Music Highway Band to kick off Concert on the Porch

Headlining this year's first Concert on the Porch will be the Music Highway Band. The rockabilly and country band from Jackson, Tenn., will perform from the front porch of the Sleepy John Estes home on Saturday, June 16. Concerts are held each third Saturday, June through September, beginning at 7 p.m., on the grounds of the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center in Brownsville.

Brownsville continues to keep its musical heritage alive with Concert on the Porch. The summer music series features local and regional artists performing from the porch of the Sleepy John Estes home on the grounds of the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center. The first concert of the season is Saturday, June 16, at 7 p.m.. Concerts are presented each month on the third Saturday, June through September, and are free to the public.

Kelsey Byars

Starting off this year's series is local talent Kelsey Byars. Byars began singing in church when she was only 3 years-old. She is now known for her singing throughout the community; continuing to sing regularly at church, school, weddings, private gatherings and events. Byars placed second in the 2011 Haywood's Got Talent competition and plays clarinet in the Haywood High School Marching Band. She will perform a variety of rhythm and blues melodies' when she opens for this year's first Concert on the Porch at 7 p.m.

Headlining the June 16 concert is Music Highway Band. This band was organized in Jackson, Tenn., in 2001 by Jimmy Stephenson, a longtime rockabilly and country artist. The original trio played many years at the Rockabilly Hall of Fame as the house band. By 2004, the band had added members,  become well diversified and was capable of performing many styles of music. In mid-2005, the group became the house band at the Huntingdon Hayride, at the Dixie Carter Performing Arts Center.

Today, the Music Highway Band continues to work many venues in the area and has worked with such legendary artists as Carl Mann and Eddie Bond. Current members of the band are Stan Brunner, Sammy Wood, Jimmy Webb, Donald Carp, Gary Spraggins and Jimmy Stephenson. They will share their special style of rockabilly and country June 16 beginning around 7:45 p.m.

Attendees are invited to bring lawn chairs or blankets for the outdoor concerts, Drinks and snacks will be available for purchase. All proceeds from concessions will go toward the restoration of Flagg Grove School, the childhood school of Tina Turner, that was recently moved to the Center.

Flagg Grove School moves to West TN Delta Heritage Center

It's been an exciting two weeks here at the Center. First with the 2nd Annual Exit 56 Blues Fest last week (pictures posted soon)  and now this week we've moved the Flagg Grove School.

The one-room school was previously located in Nutbush, yes... the real Nutbush that Tina Turner sings about. As a matter of fact, she attended Flagg Grove School. To add to the history of the school, her great uncle, Benjamin Flagg, sold the land to the school's trustees for $25 an acre. I understand the going price at that time (1889) was $75 an acre. The school closed in 1968 and had been used as a barn since that time.

It's a journey that began several months ago and yesterday the school finally made it to our Center and now sits beside the home of Bluesman "Sleepy" John Estes. While the size of the school kind of dwarfs Sleepy John's, we are very proud of this addition to the collection and look forward to highlighting early education in Haywood County and, of course, the fantastic singing career of Tina Turner.

Here's a few photos of the school's journey.

Inside the School

A few desk and benches were still in the school. Notice the stage in the background. You just know Tina had to have sung on that stage at some time during her school days there.

Bracing the building for the move.

Positioning the skids.

Ready to go! Pulling out from the field on Elm Tree Road.

Traveling down Highway 19, aka Tina Turner Highway

Navigating the power lines on Anderson ... almost there.

Welcome! Just a little ways more....

It's here ... sitting beside the Sleepy John Estes home on the grounds of the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center.

As you can see from the pictures, there is some restoration work to be done. Tax deductible donations to help restore the school can be sent to:

Friends of the Delta Heritage Center

P.O. Box 1358

Brownsville, TN 38012

Brownsville celebrates the Blues Memorial Day weekend

Elmo Lee Thomas has been the driving force behind one of the Mid-South’s most popular bands, Elmo and the Shades, for over 25 years. He is a Memphis native, a high-energy blues shouter and soul singer and one of the region's top harmonica talents. Elmo and The Shades will take the stage at this year's Exit 56 Blues Fest in Brownsville at 8 p.m., Saturday, May 26.

Brownsville, Tenn., will once again celebrate its blues heritage during the Exit 56 Blues Fest Saturday, May 26, at the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center. Festivities will include an arts and crafts show, art exhibition, cruise-in and live music. The daylong event will run from 9 a.m. until 10 p.m.

