Angie Barmer
New Albany Magazine feature articles and photos
Still Singing the Blues
New Albany resident and blues legend Sam Mosley has helped change the landscape of blues music in New Albany with the help of his band members and former musician and friend, the late Bob Johnson. The Mosley and Johnson Band was a mainstay in New Albany and Union County for years, and New Albanians are lucky enough to still get to see Mosley and his band mates around town and to hear them play at festivals and other events.
With more than 40 years of playing the blues, Mosley has made a name for himself in this region and throughout the world. He toured and played with blues great Bob Johnson for 31 years, but had his acoustic beginnings and musical influences right here in New Albany.
Mosley was born in the Beaver Dam community on March 30, 1946, and Johnson was born in New Albany on March 4, 1946. Mosley’s father, Joe Mosley, was a sharecropper, and he played the mandolin in a string band with his brothers Bud and Theodore (“Shoat”). In the 1950s, Joe’s sons, Jamie, Sam and Ralph, began performing as the “Starlighters,” then “Jamie Mosley & the Dynamics.” This is when Mosley got his musical start.
The first time he ever heard an electric guitar is when he went to listen to another local blues great, Leon Pinson, in New Albany. Mosley said he has been mesmerized ever since. Pinson played “Dinner on the Ground” music.
Mosley and Johnson were honored in 2009 with a Mississippi Blues Trail Marker on Cleveland Street in New Albany, in front of the Union County Heritage Museum.Other blues greats, Leon Pinson and Elder Roma Wilson, also were honored in 2009 with another marker on Bankhead Street in New Albany, across from Watson Grove Baptist Church. New Albany blues musician Billy Ball also was in attendance.
Among others, these musicians were musical inspirations for Mosley.
“My dad and my uncles were also inspirations to me,” Mosley said. “They played ‘20s and ‘30s minstrel music, mainly the guitar, banjo, and mandolin, and my brother Jamie played the piano. They all inspired me.
“My inspiration has always been here in the South, in this city, in this state. I still love being a part of it as when we first started and still love to share that with other people.” Musicians like Al Green, Sam Cook, and Willie Mitchell have also inspired him.
After graduating from New Albany’s B. F. Ford School in 1964, Mosley went on to college before fully beginning his music career. Mosley said, “When I got out of the service, the music business was strong, but I went into college so I would have a backup plan.”
When Mosley was in high school, his ambition was to go to college and be a schoolteacher. Mosley and Johnson were accepted into Northeast Mississippi Community College in Booneville, Miss., on football scholarships. This was in 1968, which was the inaugural year of the football team. Mosley was the wide receiver and scored the first touchdown in the first season.
He went on to graduate from Northeast in 1970 with an Associate of Arts degree in business data processing, then went on to the University of Mississippi and graduated in 1973 with a Bachelors degree in Business Administration.
He had been drafted into the Army in 1965 and served until 1967, which included a tour in Vietnam from 1966-1967. He returned home to New Albany in 1967, and met up again with friend, schoolmate and musician Bob Johnson, who was leading a band called “Bobby Johnson & the Messengers.” The duo learned a lot about music producing and arranging from working with the Muscle Shoals studio band in Alabama.
They decided to form a band and changed the name numerous times throughout the years. The first name of the band was “Bobby Johnson & the Messengers,” before it was changed to “Sam and Bob and The Soul Men,” then it was changed to “Mojobo,” before becoming the “The Mosley & Johnson Band.’”
He traveled all over the South, including Mississippi, and even played as far away as Wisconsin. The band played at fish fries, house parties and wherever else they were requested.
The Mosley & Johnson Band currently does their prep work and rehearsing in the Historic North Side district in New Albany, by the railroad tracks.
“Our first engagement was at Bud Turner’s Café. We played the down-home blues and loved it,” Mosley said.
This area is known as “Across the Tracks,” Stevens Quarters, Goose Hollow, The Flat, etc. Mosley said, “This area is one of the places where black people would come and eat and entertain.”
Cafes such as Bud Turner’s Cafe were in this area, as well as grocery stores, hotels, businesses, a pool hall and the Tropicana.
