Museum highlights Louisiana’s musical heritage

Photo By Chuck Cannon | News Orleans native and noted singer of soul music Irma Thomas is one of the artists featured at the Louisiana Delta Music Museum in Ferriday, La.  

FORT POLK, LA, UNITED STATES

05.10.2019

Story by Chuck Cannon 

Fort Johnson Public Affairs Office

FERRIDAY, La. — Jerry Lee Lewis developed the rock-a-billy style that led to such No. 1 hits as “Great Balls Of Fire” and a friendship with Elvis on its streets. Velvety-voiced Mickey Gilley launched a career that would include country hits “Don’t The Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time” and “Stand By Me,” as well inclusion on the movie soundtrack “Urban Cowboy” from those same small-town streets. And in its rural setting, Jimmy Lee Swaggart — a cousin to both Lewis and Gilley — started a world-wide empire that included award-winning gospel albums and a weekly television program that captured converts nationwide before he fell from grace.
The place — Ferriday, Louisiana, about 10 miles west of Natchez, Mississippi, near the banks of the mighty Mississippi River. Because of its rich musical heritage, Ferriday was selected as home of the Louisiana Delta Music Museum.
The museum is located in the old Ferriday post office. Among the exhibits are tributes to Lewis, Gilley and Swaggart, along with other Louisiana music legends. The lineup reads like a who’s who and includes:
• Leon “Peewee” Whittaker was born about 35 miles north of Ferriday. Whittaker was a member of a traveling minstrel show from 1935-1950, then spent the last 20 years of his life as a key member of the Natchez blues band Hezekiah and the Houserockers.
• Gov. Jimmie Davis was born in the north central part of Louisiana near Quitman. Davis became a legend in both country music and Louisiana politics. The “Singing Governor” served two terms as head of the state and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. His most popular recording was “You Are My Sunshine.”
• Conway Twitty was born just across the Mississippi River in Friars Point, Miss., but attended high school in Tallulah, La. The rock and country crooner recorded 55 No. 1 hits, including his first, “It’s Only Make Believe.”
• Aaron Neville, born in New Orleans in 1941, is still cranking out the hits. The four-time Grammy Award winner offers a unique blend of gospel, country, rhythm and blues, jazz and rock.
• Allen “Puddler” Harris was born in 1936 in the small north Louisiana delta town of Jigger. Harris was the staff pianist at the Louisiana Hayride for a time, and then moved to Hollywood where he performed with the Ricky Nelson Band, The Ventures, The Lettermen and Paul Revere and the Raiders. He eventually joined Twitty’s band before taking a job in Lake Charles, where he lives today.
• Percy Sledge, who calls Baton Rouge home today, was born in 1940. His soul ballad “When a Man Loves a Woman,” is a classic.
• Although Johnny Horton doesn’t hail from Louisiana, he got his start in Shreveport at the Louisiana Hayride and his most famous hit is the country tune “The Battle of New Orleans.”
• Irma Thomas, New Orleans’ Queen of Soul, was born in 1941 in Ponchatoula, La. In 1958, Thomas was fired from her job as a waitress because she kept singing with band. The band hired her and the rest, as is often said, is history.
• Clarence “Frogman” Henry was a noted blues performer who often opened for the Beatles. He was born in New Orleans in 1937 and still performs at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival each year.
• Fats Domino is another New Orleans native. The 80-year-old native French speaker started performing at the age of 10. During Hurricane Katrina, Domino lost his home and much of his memorabilia due to flooding.
• Baton Rouge native John Fed Gourrie, born in 1941, started a band with his high school friends in 1956 after hearing Domino perform. In 1964, his band John Fred and the Playboy Band, hit it big with “Judy in Disguise.”
• Dale and Grace had a short but successful career when they hit the top of the pop charts in 1963 with “I’m Leaving It All Up to You.” Dale Houston was born in 1940 and grew up in Baton Rouge, while Grace Broussard, born in 1939, hailed from nearby Prairieville.
• Jazz legend Pete Fountain was born in New Orleans in 1930. Fountain, who owns his own club in New Orleans, performed with Al Hirt and Lawrence Welk before starting his own band.
The museum also honors two other Ferriday natives who became well known, but not because of their music.
• Howard K. Smith, a broadcaster and journalist, was born in Ferriday in 1914. Smith started in the newspaper business before joining CBS in 1942 as its wartime Berlin correspondent. In 1961 he moved to NBC, where he stayed for 17 years. Smith covered some of the most important events of the 20th century, including the surrender of the Germans to the Soviet Army, the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the Vietnam War.
• Ann Boyar Warner was born in Ferriday in 1908. She moved to Los Angeles when she was 12. In 1936 she married Hollywood legend Jack Warner, of Warner Brothers Studios. She became a legendary hostess in Tinsel Town and had a portrait done by Salvador Dali.
The museum is located about 120 miles from Fort Polk. Take La. Hwy 28 to U.S. Hwy 84, then head straight into Ferriday. There is no charge to tour the museum, which is open Wednesday through Friday from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. For more information call [phone] or visit www.deltamusicmuseum.com.

• Date Taken: 05.10.2019
• Date Posted: 05.10.2019 09:47
• Story ID: 321805
• Location: FORT POLK, LA, US