The Center will open at 9 a.m. with self-guided tours of the museums. "Sonnets to Orpheus," a mixed media art exhibition by Jackson native Lendon Noe will also be on display for attendees to enjoy.

This year's arts and crafts fair will open at 10 a.m., and artisans will showcase their special handcrafted items until 6 p.m. Among the featured items this year are quilts, baby items, jewelry, aprons, paintings, wind chimes and specialty wood items. Delta-themed folk art and specialty clothing will also be available, along with your favorite festival foods, including barbecue and pork rinds.

Blind Red Rooster

Musical entertainment begins with the first performers taking the stage at 1 p.m. Local and regional favorites will perform from the porch of the home of Blues pioneer "Sleepy" John Estes. This year's Haywood's Got Talent winner Hannah Smith will take the stage first, followed by Sleepy's Jug Band All Stars, a group of Brownsville musicians who will pay homage to the old country blues style of music. Union City's Blind Red Rooster will make a return appearance at this year's festival.

Other performers for the evening include a host of accomplished bluesmen such as Brownsville's Jimmy D. Taylor and Jackson's Steve Patterson. Theo D "The Boogieman" and Sean "Bad" Apple from Clarksdale, Miss., will share their special Delta Blues style. Opening for the evening's headliner is Eric Hughes, harmonica player and favorite on the Memphis blues scene. At 8 p.m., some of Memphis' best known and most talented musicians, Elmo and The Shades, will take the stage.

Blueshine Duo
Steve Patterson & Jimmy D. Taylor

Car enthusiasts are invited to cruise-in for the music and compete to take home some unique awards during the Exit 56 Cruise-In from 2-6 p.m. Participants are asked to check in or pre-register online to qualify for awards. Registration is free and includes recognition for "Cool Chrome," "Most Likely to Get a Ticket," "Oldest Ride" and more.

Another special event of the day will be the debut of West Tennessee's newest magazine, Good Ol' Boys. Good Ol' Boys Magazine is a monthly publication for those who enjoy the southern lifestyle of good times, good food, and good friends. The magazine will be given away during the Cruise-In.

Festival admission and concerts are free and everyone is invited to attend and enjoy a day celebrating the Brownsville blues. The West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center is located off of Interstate 40 at Exit 56, behind McDonald’s. For more information, contact the Center at 731-779-9000 or visit www.westtnheritage.com/exit56/.

May 5-13 is Travel & Tourism Week

Stanton Mayor Allan Sterbinsky, Brownsville Mayor Jo Matherne and County Mayor Franklin Smith sign the proclamation proclaiming May 5-13, 2012, as Travel and Tourism Week in Haywood County.

It's official! Brownsville, Stanton and Haywood County have officially kicked-off National Travel and Tourism Week with an official  proclamation declaring May 5-13 as Travel and Tourism Week in our county. The ceremony was held at the Delta Heritage Center Friday, May 4. 

Community leaders and friends joined the Mayors to celebrate the significance of tourism in our community.

Tourism in Haywood County is a $12.96 Million industry and we are really excited about recognizing this national event and beginning new efforts to promote our community and the region. We are inviting local residents to become tourist in our own hometown and discover (or rediscover) attractions they may be overlooking while going about their day to day activities.

Also on hand for the Proclamation was the Tennessee Department of Tourism's West Tennessee Regional Representative Marty Marbry (left), pictured here with WT Delta Heritage Center Director Sonia Outlaw-Clark.

Rev. Grover Westover entertained event attendees before the reception and proclamation signing.

Flagg Grove School, childhood school of Tina Turner, to be saved and moved to the WT Delta Heritage Center

Owner Joe Stephens stands in front of the Flagg Grove School that will soon be moved to the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center in Brownsville. Plans for the school includes interpretive exhibits about African-American education as well as a Tina Turner exhibit.

We are so excited to announce that the Flagg Grove School, in the Nutbush community, will be saved and moved to the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center. Brownsville Mayor and Aldermen have voted to fund Phase 1 of the project that includes moving the school. Once at the Center, the school will be restored and become a part of the Center's permanent exhibits.

The one room school  is one of only a few remaining African-American schoolhouses in Haywood County which gives it significant historical value ... and it can be tied directly to Tina Turner's ancestry. The land for the school was bought from Benjamin Flagg in 1889. Flagg was a former slave who came from North Carolina after the Civil War. He was also the brother of George Flagg, Turner's great-grandfather. Tina Turner attended this school while growing up in Nutbush.

