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Mac McAnally, Mississippi singer/songwriter and bandmate with Jimmy Buffett, sports a DSU Fighting Okra t-shirt in this informal guitar pull in Atlanta...thanks, Mac!

Just a friendly invitation to view this wonderful website about the Mississippi Delta..."the most Southern place on earth." Y'all come see us!

Pictured, L to R: Joanna Sabine, DMI Director Tricia Walker, Katie Gibson

Delta State University students Katie Gibson of Summerdale, Ala., and Joanna Sabine of Columbia, were invited to participate as production assistants for the 4th Annual Mississippi Grammy™ Legacy Celebration recently held at the Hard Rock Live! venue in Biloxi.

Gibson and Sabine are members of the Delta State Grammy U chapter and are enrolled in courses at the Delta Music Institute (DMI), a recording arts and music industry studies program at Delta State University.

The annual gala event celebrates the state’s Grammy™ winners and their musical legacies. Mississippi boasts more Grammy™ winner per capita than any other state in the union.

The GRAMMY University Network (GRAMMY U) is a unique and fast-growing community of college students who are pursuing a career in the music industry. The Recording AcademyY created GRAMMY U to help prepare students for careers in the recording industry through networking, educational programs and performance opportunities. GRAMMY U is designed to enhance students’ current academic curriculum with access to recording industry professionals to give an “out of classroom” perspective on the recording industry. Delta Music Institute’s Grammy U chapter was formed in the fall of 2008 and now has over 50 members.

The Delta Music Institute is an independent center of study under the College of Arts & Sciences at Delta State University. The focus of the DMI is to provide students with a broad and thorough education in the technological, creative, and business areas of the music and entertainment industry.

What happens when you go down to The Crossroads with five great musicians and a world-famous photographer? This happens.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/the-side/music/miss#ixzz0ixN3zGw2

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid70868681001?bclid=72326601001&bctid=72514201001

From left, Tricia Walker, singer and songwriter and director of the Delta Music Institute (DMI), accompanies award winning singer-songwriter Patti Ryan, as Duff Durrough, bandleader for Thacker Mountain Radio’s house band, The Yalobushwhackers, provides musical backing. Ryan was performing one of the most successful country hits of all time, “Looking for Love,” which she co-wrote with Wanda Mallette and musician Bob Morrison. Ryan has two American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, (ASCAP) Pop Awards, 15 ASCAP Country Awards, a Tony nomination, and two Grammy nominations.

Ryan, along with singer-songwriters George Jackson and Troy Jones, and the Yalobushwackers were featured in the live broadcast of Thacker Mountain Radio as a part of the DMI Anniversary Celebration held March 6.

Also included in the DMI Anniversary Celebration was the Mississippi Writers Roundtable for literary artists with a keynote address by Mississippi native, mystery writer and 2010 Harper Lee Award winner Carolyn Haines. The Writers Roundtable was sponsored by The Mississippi Arts Commission (MAC), Mississippi Humanities Council, SonEdna Foundation, Inc., Delta Music Institute, and Delta State University, in celebration of the “Year of the Arts.”

The Thacker Mountain Radio show was taped in Studio A of the DMI, housed in historic Whitfield Building on the Delta State campus.

The Grammy U chapter of Delta State and the Delta Music Institute will host a student songwriter's night on Thursday, March 4 at 7:00 pm at Hey, Joe's in downtown Cleveland, MS. Writers performing on the showcase include Content Despair, Phillip Carter, Jordan Smith, Kristen Brassel, Stephen Chew, Aaron Taylor, Jeremiah Matthews, Joanna Sabine, Eric Tamboli, and Joobs. There is no charge for the show, but donations are welcomed. Proceeds benefit the DMI Grammy U chapter.

Award winning singer-songwriters George Jackson, Troy Jones and Patti Ryan will be the featured songwriters during the live broadcast of Thacker Mountain Radio as part of the Delta Music Institute (DMI) Anniversary Celebration on Saturday, March 6 at 3 p.m. in Studio A of the DMI in the historic Whitfield Building on the Delta State University campus.

In addition to the radio show, Jones and Ryan will perform a Songwriter’s Show the evening of March 6, at 7:30 p.m. in Studio A. Jones and Ryan will be joined by DMI Director Tricia Walker, who spent over 25 years in Nashville as a performer and songwriter before returning to Delta State University in 2006 to lead the DMI program.

