements of cranes, monkeys, and other animals.  For him, Tai Chi Chuan represented not only a traditional form of exercise to increase overall fitness and coordination but also a method for relaxing the nervous system.  He showcased Tai Chi Chuan at many Center festivals beginning at the late 1980s. He was active in the Mid South Chinese Association assisting in cooking for large events and at the Association's  Community Center in Midtown Memphis.
Photo by Robert Jones

Jerry Lee "Smoochy" Smith
As a studio piano player for Sun Records from 1957 to 1959, Jerry Lee Smoochy Smith was instrumental in creating the Great Memphis Pumping Piano Sound.  He played on numerous recording sessions at Sun Records as part of the house band that backed up rockabilly legends such as Billy Lee Riley, Ace Cannon, Warren Smith, and others.  Smoochy said, "I'm not listed as piano player many times, 'cause I was young and I wasn't in the Musicians Union.  Sam Phillips gave me a dollar for each year of my age to cut those records, and when he listed the session with the Musicians Union, he listed Jerry Lee Lewis as piano player or sometimes Jimmy Wilson".  At Stax,  Smoochy  Smith recorded with the Mar-Keys and was co-writer of their 1961 million-seller hit "Last Night". He also played on Carla Thomas' first album, "Gee Whiz".  In 2008 Smoochy Smith chronicled the life and times of his career in The Real Me published in 2008.  One of the tidbits from this book was about the origin of his nickname Smoochy. At 15 he was playing with a band between features in a Texas movie theatre.  While watching the first movie, he met a cute little girl and took her backstage to meet the other band members.  As the movie was ending, they looked up and saw a couple kissing in the movie.  Jerry asked the girl if she would like to do that, and she said yes.  When the band began to perform bandleader Kenny Parchman introduced him to the audience as Smoochy. The name has stuck ever since.
Photo by Pete Ceren

Rufus Thomas
There was no greater goodwill ambassador for Memphis music than Rufus Thomas.  Whether discussing his involvement as a performer and emcee at Beale Street's Palace Theatre, his many years as a top disc jockey on WDIA, or his early hit records for Stax Records, few could match his eloquence and passion in describing the Memphis music scene of which he was an integral part.

Born in Cayce, Mississippi, Rufus Thomas moved to Memphis as a child. He became a tap dancer and began singing as a teenager and performed in Booker T. Washington High School's famous revues.  During the 1930s he toured the South as a comedian and dancer with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and other traveling shows. He eventually returned to Memphis and, from 1940 through the early 1950s, hosted Amateur Night at Beale Street's Palace Theatre, where he performed music/dance/comedy routines with Robert "Bones" Couch.  At these shows he gave the first big breaks to performers such as Little Junior Parker, Bobby Blue Bland and his long-time friend, B.B. King.  In 1953 Thomas recorded several sides for Sam Phillips' Sun Records. During the 60s and 70s he scored several national hits for the Stax label, including The Funky Chicken and Walking the Dog. From 1953-1974 he was a Memphis institution as host of the Hoot 'n Holler radio show on WDIA, paving the way for several generations of African American disc jockeys.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s The Thomas Family: Rufus Thomas with his son Marvell Thomas on keyboards, and daughter Carla Thomas singing were the closing act of the Center's annual Memphis Music and Heritage Festival. When it was time for Rufus to perform the audiences would rush the stage chanting, "Ruf, Ruf, Ruf" in anxious anticipation for his performance. Rufus Thomas is prominently featured in several movies and documentaries such as Wattstax, Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune and the Center's All Day and All Night: Memories from Beale Street Musicians.
Photo by Judy Peiser

Othar Turner
It is entirely fitting that Martin Scorsese's 2003 PBS documentary on the Blues begins with Othar Turner playing the fife and drum music.  Turner's handmade fifes and the steady cadence of the drums are important links to the traditions of West Africa as it combined with a style of marching uniquely Anglo- American.  As a young child Othar Turner moved to Tate County, Mississippi, where he later owned a small farm in the Gravel Springs Community in Northwest Mississippi.  He was fascinated by the rhythmic fife and drum music he heard played at community picnics and learned from elders in the community to make and play cane fifes.  Turner led the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band for many years performing regularly during summer for community picnics held from the Fourth of July until Labor Day, and at local and national festivals.

