Thursday, November 12, 2020 | 7pm
GRAMMY MUSEUM® MISSISSIPPI
TO HOST
VIRTUAL & LIVESTREAMED GALA HONORING BOBBY RUSH
GRAMMY®-WINNING BLUES ICON TO RECEIVE CROSSROADS OF AMERICAN MUSIC AWARD AND PERFORM AT VIRTUAL CEREMONY ALONGSIDE STEVE AZAR AND CEDRIC BURNSIDE
This year's Gala will honor GRAMMY®-winning blues artist
Bobby Rush with the second annual Crossroads of American Music Award. Rush will appear at the Museum's virtual ceremony to accept the
award and perform.
Additional performers include country music singer/songwriter Steve Azar and
GRAMMY-nominated blues musician Cedric Burnside.
This year's virtual Gala will also recognize Amy Killebrew,
a teacher at Grenada Elementary School in Grenada, Miss.,
with the inaugural L.U.C.Y. Award.
"We're looking forward to an incredibly inspiring night of celebrating music—those who make it and those who teach it," said Emily Havens, Executive Director of GRAMMY Museum Mississippi. "We couldn't be more thrilled to honor a legendary artist such as Bobby Rush with our second annual Crossroads of American Music Award, and we are excited to celebrate Mrs. Amy Killebrew as the first-ever recipient of our L.U.C.Y. Award. With an amazing performance lineup, it's going to be a night to remember, and one that will help us continue to provide music education experiences and opportunities for the young people
of Mississippi and beyond."
“It’s such an honor to receive the Crossroads of American Music Award from the GRAMMY Museum Mississippi,” said Rush. “I can’t thank them enough and can’t find words to say how much I appreciate the recognition for me as a bluesman and a Black bluesman. I‘m so thankful to have someone recognize what I have done and am doing, and during my lifetime while I can still enjoy it, am able to go out and perform, and am still mentally and physically with it. Most of the time people get recognized when they can’t do anything. It’s not a past tense for me. I’m still doing what I do and loving what I do.”
“I am extremely honored to be this year’s recipient of the inaugural L.U.C.Y. Award,” said Killebrew. “This means so much to me. I want to thank the Janoush family for this award and for supporting music education in our schools. Music has always been a huge part of my life. I believe that every child should have access to music education. Music has been proven to increase a child’s performance in academics. It is our job as music educators to allow students to explore their creativity in music. We teach fundamentals of music such as rhythm and notation but music is also about creativity. I hope that I always instill a love of music in each of my students that I teach.”
In conjunction with the 2020 Virtual Gala, GRAMMY Museum Mississippi also kicked off its first-ever online auction on Oct. 23 at biddingforgood.com/GRAMMYmuseumMS
Presented by Bidding for Good, the online auction will give individuals the opportunity to bid on unique music experiences, travel opportunities,
autographed items from award-winning artists and much more.
Established by the Museum’s Board of Directors,
the Crossroads of American Music
Award honors an artist who has made significant musical contributions influenced by the creativity born in the cradle of American music.
The inaugural recipient of the Crossroads of American Music Award was
three-time GRAMMY Award winner Charley Pride
.
Named after devoted Mississippian and community advocate, Lucy Janoush, who was instrumental in securing funding for the development of the Mississippi Museum, the L.U.C.Y. Award, which stands for Lifting Up Children And Youth, celebrates K-12 educators from the state of Mississippi who embody the educational mission of GRAMMY Museum Mississippi.
Tickets to the virtual gala are currently on sale and can be purchased at live.grammymuseumms.org
Guests can also purchase a ticket to a watch party, which will be held at unique homes across the Delta in Cleveland, Miss.; Greenville, Miss.; and Louisiana.
The annual GRAMMY Museum Mississippi Gala is the Museum’s signature fundraising event. Proceeds from this year’s virtual gala will benefit the Museum’s education program, which seeks to use music as a gateway to learning by inspiring and cultivating creativity, critical thinking and self- expression.
ABOUT STEVE AZAR
Steve Azar is a native of Greenville, Miss., and serves as his state’s Music and Cultural Ambassador. Following a lengthy career phase spent in Nashville, during which Azar enjoyed significant success, he returned to Greenville and became a force in Mississippi music, touring nationally with GRAMMY-nominated artist Bob Seger.
In 2013, Azar co-founded the Mighty Mississippi Music Festival, which has presented such headliners as Band of Heathens, Ryan Bingham, Cedric Burnside, Dwayne Dopsie, G. Love & Special Sauce, Government Mule, Kingfish, Ashley McBride, Merlin Morris, Old Crow Medicine Show, the Revivalists, Jarekus Singleton, Mr. Sipp, and Chris Stapleton, and others. Two years ago, Azar released Down At The Liquor Store, an album that was recorded at the legendary Club Ebony in Indianola, hometown of B.B. King. For the project, Azar was backed by The Kings’ Men, a band of veteran Mississippi musicians, the majority of whom worked for B.B. King, with some also doing double duty behind Elvis Presley. While still based in Nashville, Azar released his 2002 breakthrough album Waitin’ On Joe. The album’s hit title song went to No. 1 on CMT and the coinciding music video featured the participation of fellow Mississippian and Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman. That landmark album also included “I Don’t Have To Be Me (‘Til Monday),” which earned a three Million-Air Award from BMI and ranked in the Top 5 of most-played songs of the decade.