Born in Port St. Joe, Florida, Jones worked in the cotton mills of Alabama for over 20 years before trying his hand as a songwriter in Nashville. He commutes weekly to Music City to write as a staff songwriter for Carnival Music Publishing, while maintaining his home in Alabama with his wife, three children, and a dog named Buster. Jones’ songs have been recorded by Kenny Chesney, George Strait, Joe Nichols, Billy Currington, and many more.

Jones’ most recent hits include “Shiftwork” by Kenny Chesney and the smash hit, “People Are Crazy,” by Billy Currington, which was #1 on the Billboard charts for two weeks. He also performs in the comedy stage play, “Toe Roasters,” with fellow songwriters Bryan Kennedy and Wynn Varble.

Mississippi native Patti Ryan grew up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, graduated from the Mississippi University for Women, then began a career in teaching while performing on the weekends in a musical group with her brothers. Ryan’s, colleague Wanda Mallette, and musician Bob Morrison co-wrote one of the most successful country hits of all time, “Lookin’ For Love,” which held the #1 chart position for three weeks and launched country singer Johnny Lee’s career in the movie Urban Cowboy. “Lookin’ For Love” was also featured in the Broadway show “Menopause, The Musical.” In addition to that standard, she wrote additional hits “Americana” for Moe Bandy, “Just Another Woman In Love” for Anne Murray, and “Out Of Your Shoes” for Lorrie Morgan. Ryan has two ASCAP Pop Awards, 15 ASCAP Country Awards, a Tony nomination, and two Grammy nominations. She moved to Nashville in 1984, where she continues to work as a songwriter. She is looking forward to the release of her upcoming book,” An Intimate Look At Songwriting.”

Born in Greenville, George Jackson started recording for Ike Turner’s record label in 1963. He journeyed to Muscle Shoals, Ala., to work at Fame Recording Studio, where he became a staff songwriter and wrote such hits as "One Bad Apple," which was #1 for five weeks on the pop charts for the Osmond Brothers in early 1971. During the mid-'80s, Jackson joined Malaco Records as a staff songwriter where he penned the classic blues song, “Down Home Blues” for Z.Z. Hill. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2000. Jackson’s most recognizable hit is “Old Time Rock And Roll,” which has been recorded countless times, most notably by rocker Bob Seger.

The Songwriter’s Show is free and open to the public.

For more information on the DMI Anniversary Celebration, please call (662) 846-4579 or visit dmi.deltastate.edu.

Friends and students are mourning the loss of a beloved music instructor in Winona.

Patti Finley, 50, died Thursday at a Memphis hospital.

Finley, an elementary school music teacher, was with the Winona Show Choir on Feb. 2, when the group recorded "Rise Above" at the Delta Music Institute at Delta State University. The choir is comprised of students from kindergarten through 12th grade in the Winona School District. It is preparing a demo to be considered in a Kennedy Center Honors program, which will including a trip to Washington, D.C., and a visit with President Obama.

During an interview that day, Finley said she had been told to, "get my things in order." She wasn't expected to live long enough to see the completion of the project.

Friends say she denied chemotherapy in recent weeks so she could continue working with the choir.

Before Finley's death, the choir returned to DSU to record the video portion of the package that will be submitted to the Kennedy Center.

On Wednesday, she was taken to a Memphis hospital for treatment. She died there on Thursday.

Funeral arrangements were pending Friday at Oliver Funeral Home, Winona.




Patti Finley, seated in DMI Studio A, directs the Winona Show Choir during the recording of her original song, "Rise Above."

The Winona Show Choir from Winona, Mississippi, performs "Rise Above" during a recording session in Studio A at Delta Music Institute, Delta State University. The children are from the Winona Public School District. The song was written by the program director Patti Corley (DSU '82). The choir is competing for a spot as a Kennedy Center School of Distinction. If chosen, the students will visit the nation's capitol and have an opportunity to meet the President of the United States.

The Delta State University's Delta Music Institute will present Dr. Mark Snyder in a faculty recital on Tuesday, Feb. 16, at 8 p.m. in the Recital Hall of the Bologna Performing Arts Center.

Snyder will perform his own works on tuba, clarinet and accordion. All of the compositions have video, electronics and live processing and are part of his second solo album, “Messy,”which was released on January 19, 2010 by Royal Livermush Music.

Using sound and light, Snyder spins stories about his world and the people that populate it. “Malmö” is a caricature of a Swedish dock worker turned astronaut, “Copenhagen” chronicles a weekend chaperoning Baby Elvis and his fellow students for the production of the Michael Frayn play and “Harvey” details the struggle to trust and return to a normal life after the tragic loss of a young family.