The building, along with other artifacts found in the school, is being donated to the Center by local restaurateurs Pam and Joe Stephens. "Pam and I wanted to save the building," says Stephens. "It's an important piece of Haywood County history." The building has been owned by the Stephens family since the late 60s.

Regarding the efforts to save the school and open it to the public, Tina Turner commented: " I'm pleased to know that children from around the world, who stop at the Visitor's Center in Brownsville, will be able to visualize what it was like growing up during the era of my childhood."

While the City will fund the initial move, the preservation work will continue through fundraising ­­efforts of the Friends of the Delta Heritage Center; a non-profit group who supports the work of the Center. Anyone wishing to help with these efforts can contact the Center at 731-779-9000, or donations can be made payable to the Friends of the Center, 121 Sunny Hill Cove, Brownsville, TN 38012.

Sonnets to Orpheus opens April 13

Lendon Noe

"Sonnets to Orpheus" is the name of the latest exhibit to be presented April 13 - June 2, at the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center in Brownsville, Tenn. The collection of mixed media art is the work of Jackson, Tenn., native Lendon Noe and explores a series of poems written by German poet Rainer Maria Rilke depicting the Greek mythical musician, Orpheus.

"Rilke’s sonnets are filled with beautiful metaphors that to me are breathtakingly visual," says Noe. "While I don’t seek to illustrate his work, I have been immeasurably inspired by it."

Noe is the former Professor of Art at Lambuth University where she taught for 28 years. She has recently opened a studio and gallery at DCA/DCPR in Jackson and is a partner and instructor with Silver Creek Workshops.

"My work hovers between realism and pure abstraction and I am attracted to many different media and techniques."

Noe began as an oil painter but explains that she now does a lot of drawing, incorporating acrylics and inks, collage and image transfers. Inspired by nature, many of the works in the Orpheus collection depicts trees and nature.

" I look for poetic references and metaphors involving all kinds of plant life and birds."

The public is invited to a special exhibit opening and reception Friday evening, April 13, 6-8 p.m., to meet the artist and learn about her inspiration and interpretation of the sonnets.

Lincoln exhibit looks at Civil War era political cartoons

Interpretive panels look at Lincoln and the issue of slavery through the political cartoons of the Civil War era and particularly the 1860 presidential election.

The national traveling exhibition Looking at Lincoln: Political Cartoons from the Civil War Era will be on display at the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center in Brownsville, Tenn., now through March 30. Included in the exhibit is select editorial cartoons from the local Felsenthal Lincoln Collection. The exhibit is free and opens to the public Monday through Saturday 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., and Sunday 1-5 p.m.

A special program on Abraham Lincoln will be presented Sunday, March 25, from 2-4 p.m. The program will include Lincoln's second inaugural address delivered by Ken Jones, Associate Professor of Biology at Dyersburg State College. Jones is widely known for his one-man portrayals of the sixteenth president.

Ken Jones, professor at Dyersburg State, will present his portrayal of Lincoln in a one-main show featuring Lincoln's second inaugural address Sunday, March 25, at 2 p.m..

The exhibit, developed by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York, explores images, especially cartoons, as a way of investigating Lincoln in the context of his times. These cartoons are vividly biting; they invite us to put aside twenty-first century assumptions and look at events through the eyes of people living in the era. Among the highlights are: a California printing of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln and political cartoons relating to the election of 1860.

The theme of the exhibition explores the Civil War and issues of slavery from the standpoint of political cartoons. These cartoons appeared in newspapers and were sold individually. Artists and citizens who created these images lived in a century in which racism was deeply ingrained in American life.

As a companion, the exhibit also includes editorial cartoons from the Felsenthal Lincoln Collection. These cartoons from the 1950s and 60s use Lincoln as comparison for current events of the day. Believed to be the largest individually owned collection of Lincoln memorabilia in the Southeast, the collection was donated to the citizens of Haywood County by Morton Felsenthal upon his death in 1983. Felsenthal spent his lifetime collecting books and memorabilia concerning Lincoln. Many of the original cartoons on display were signed by the artist and include personal notes to Felsenthal.

The West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center is a tourist information center and home to three regional museums located at Exit 56 off of Interstate 40 in Brownsville. For more information about the Center, visit www.westtnheritage.com or call 731-779-9000.