Dockery Farms Foundation 255 Mississippi 8, Cleveland, MS 38732 662-719-1048

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Bill Lester, executive director [email protected] (662) 719-1048

Will Porteous, co-chair, Dockery Farms Foundation [email protected]

Dockery Farms Foundation Announces Unique Music Event

DOCKERY, Mississippi (April 23, 2015) - The directors of the Dockery Farms Foundation have announced a one-of-a-kind event that will bring together and several Mississippi artists on June 6, 2015. Set to take place on the same historic grounds where blues legends , , Howlin’ Wolf, and once played, this performance will be like coming back to the source, according to Cash. She and her husband John Levanthal took several trips through the Mississippi and Arkansas Delta in recent years, and she credits that journey with inspiring the songs on her latest album The River & The Thread. The former cotton storage shed on the property will become the stage as she soaks up even more blues history and shares experiences from those trips with the audience.

Will Porteous, co-chair of the Dockery Farms Foundation, said, “To have someone with Rosanne’s talent, and also a deep passion for the region, come here to perform is a dream come true. The fact that she won GRAMMY® Awards for all three of her nominations earlier this year makes this an unbelievably exciting time for us and for the whole community.” Cash won both Best American Roots Performance and Best American Roots Song for “A Feather’s Not A Bird” and Best

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Americana Album for The River & The Thread. She explained her connection to Dockery and this album saying, “So much of the inspiration for The River & The Thread comes from right here on this stretch of highway from Greenwood to the Mississippi River, and the very center of the creative spark is Dockery Farms. It’s a huge thrill and the completion of a circle to finally perform these songs in this historic place.”

Cash, who has charted 21 Top 40 country singles, including 11 of which climbed to No. 1, wrote all of the new album’s songs with Leventhal, who also served as producer, arranger, and guitarist. The River & The Thread, referred to by Cash as a concept album, draws from country, blues, gospel and rock, and reflects the soulful mix of music that traces its history back to this region. In an article for Esquire magazine, Cash offered a suggested playlist for a trip down nearby Highway 61; some of the songs included were ’s “Highway 61 Revisited,” Robert Johnson’s “Cross Road Blues,” ’s “Ode to Billie Joe,” Johnny Cash’s “Big River,” the Staples Singers’ “This May Be the Last Time,” Howlin’ Wolf’s “The Natchez Burning,” and Al Green’s “Take Me to the River,” and all with a tie–whether by artist or theme–to this region.

The gates will open at 5 p.m. with “Cadillac” John Nolden, Bill Abel, and Jake and the Pearl Street Jumpers providing music in different places on the grounds, from the refurbished Dockery gas station to the commissary porch. Eddie Cotton, Jr., winner of the 2015 International Blues Challenge, is the opening act for Cash and her band, scheduled for 6:30 p.m.

Nolden, who is 88, was born in nearby Sunflower and has performed throughout the area as a harmonica player and vocalist. Abel, a native of Belzoni, performs authentic with acoustic and cigar box guitars, which he makes himself from driftwood other found objects. Together they released the CD “Crazy About You” in 2000.

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Jake and the Pearl Street Jumpers, another Mississippi-based band, are well-known in the area for their energetic style of music.

Electric guitarist Eddie Cotton, Jr. grew up in Clinton, Mississippi, the son of a minister. His varied background includes formal music training, being mentored by Jackson-area bluesmen, and serving as minister of music at his father’s church. These all come together to form his distinctive sound.

Rosanne Cash refers to the as a “vortex,” since so many history-shaping events took place in this region. The music heritage of Dockery–located just east of Cleveland, Mississippi, on Highway 8–is as rich as the soil that drew Will Dockery in the late 1800s to clear thousands of acres of woods for farming. His expansive farm and self-sufficient community would become the sometimes home of Charley Patton, who is regarded as the “father of the Delta blues.” Patton himself learned from fellow Dockery resident Henry Sloan and influenced many other musicians who lived here. Bill Lester, executive director of the Dockery Farms Foundation, said, “Two years ago, Rosanne and her husband John came to Dockery and became enamored with the history and the music that has its roots here. I’m very pleased that they will return in June to perform at the birthplace of the Blues.”

The Dockery Farms Foundation is working to ensure that Dockery can once again be a center for music education, one that serves both the general public and the local community. Over the last ten years the Foundation has restored many of the original buildings that made up the commercial center of Dockery Farms. The Foundation has also partnered with the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz to bring music education programs into Delta schools. The sign on the Dockery Seed House is recognized world wide as a symbol of American Blues music and the site routinely draws

-more- Page 4 visitors from all over the world. The Dockery Farms Foundation is a tax-exempt entity operating under Section 501(c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. A tax-deductible portion of each ticket sold will go to support the foundation’s preservation and education programs.

Tickets to the concert are available by visiting dockeryfarms.org or calling 662-846-4626.

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