In 1967, the duo started recording tracks in Tupelo at John Mahalic’s studio. In 1968, they were playing at a Memphis nightclub and were asked for some demos. Soon after, the band recorded at High Record Studios in Memphis, and released two 45s with the songs “Gimme Some Lovin’ “ and “Is It Over?”
In the beginning, Mosley and Johnson wrote their own music and produced their own songs, before writing and producing for other bands.
In 1971, Mosley and Johnson recorded their album, “Mississippi Mud,” on their own label Sabo.
Soon after, they went down to Jackson, Miss., and recorded with Malaco Records. They signed with Malaco Records for three albums. In the 1970s, they recorded a few albums with Polydor Records. They also worked with Michael Graham in New Albany and countless others.
Mosley said that they have a really good following overseas. In 1989, Mosley went on a European tour and played in the Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. The band played in London, Paris, and Switzerland.
“We were invited to be the opening act along with bands and artists like Johnny Taylor, Little Milton, Bobby Blue Bland, Joan Baez, and the headliner was B. B. King. The greatest moment was when B. B. called us all out on stage and we all sang a song with him,” Mosley said.
Mosley has received two gold records for songwriting and producing, one gold record from when he worked with Johnny Taylor, and two for when he worked with ZZ Hill.
“In blues, there is a continuous learning process and your greatest experiences come from experience and time. There is also a dichotomy of the blues — the more you change, the more things stay the same,” he said.
Union County Development Association Executive Director Phil Nanney said, “Sam Mosley and Bob Johnson are national treasures and have forty years of contributing
to musical history. We are so lucky here in New Albany to have Sam here and to have him still performing.”
At the 2010 Freedom Festival in New Albany, there was one night dedicated to the first ever Sam Mosley Blues Festival, with Mosley playing on the Bob Johnson music stage. After Johnson died of a heart attack onstage at a Verona, Miss., performance on Aug. 22, 1998, Mosley and Bob’s brothers Willie and Miles continued to perform as The Mosley & Johnson Band. The band again will play at the 2011 Freedom Celebration in downtown New Albany on the night dedicated to blues music.
Mosley has advice for rising musicians. “You have to learn your craft and you have to be passionate about it. It is a never-ending cycle. Find out what you can do and do it well and hang with that. Once you get proficient, you can move from there. Start with the basics – learn the chords and play standard material. Be mindful and respectful. A lot of this business is being in the right place at the right time,” he said. “When you are young and start making money, if you don’t care about the business side, when you get older, you will be broke. The key in this business is that the song has to relate to someone or a group of people.”
Mosley said currently the music business is slow, similar to the economy. One of the differences is that in years past, the record companies would press 10,000 copies, but now customers can go online and order a CD or download the mp3 file to their mp3 player.
Sam Mosley and The Mosley & Johnson Band, featuring Sherwanna Shumpert, released a new CD last summer called ‘The Whole World Has Still Got The Blues,” which is a mixture of new and old material.
Mosley has been retired from the furniture industry for 35 years. He is married to Margaret Ezell and has five children and many grandchildren. He is a member of Beaver Dam Baptist Church and his wife is a member of Watson Grove Baptist Church. He spends a lot of time with his grandchildren and still plays as often as possible.
“Now I am doing things for myself, like going to games and spending time with my grandchildren. This is what I like to do, but dealing with music is my passion,” he said.
Arts Alive
Using art as a form of creative expression for a girls' night out has become commonplace in New Albany and Union County.
Whether you are learning about basic printmaking, how to paint on wood, or how to create a new masterpiece on canvas, creativity soars as women come together in local art classes.
Three local artists – Lee Ann Thompson, Rebecca Browning, and Leslie Gray – host art classes and bring their artistic talents and expertise to women from all over the region. Each has a different take on art, but the passion for art and creativity is innate within these women, and they do what they can to bring creative expression out in others.
Thompson's love and passion for art began at an early age:
“I have always been interested in art. I took a summer art class from a local artist in Aberdeen at age 6 and was hooked. I still follow him and his work, which is incredible. After that, I just had art in school through high school in Aberdeen and knew that I loved art more than all of the other subjects.”
Thompson has been the art teacher at New Albany High School since 1996. Before teaching in New Albany, she taught at Starkville High School and then went to graduate school at the University of Alabama. She graduated from Mississippi State University with a bachelor’s degree in art education. She also has a master’s degree in art in education.
