As the first inductee to the Country Music Hall of Fame, it’s only fitting that Jimmie Rodgers’ birthplace would be the first location outside the Mississippi Delta to receive a Mississippi Blues Trail Marker.
On Thursday, in conjunction with the kickoff of the 54th Annual Jimmie Rodgers Festival, Meridian’s first blues marker unveiling was held at Singing Brakeman Park on Front Street.
“We thought this location was important because of the role the railroad played in Rodgers’ music,” said Alex Thomas, Heritage Trails director of the Mississippi Development Authority, the entity overseeing the marker program.
“When people think about the blues, they usually think about Highway 61 or Highway 49,” Thomas said. “But Mississippi can realistically say that we are the state of the blues, we are the birthplace of the blues. It started in the Delta, but it thrived all over the state.”
Thomas said Singing Brakeman Park, which is adjacent to Union Station, represents a frequent setting of many early blues songs.
“The train was an influential transport for a lot of bluesman during that time,” he said. “In a lot of their lyrics, they talk about being at the depot, riding the train, the railroad tracks. So when a lot of international tourists come to Mississippi, they identify with those sites because they’ve either read about them in books or heard them in songs. So this is a great spot for tourists.”
The Rodgers’ marker is the 11th of an anticipated 100-plus planned throughout the state. The first two were placed in Clarksdale at the site of bluesman Muddy Waters’ first recordings and The Riverside Hotel, which housed many blues musicians through the years.
Much detail goes into the creation of the markers, as explained by Wanda Clark of Hammons & Associates, who assisted in their creation.
“What makes this group of markers wonderfully special is that the front side that faces the street is the typical cast, raised letter side with a brief description of Jimmie Rodgers,” Clark said.
“But the back side is where we get to tell the story,” she said. “We have room for 350-400 words of descriptive text which really helps complete the story, plus photographs, images of other memorabilia that can really give visitors a sense of the time and place where Jimmie Rodgers lived.”
Gary Swoope, executive director of the MDA, said the Blues Trail not only is a tourist attraction, but also plays a role in economic development.
“When we start looking around this state at how we grow economies, how we put more investment in these communities and bring tourism in, sometimes we miss the point,” Swoope said. “But the point here has not been missed. People are beating down the door from other countries to find out about the musical and cultural heritage of this state ... We’ve got to do a better job at getting this word out and that’s why it’s important we’re here today.”
Thomas said the MDA plans to set up three to four markers a month throughout the state. The next two unveilings will be held: May 16 in Greenwood at Little Zion Church, the official gravesite of Bluesman Robert Johnson; and May 30 at the Subway Lounge in Jackson, formerly the Summers Hotel, an influential spot for blues artists. A printable map of the marker sites can be viewed at http://www.msbluestrail.org
Once the Blues Trail has been completed, other projects will include Civil War, Civil Rights and Literary trails, Thomas said.
The Mississippi Blues Trail project is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and by support from the Meridian/Lauderdale County Tourism Commission, the Mississippi Department of Transportation and the Mississippi Development Authority.
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