Taylor Swift told People magazine in 2010 that her favorite song of that year was Azar’s “Sunshine.” In the interim, the song has become a popular wedding anthem. His 2009 album Slide On Over Here included the single “Sunshine” that also produced a hit video.
ABOUT CEDRIC BURNSIDE
Cedric Burnside is the scion of a family that has been tremendously influential in the blues field. His grandfather was the legendary R.L. Burnside, whom Cedric famously played with, just as his own father, drummer Calvin Jackson did. His grandfather shed light on North Mississippi’s idiosyncratic hill country blues style. Cedric was literally born to the blues. He grew up surrounded (and influenced) by Junior Kimbrough, Jessie May Hemphill and Otha Turner, as well as Delta musicians T-Model Ford and Paul “Wine” Jones.
GRAMMY-nominated in 2015 for Best Blues Album for the Cedric Burnside Project’s Descendants of Hill Country, as well as the recipient of the Blues Music Awards honor as Drummer of the Year for four consecutive years, Cedric’s most recent album, 2018 Benton County Relic (Single Lock Records), offers a showcase for his electric and acoustic guitar. He recorded 26 tracks in just two days with drummer/slide guitarist Brian Jay. Cedric has both played and recorded with the North Mississippi Allstars (Luther Dickinson gave him his first electric guitar), Widespread Panic, Jimmy Buffett, Bobby Rush, Hubert Sumlin, Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. He was also featured playing drums alongside Samuel L. Jackson in Craig Brewer’s 2006 feature film, Black Snake Moan, which was in part a tribute to his grandfather R.L. and other iconic bluesmen.
ABOUT BOBBY RUSH
Bobby Rush has been making records for nearly 70 years and has more than 400 recordings, 75 career releases and now 27 studio albums to his name. A five-time GRAMMY nominee, Rush won the Best Traditional Blues Album GRAMMY at the 2017 awards for his album Porcupine Meat. He received his fifth career GRAMMY nomination in 2019 for his album Sitting On Top Of The Blues. As one of the last Black bluesmen to emerge out of and triumph in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s in Chicago, Rush has recorded for more than 20 labels, from Checker/Chess and ABC to Philly Int’l and Rounder/Concord.
With the release of his 27th studio album Rawer Than Raw (August 2020), an all-acoustic effort that pays tribute to the rich blues history of Mississippi, Rush has cemented his reputation as one of the preeminent bluesmen in the world—one of the last living links to the music’s glorious past, and an inspiration for its future stars. Partly inspired by the popular series of intimate solo concerts Rush has made a mainstay of his concert calendar in the years since his first all-acoustic album (Raw), Rawer Than Raw casts a spotlight on five Mississippi Blues Hall of Famers: Skip James, Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson II, and Muddy Waters.
Born Emmett Ellis, Jr. outside Homer, LA., Rush became a professional blues musician while still a teenager, adopting his stage name Bobby Rush so as to not disrespect his preacher father. Among the artists Rush has worked with include legendary slide guitarist Elmore James, harmonica ace Little Walter, guitarist Freddie King, and blues greats Jimmy Reed, Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters, among others. Rush has also won numerous awards and accolades, including induction into the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame and the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame.
He’s won 13 Blues Music Awards including the coveted B.B. King Entertainer of the Year Award at the 36th annual Blues Music Awards. Rush was the first bluesman to perform at the Great Wall of China, attracting an audience of more than 40,000 and earning him the title of “China's Ambassador of the Blues.” In 2008, he was honored with a marker on Mississippi Blues Trail.
ABOUT AMY KILLEBREW
Amy Killebrew received her bachelor's degree in elementary education with a concentration in music education from Delta State University (class of 2004). She received ORFF Level 1 certification through the University of Mississippi in 2012. She taught science at Grenada Middle School for five years before taking a music position at Grenada Elementary in 2009. She taught second and third grade music for nine years before moving to fourth and fifth grade in 2018 to teach music and the fifth grade show choir, Pizzazz. She's currently in her 17th year of teaching in the Grenada School District, and notes she loves "working for a district that is so supportive of music education." A native of Grenada, Killebrew and her husband, Casey, have been married for 11 years and have a son named Bryce.
ABOUT GRAMMY MUSEUM MISSISSIPPI
Developed by the Cleveland Music Foundation—a nonprofit organization founded in 2011—the 28,000-square-foot GRAMMY Museum Mississippi is housed near the campus of Delta State University, home of the Delta Music Institute's Entertainment Industry Studies program, which features the most unique audio recording facilities in the South. Affiliated with the Recording AcademyTM, GRAMMY Museum Mississippi is dedicated to exploring the past, present, and future of music, and the cultural context from which it emerges, while casting a focused spotlight on the deep musical roots of Mississippi.
The Museum features a dynamic combination of public events, educational programming, engaging multimedia presentations, and interactive permanent and traveling exhibits, including a Mississippi-centric area that introduces visitors to the impact of Mississippi's songwriters, producers, and musicians on the traditional and modern music landscape.
For more information, visit live.grammymuseumms.org,
"like" GRAMMY Museum Mississippi on Facebook,
and follow @grammymuseumms on Twitter and Instagram.
CONTACT
Chace Holland
Director of Programming and Business Operations — 662.441.0100
cholland@grammymuseumms.org
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