For the past year and a half, she has been teaching art classes in people's homes. She calls the class “Artaholics.”
“It's for people addicted to art or for people that want to go to someone's home and learn something new, while leaving with something they can be proud of,” she said.
New Albany resident Angie Everett has hosted Artaholics parties at her home about a half dozen times:
“It is a good way for us to get a group of girls together and socialize and do what we want to do. I provide the food and drinks and it is relaxing.”
One of the participants, Shelia Reed said, “Angie is like the hostess, party planner and event planner of New Albany.”
At Artaholics events that Everett hosts, there is a theme for the class built around what the art design is for the evening. She ties the food, drinks, decorations, music, and clothing attire around that theme.
“It is a fun and easy way to get together. We have an interesting and dynamic group of women that come to these parties. It is interesting to see that some people are whimsical in their painting, some are very methodical and particular, and some people let their creativity come out in their painting,” she said.
Reed said, “This is a non-structured form of art. Each piece of art is always completely different.”
Eydie Pullman said, “This art class has rejuvenated my artistic interests and creativity.”
Melissa Garrett added, “Art is cheap therapy. There's nothing like friends getting together and painting together.”
Hannah Pryor, a first-time participant, said at the beginning of the evening that she wanted “to see if “I can finish it and it looks decent. It wouldn't hurt for me to be creative.”
At the end of the class, she said she had had a lot of fund and will come to another of Thompson’s art parties.
Rebecca Browning's beginning inspiration for art came from her grandmother:
“My grandmother had a really big affect on me. She was a huge inspiration of mine. She grew her own food, grew her own flowers, sewed her own clothes, she would gather wildflowers all of the time, etc. From her I learned how to look at everything a lot closer.
“In regard to my art, I like to pull the images up close as a viewer, and I like to bring out the details so they don't miss anything, and I don't take anything for granted. I believe that whether artistic talents are innate or learned in a person, they know the basic principles that are beautiful in art, which tend to show up in nature.
“I see things all around me, especially where I live, that inspire me,” she said.
Browning has been drawing since she was a child, and still has pastel drawings from age 11 or 12 that she used to pin on her closet doors.
Browning taught art at Tupelo High School for four years, taught gifted art at Marietta Elementary in Prentiss County for two years, and taught art for one year at Ingomar and West Union attendance centers.
“When I was a teacher, I liked to introduce my students to as many different mediums, while also teaching the basics of the art curriculum. I always taught the history of the artist and let the students gather a large knowledge of the art world,” she said.
Browning graduated from the University of Mississippi with a bachelor’s degree in art.
New Albany resident Bethany Dalton, who has taken two of Browning's classes, said, “She is a great teacher and begins with the history of whatever she is teaching. She explains the technique of the particular art project. She is very patient with all students, especially those that are beginners. She explains very thoroughly and begins with the basics. She is very talented.”
Browning's favorite medium is pastel, but she works in various mediums, including pottery, stained glass, acrylics, batik, printmaking, sculpture and watercolor.
“I take a photograph first, then go by that and draw freehand. The artist Walter Anderson believed that art and nature are one and I believe that too. They both have repetition, balance, color, and more. Everything in nature inspires my work,” she said.
Browning has hosted an oil pastel workshop, a batik workshop, and a basic printmaking workshop, and said she enjoys teaching workshops and plans to schedule more.
Of the three artists, Leslie Gray teaches her art publicly on a monthly and more commercial basis.
She schedules classes in New Albany each month at the Coffee Addict downtown. The class is called “The Official Girls' Night Out.” She also has similar classes in Pontotoc, Walnut, Falkner, Corinth, Baldwyn, Booneville, Fulton, Wheeler, and other towns. Gray also does private classes for groups and individuals.
“There are people who drive from Batesville, Horn Lake, Houston, and further to take my class. I have some women that have come to every class I have held, but I still have newcomers too,” Gray said. “I try to make the class fun, make people feel at ease, and help them leave the class knowing that they have developed a new skill and can take home a piece of art they can be proud of.”
Gray said she enjoys meeting the people who come to the classes:
“A lot of them have become my close friends. I love seeing people accomplish something they never thought they could accomplish before and are really proud when they are finished painting. I just want them to like what they take home.”