Snyder joined the faculty of the Delta State’s Delta Music Institute in 2007, where he teaches courses in music software and technology, multimedia, electronic music history, film scoring and music production.

He also founded and directs the Electroacoustic Juke Joint, an annual festival of electronic art and music that attracts composers and artists from around the world to Delta State University and thegreater Cleveland community for three days each November since 2007. For more information about Snyder and his music, visithttp://www.marksnyder.org.

The Delta Music Institute is an independent center of study under the College of Arts and Sciences at Delta State University. It began with a generous donation by Fred Carl of the Viking Range Corporation in 2003. The focus of the DMI is to provide students with a broad and thorough education in the technological, creative, and business areas of the music and entertainment industry.

The recital is free and open to the public. For information, call (662) 846-4579 or visit http://dmi.deltastate.edu.

DMI's Grammy U chapter traveled to Memphis Sunday night for a viewing party to watch the 2010 Grammy Awards with other members of the Memphis Chapter of the Recording Academy. Great music, great food, a great time was had by all! The party was hosted by the Hard Rock Cafe on Beale St. Rock on!

Inspiration visited Delta State University’s Delta Music Institute (DMI) on Tuesday, Jan. 26, in the form of the Winona School District Show Choir. Approximately 135 choir members in grades four through 12 gathered in Studio A of the DMI to record a song to be entered in the Kennedy Center School of Distinction in Arts Education competition.

Winona Elementary School Music Teacher Patti Finley directs the choir and arranged for the recording session with DMI Director Tricia Walker. “Patti has done an incredible job with these students and we were happy to welcome them to Delta State and introduce them to the DMI,” said Walker. “Studio A is a large format tracking room capable of accommodating up to 150 musicians and is probably the only recording studio in the region that has a recording environment to handle a choir of this size.”

Ol' Skool Revue, R&B/Soul/Funk/Blues band from the Delta Music Institute at Delta State University, represented the Crossroads Blues Society of Rosedale with a blues set during the Youth Challenge showcase at the 26th International Blues Challenge in Memphis, TN. The band performed at the historic New Daisy Theatre on Beale Street.....congratulations to the band and thanks to the Crossroads Blues Society for sponsoring this opportunity!

As part of Delta State's Year of the Arts: Crossroads of Creativity celebration, DMI Director Tricia Walker submitted the following letter to the Editor to area news publications last week...enjoy!



WE’RE ROLLING
Moving forward in the Year of the Arts

“We’re rolling….”

Traditionally, these are the words a recording engineer utters when he’s about to begin to capture a musical performance in a recording session. Think of your favorite music, in whatever format it may be…LP, 45, eight-track, cassette, CD, mp3…have you ever wondered about the effort it took, both creatively and technically, to have that music reach you as a music lover?

As a singer/songwriter/producer and longtime veteran of the music business, I understand that many people consider the recording process a technical, rather than creative one. As we move forward into the Year of the Arts: Crossroads of Creativity, I would propose, however, that the recording process happens at a true crossroads, in a collaborative effort uniquely blending art and science in order to achieve the desired vision and goal of an artist.

In the glory days of recording, from the 1940s through the 1970s, large sound stage studios in New York and Los Angeles captured magical moments with artists such as Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, Kate Smith, and Nat King Cole. Studios in Detroit, Nashville, and Memphis produced the music of Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, and Elvis Presley. In addition to these artists whose names we know, countless musicians and audio engineers from these sessions whose identity is known only to audiophiles and record jacket junkies, were essential in giving us the music we love…the soundtrack of our lives. Studios make it possible for music to get to us.

Who could have known that when little Dolly Parton recorded some of her first music in a small studio in Lake Charles, Louisiana, that she would go on to become the megastar she is? Who could have known that Macon, Georgia would be put on the map because of the Allman Brothers (after they were first mesmerized, they say, by B.B. King performing in Nashville)? Or Lubbock, Texas, due to the recordings of Buddy Holly? Or Muscle Shoals Sound and Fame Studios in Alabama?

Mississippi has been identified as the Birthplace of America’s Music, and it would be almost impossible to dispute that fact. We proudly lay claim to the Father of Country Music, the King of the Blues, the King of Rock and Roll, and more Grammy™ winners per capita than any other state in the Union.

As the next generation of young musicians, singers, songwriters, and entertainers are working to hone their craft and “find their voice,” let me pose again the thematic question of this series of essays for the Year of the Arts:


DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE HERE?