The fife and drum tradition continues today with Othar Turner's granddaughter Sharde performing with her cousins and siblings at family gatherings and festivals. This music has been preserved on several long playing record albums, including "Afro-American Traditional Music From Tate and Panola Counties, Mississippi", "Everybody's Hollerin Goat" and "Traveling Through the Jungle" and the documentary film Gravel Springs Fife and Drum.
Photo by Robert Dye, Jr.

Mose Vinson
One of  Memphis' last practitioners of barrel house blues and boogie woogie piano, Mose Vinson was family and a regular fixture at Center programs and festivals for over twenty year before his death in 2002.  His music sessions transformed the Center's Beale Street locations into something special.  You never knew who might show up and learn from Mose.  One week it might be Rufus Thomas.  Another, it might be Marcia Ball or Cybill Shepherd. But audiences, especially children, were drawn to Vinson who would light up at the presence of youngsters. He loved to call them up on stage to playfully give them piano lessons.

Mose Vinson began tinkling the ivories as a child. Though young people often had  to work in the fields around his native Holly Springs, Mississippi, he knew his hands were not made to pick cotton!  By his teens, he had begun playing jazz and blues and joined a touring show, establishing himself as a musician.  "I just play my own style," he says.  "I never did practice anyone else's style."   He played local juke house and parties throughout the '30s and '40s in rural communities and neighborhoods in Mississippi and Tennessee. In the early 1950s, Sam Phillips asked Mose Vinson to accompany a number of Sun Records blues artists, most notably James Cotton in 1954.  During that time, Phillips also had Vinson cut some tracks, but they remained unreleased until the 1980s.

In 1997, Mose had his day in the sun when "Mose Vinson: Piano Man", an album of his favorite blues, boogie woogie, and religious tunes, was produced by Jim Dickinson, Knox Phillips and Center for Southern Folklore Executive Producer, Judy Peiser.  The 2007 Memphis Music & Heritage Festival was dedicated to his memory and re-released "Mose Vinson: Piano Man" with a Poster showing Mose playing at a country juke house.
Photo by Robert Jones

Pecolia Warner
While making quilts is a common practice in the South, few practitioners of the art stood out among her peers as did Pecolia Warner.  She blended traditional patterns with original designs of her own creation.  During her lifetime, they were exhibited in numerous galleries and museums. Her work was featured in the Center's  film Four Women Artists and exhibit Folk Arts and Crafts of the Deep South produced by the Smithsonian Institution Travelling Exhibition Service.

Growing up in Yazoo City, Mississippi Pecolia Warner pieced her first quilt at the age of ten.  She learned by watching her mother and other women piece and sew quilts in their homes. Pecolia Warner's work is characterized by the use of bold colors, strips, large design motifs, and non-symmetrical patterns.  The constantly varied forms create a strong sense of visual improvisation, a trait often found in the works of African American quilters and folk artists throughout the South.

Pecolia Warner described her work, "I've been wanting to make quilts ever since I saw my mother doing it.  I wanted that to grow up in me--how to make quilts.  That's my talent..  Quilts are my calling.  It's a gift from God, to be able to do this.  It's hard work--sewing the pieces together, and quilting them.  But I love to do it."
Photo by Judy Peiser

Luster Willis
A painter and sculptor of walking sticks Luster Willis' work has been exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and as part of the Folk Arts and Crafts of the Deep South produced by the Smithsonian Institution Travelling Exhibition Service.  Born 1913 in Hinds County, MS. he worked as a farmer, wood cutter, and barber and as a child began to draw sketching images from his imagination. In the African American tradition Willis carved cedar walking sticks honoring people in his family and community.  His world and community grew by watching television and Luster Willis made canes honoring people he saw on TV. Some of these canes honor folks he watched: Ed Sullivan, Red Foxx, and Gerald Ford, to name a few.

During the depression Luster Willis supported himself carving canes and walking sticks.  "During the depression the panic was on, and most everybody in the community was on welfare and the bucket brigade. But I kept the wolf away from my door with walking sticks, and that's the truth. I tried to place a stick in the hand of everybody around the community, which I did."
Photo by Bill Ferris