Deanna Franks of Pontotoc said she takes the class because she gets to hang out with her friends.
Summer Nichols of Ripley said, “I have taken this class 10-12 times. I love being with the girls and having a night out – it’s stress relief. She is a great teacher; she makes me more confident and she inspires me.”
Sonya Lishman of Batesville has been taking the class for a year and a half : “I love Leslie's paintings and I love what she does. She's my favorite teacher and helps open my creative abilities.”
Debbie Brocato of Batesville said, “I have always wanted to paint. She is the best teacher by far – she makes me feel like I can go outside the edges.”
Gray said she has had an opportunity to teach a “cool mix” of students:
“My oldest student was 85 years old. This class is encouraging to many people - it is something that they don't think they can do. I think what I enjoy about art now is that I enjoy other people's progress in their skills and I can watch them have more of an imagination when it comes to making changes, and changing things up in their art. I like to see what people can come up with and make it their own.”
The class size usually is between 30 and 40 people. There are themed classes that revolve around a specific holiday or around what people suggest. The more popular classes are the cross classes, Easter classes, fall, and Christmas-themed classes.
In addition to classes geared towards women, she has introduced “date night” classes:
“I started doing date nights and they have gone over really well. They have really enjoyed their time painting together. You can only go out to the movies and eat so many times.”
She graduated from Mississippi State University with a bachelor of fine arts degree with an emphasis in graphic design.
“Art makes me feel satisfied – I am happy when I paint. I am happy when I make things pretty. I'm an artist and it comes out in me in whatever I do. With art, you work really hard and can enjoy the fruits of your labor and see the completed work,” she said.
“We like to have a big ol' time here at the class. It's casual, we hang out, make a big mess, and everybody gets to bring home a piece of art they have created. It's a lot of fun,” Gray said.
Each month has a different theme, but most of the time, the theme is announced on “The Official Girls' Night Out” Facebook page.
Trash to Treasures
Turning something that someone might look at as “trash” into into your own personal “treasure” has become a popular past time. So has going to estate auctions, auctions, yard sales, thrift stores, consignment shops, and other businesses.
Kathy Chism, Karen Tuck, and Carla Prather all have a lot of experience with finding something that someone may look at as “junky” and turning it into something seen as beautiful. These women get excited when they find that unique item or that special item they have been searching for.
Kathy Chism with Chism Auction Company has been working in the auction business since 1990 and has seen a variety of items purchased that someone might think is worth nothing that another person thinks is priceless.
“It’s important for me to know what something is worth before I start the bidding on an item. It’s also good for the buyer to know the value of an item so they know if they are getting a good deal or not. At a lot of the auctions I do, we have a lot of valuable items,” she said.
“If I do an estate auction, I sell everything at the estate,” she said. “A lot of times we have family members bid against each other because they couldn’t decide who gets the item.”
Some people follow Chism to all her auctions to see if they can get a good deal on something. At a recent auction, Calvin C. Gulledge of Calhoun City said, “I love coming to her auctions. I love getting to travel, getting to meet new people and see what there is to purchase.”
“You never know what people will buy,” Chism said. “Different sales bring different people. There are three types of people who come to auctions – people who go to any type of auction, people who only go to my auctions, and collectors. Depending on the type of crowd and the type of items I am auctioning off, depends on the price I start the bidding at.”
When Bobby Gault of New Albany decided to downsize his house, he decided to go the auction route:
“It was difficult seeing family heirlooms and possessions being sold, but it will be better when I have less stuff in my home,” he said. “Some of the items I thought no one would purchase, and there were other items I thought they would bid higher on. It was an interesting experience being a part of an auction, but she did such a great job and at the end, everything was sold.”
Karen Tuck’s love of crafting and refurbishing partially stems from watching her dad be a craftsman in his work shed each day after work.
Tuck refurbishes items on a constant basis and the refurbishing can come in many forms – painting an item, sanding it, stripping it, and more. She said she has a love for old furniture. Her current project is refurbishing her grandmother’s 100-year-old Tiger Oak wardrobe.
“I like working a lot with furniture. It is relaxing to me to distress furniture or refurbish something. Once you finish it, and it turns out how you like it, you are satisfied and you can show it to people and be proud of it. There’s no better feeling,” Tuck said.