The Delta Music Institute on the campus of Delta State University is a recording arts and music industry program now in its fifth full year of operation. Approximately 50 students take courses in music business, audio engineering, songwriting, and other aspects of the music industry. The DMI, housed in what was previously Whitfield Gym, contains three exceptional recording studios. Studio A is a large format tracking room, large enough to hold a 150 piece choir or orchestra, and is one of the few studios of this scope in the eastern United States. Studio B is a digital room, versatile enough to record various types of ensembles and mix in 5.1 surround sound, and Studio C is a practical demo project studio. The DMI promotes two student ensembles…one R&B/Soul/Funk/Blues band called Ol’ Skool Revue, and one Classic Rock band called DeltaRoX.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE HERE? To further the educational mission of the DMI and Delta State, the DMI studios are made available to the public in order for our students to learn and practice the art and science of recording clients in a real world situation. Grammy™ award winning artists Keb’ Mo’, Ashley Cleveland, and Kathy Mattea have visited our facilities and worked with our students, and they stand amazed at what we have here. Combine the art of music and the technology of recording at the DMI with the history, mystique, and vibrant culture of the Mississippi Delta, and we’ve definitely got a ‘win-win’ situation in which to honor the past and embrace the future of music technology and the recording arts.

SO, DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE HERE? WE DO: The opportunity to capture for all time the music and the sound of what could be the next wave of great moments in American music. There is much to look forward to. Right here: Cleveland, Mississippi.

Everything’s in place…the red light is on….we’re rolling.


Tricia Walker
Director, Delta Music Institute
1/10/10

http://www.mpbonline.org/news/story/marty-stuarts-sparkling-obsession



Great piece from reporter Ron Brown on Mississippi Public Broadcasting...enjoy!

Ol’ Skool Revue, the Delta Music Institute’s (DMI) Blues/R&B/Soul/Funk band, has been selected to perform at the 2010 International Blues Challenge (IBC) in Memphis, January 20-23, 2010.

Ol’ Skool Revue will represent DMI and Delta State University in the Youth Challenge (IBC) during this 26th year of the International Blues Challenge. The band, made up of Delta State college students, will compete during the afternoon lineup on Friday, Jan. 22, showcasing their talents for record labels, media, festivals, managers, talent buyers and the fans.
The IBC has evolved into the nation's biggest and most respected showcase for Blues musicians ready to take their act to the national stage. The IBC is a judged "Battle of the Bands" in which competitors take the stage and play a short set for a panel of judges. The acts are judged based on an established set of criteria.

Each Affiliate of The Blues Foundation has the right to send a band and solo/duo act to represent the organization at the IBC Semi-Finals. Ol’ Skool Revue competed and was selected by the Crossroads Blues Society, an IBC affiliate from Rosedale, Mississippi.

In 2009, 100 bands and 60 solo/duo acts entered, filling the clubs up and down Beale Street for the semi-finals on Thursday and Friday and the finals at the Orpheum Theater on Saturday.
The Delta Music Institute is an independent center of study under the College of Arts & Sciences at Delta State University. It began with a generous donation by Fred Carl of the Viking Range Corporation in 2003.

The focus of the DMI is to provide students with a broad and thorough education in the technological, creative, and business areas of the music and entertainment industry.

For information, contact the DMI office at (662) 846-4579 or e-mail dmi.deltastate.edu.

DMI Director Tricia Walker, along with several friends of DMI, performed last month at the 20th Annual Evening in December concert, benefitting Daystar Ministries of Nashville, TN. Women in the Round singer/songwriters Tricia Walker, Ashley Cleveland, Karen Staley, and Pam Tillis originated the event in 1989. Master of ceremonies for the event was writer/artist Buddy Greene, with special guest performances throughout the evening by Jeff Taylor, Grand Ole Opry stars Connie Smith and Marty Stuart, Women in the Round, and Grammy award winning writer/artist Amy Grant. (All photos © David Durham)

Read all about it here....but make no mistake, we LOVE our Fighting Okra!!

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2009/dec/09/time-magazine-dubs-purple-aces-among-10-worst-team/

Indie pop band Colour Academy recently recorded several sessions for their upcoming project in Studio A and Studio B of the Delta Music Institute. Thanks to Cliff and the guys for choosing the DMI studios for their project....they were great to work with and we wish them all the best! Check out the video the band shot in the studios...and check the band out at www.myspace.com/colouracademy. Rock on!