“Anything you see in a thrift store can be turned into something different or beautiful. Look at what the item can be instead of what the item is. I rarely buy anything new. It is good to know the value of items.
She advises those who like to go antiquing or “junking” to know the maximum that they are willing to pay for an item and don’t be afraid to ask for a lower price.
Carla Prather, who owns Just Karma in downtown New Albany, always has had an affinity for yard sales, estate sales, and other places where she can find an item to refurbish in her own style:
“I have always liked clothes, fashion, and furniture and I love finding something unique that I can fix up my way or that I can refurbish; I find great stuff at yard sales and estate sales.
She said she enjoys finding items that some people might consider junky or ugly, and making them beautiful and useful. She chooses a lot of furniture pieces:
“I love antique furniture; I love the character. Old furniture has good bones. Sometimes I use steam to remove paint from an object and sometimes I use a filet knife to remove veneer. I paint almost all of my pieces,” she said.
Everything I want or need I can find at a yard sale or thrift store. I refurbish items to sell at my store, for myself, or for others,” she said.
Passalong Plants with Sherra
Passing along plants to friends, digging in the dirt, sharing quality time with friends and family in the garden and taking the time to appreciate and experience all that nature has to offer are daily passions for Sherra Owen, local plant enthusiast.
Owen attributes her love of gardening and naturalistic spirit to belonging to a family that shared the same appreciation for botany and horticulture, whether it be plants, shrubs, flowers, trees, or more. She remembers her great-aunt's garden, which had beds of roses, scraped pathways and a Victorian garden. Her mother was a gardener as well, and she grew Bells of Ireland, zinnias, grandmother's garden flowers, forsythia, spirea and flowering quince. She also had a special spice bush.
“I remember always have something fresh to pick to put in the house. I also have a great memory of having a strawberry jar with hens and chicks in it,” Owen said. “We also had apricot trees, quince trees, and pomegranate trees, but a lot of my memories were more of a vegetable garden. The whole family worked together in the vegetable garden. We had a truck patch where we grew large amounts of vegetables and large patches of vegetables at the bottom of the hills near the Tallahatchie River. I also remember a cousin that would also give away plants in rusted pots.”
Her interest in gardening grew after she owned her first home. Then she became interested in wildflowers. She originally started wanting to learn more about wildflowers after going on walks with friends and noticing the wildflowers and from there, she became more interested in wanting to learn more.
Owen is a Union County Master Gardener and a Lee County Master Gardener. Master Gardeners have 40 hours in educational training and also must give 40 hours of volunteer service to the community. Volunteers help schools, garden clubs and the Union County Extension Office with horticulture projects that benefit the community.
She has been a native plant educator since 1986, and she said that her husband Ken has been her head gardener and problem solver for a number of years. She received her bachelor’s degree in science and home economics from Blue Mountain College.
Owen has many goals and missions in life in general and in terms of gardening.
“I love God,” she said. “I love my family. I love people. I love plants. My passion is sharing all of these things with people by telling stories. My mission is to arouse or spark an interest or curiosity, then educate, then have fun with plants and gardening, whether it's wildflower gardening, native plants, or more.”
As a child, she would play in the garden. As Owen grew older and planted her own garden and did her own landscaping at her first home, she knew there was a tendency for children to run and play in the garden as well as woodland animals and dogs, so she kept that in mind as she planned her landscaping. Owen and her husband created a path, which allowed for the growth and evolution of the garden to spread from there.
“Animals and children already run through the flower beds, so we made a trail for them,” she said. “My garden continues to evolve after each project.
“Gardens are forever evolving, at least my garden is. Our garden is planned around family, friends, gatherings of visitors and more. In my garden, the five senses are very important and my goal in the garden is to stimulate all of the five senses. I have things in my garden that you can touch, smell, and taste. Nature's most important plant is man. People plant the seeds, tend to the garden with water, take care of it, spend time in the garden, landscape it, and more.”
Her love of ardening and sharing stories in the garden grew from there.
“I think that sharing stories in the garden is important and so is sharing pass-a-long plants from the garden,” she said. “Pass-a-long plants are plants that our grandmothers planted. They are hearty plants, they multiply easily, and they can grow without much attention. Seeds and plants are shared in 'grandmother's garden.' People didn't have a place to buy plants – they were shared or passed down from generation to generation. The Faulkner Literary Garden (at the Union County Heritage Museum) has a lot of shared plants. It all started when people brought plants with them when they migrated from other states.”
In her garden, she recycles items or tries to use only organic materials or nature-made materials.
“I have gathered bricks from the old family members, from various homes, from the old train depot, from Paul Rainey's old wash house, and more. All of my bricks have a story to tell,” said Owen.
Because the Owens receive a variety of visitors, she has plenty of walking canes to choose from and a lot of different kinds of yard art to awe visitors, including young ones who make it a game to find certain bugs and insects in the garden and yard. Keith Arden made some of her iron or copper yard art, which includes bugs, spiders and dragonflies.
“I like organic things in my garden, including water features, especially ones built of stone that go underground like a spring, a watering hole with fish and frogs, an area for dragonflies to fly around, bird baths for birds, and a dry stream bed with just rocks, which provides an area where drainage can take place,” Owen said.
Owen also has an appreciation for the various soil types in Union County, which is one of two counties in the state with four different soils.
“Our soil comes from the Pontotoc Ridge,” she said. “There is the prairie soil, Pontotoc Ridge Sandy Red Clay, Flat woods Clay and North Central Plateau soil. Union County has the most diversity in plants because of the Pontotoc Ridge. We are also in the mesophytic forest – oak, hickory, pine, part of the (tail end) of the Appalachian region. We have plants in north Mississippi that no one else has.”
Owen said putting a plant in the ground in the right place is very important, and it needs the right light, soil, pH and good water drainage. She suggests planting on a north-facing hillside, which she said is the best place for woodland wildflowers.
Many plants also have medicinal uses, such as antibiotic properties.
Owen said that nature's best bank is jewelweed, also known as impatiens spp., because of all of the properties it contains. For example, jewelweed helps with skin inflammation, poison ivy, skin rashes,
insect bites, abrasions, swelling, warts, athlete's foot, ringworm, nettle stings, minor burns, cuts, eczema, acne, sores and skin irritation.
She said some plants may have the cure for leukemia. A cedar tree is being researched for cancer, and a half a cup of violets provide the same amount of Vitamin C as six oranges and more Vitamin A than a can of spinach. The devil's walking stick also is known as the toothache tree - people chewed the bark for anesthetic properties. People tied it to the yucca plant and made a necklace and used it for when the baby was teething.
Plantains can be used for spider bites, cuts, insect bites, splinters and goldenrod as a tea for seasonal allergies.
Wild yams are used for hormone and steroid production, many apples can be used to treat children’s leukemia, paw paws and cedars can be used for cancer treatments, spiderwort can be used to detect radiation and the American Beauty berry can be used as an insecticide.
“In folklore, buckeyes are very poisonous, but people carried buckeyes in their pocket for good luck,” Owen said. “If it is carried in the left pocket, you are luckier than carrying it in the right pocket. A buckeye looks like it has an eye on it, but the chestnut looks very similar. The saying is, 'As long as you have a buckeye in your pocket, you will never go hungry.' People would smash it and mash it into powder and put it in the water and it would stupefy fish, so it made it easier for men to catch fish.”
According to folklore, the love potion, which is also known as trillium root, was a root that would have been ground into powder and sprinkled onto the food of the man the woman wanted to fall in love with.
There are two methods for treating illnesses with plants, which are the ‘Doctrine of Signatures’ and ‘Trial and Error.’ The Doctrine of Signatures is a method brought to America by early colonists.
“If a plant part looks like a body part, God must have meant for it to be used for a corresponding illness,” she said. “With the trial and error method, many people became sick, some even died, but many became well as plants were tried for generations and passed down.”
Owen opens her garden for public tours beginning in April. She teaches visitors about the history of the plants, folklore tales, what kind of medicine the plants are used for and more.
“I teach about medicines, folklore, food, science, and pleasures,” she said. “We also talk about the five senses and we always crush, smell and taste certain plants. Sometimes I take children to the big tree I call the Old Man Tree and I tell them stories.”
For an educational, hands-on tour that revolves around nature, the “Garden Marm” will leave you with a desire to go home and dig in the dirt and hopefully look at plants in a different light.