MCNAIRY COUNTY MUSICAL HERITAGE HONORED BY STATE OF TENNESSEE WITH UNVEILING OF TENNESSEE MUSIC PATHWAYS MARKER ON JUNE 11TH

June 11, 2021 - Selmer, Tenn. - McNairy County’s Musical Heritage will be honored by the State of Tennessee with a new “Tennessee Music Pathways” marker in Rockabilly Park. The unveiling is set to take place at Rockabilly Park on Friday, June 11, 2021 at 2:00 P.M. The sign will honor champions of rockabilly music who performed and recorded songs in McNairy such as Dewey Phillips, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Eddie Bond, Johnny Burnette, and Stanton Littlejohn.  Launched by the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development in 2018, Tennessee Music Pathways is an online-planning guide that connects visitors to the state’s rich musical heritage at tnmusicpathways.com. From the largest cities to the smallest communities, Tennessee Music Pathways stretches across all 95 counties and features hundreds of landmarks from the seven genres of music that call Tennessee home: blues, bluegrass, country, gospel, soul, rockabilly and rock ‘n’ roll. Historians identified more than 300 points of interest to date, and additional markers will be installed for years to come. 

Tennessee Music Pathways marker reads as follows:

Rockabilly was the sound of young country musicians in the 1950s infusing their music with rhythm & blues (R&B). It emphasized the electric guitar over traditional country instruments such as the steel guitar, fiddle and banjo. Originally called hillbilly bop or cat music, it blossomed in the South, notably in Memphis; Jackson, Tennessee; Tupelo, Mississippi; and the towns in between. Adamsville, Tennessee-born DJ Dewey Phillips championed rockabilly on his nightly radio show, heard throughout the mid-South on WHBQ Memphis. On Selmer’s town square, Earl Latta’s Ford dealership regularly hosted Saturday night jamborees that featured rockabilly singers alongside more traditional country performers.

Local musicians, including Carl Perkins, Eddie Bond, Elvis Presley and Johnny Burnette, honed their skills in the clubs that lined U.S. Highways 45 and 64, traveling those routes often. Highway 45 runs north-south from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico. In Selmer, it crosses Highway 64, which runs east-west from North Carolina to Arizona. Before the interstate system was complete, two-lane U.S. highways were the fastest routes, placing Selmer and McNairy County at the heart of rockabilly music.

Presley’s first recordings, made for Sun Records in Memphis in 1954 and 1955, codified the sound of rockabilly. In January 1955, Presley made appearances in Booneville, Mississippi (his 17th); Corinth, Mississippi (18th); Sheffield, Alabama (19th); and Bethel Springs, Tennessee (31st). Perkins had signed with Sun Records in October 1954 and was awaiting the release of his first record when he was one of 30 or 40 people who saw Presley in Bethel Springs. Presley’s music, his look and his appeal inspired Perkins to persevere with rockabilly music.

Home recordings of Perkins made by Stanton Littlejohn in Eastview, Tennessee, predate his Sun contract and probably predate Presley’s recordings, suggesting that Perkins had independently formulated the rockabilly style. Littlejohn was a fiddle player, and, at a time when home recording was in its infancy, owned a machine that could record onto acetate discs. He recorded Perkins in 1951 and again in 1952 or ’53.

In 2008, Shawn Pitts at Arts in McNairy commissioned photorealist artist Brian Tull to paint a 20-by 120-foot mural on the wall of 124 West Court St. in Selmer to celebrate the county’s role in rockabilly’s genesis. Tull, born and raised in Selmer, completed the mural between February and June 2009, basing the image on Phil and Ray Doll Hummer, who performed at Robert’s Western World on Nashville’s Lower Broad. With its unveiling, the McNairy Chamber of Commerce launched the Rockabilly Highway Revival, an annual music festival celebrating the area’s musical heritage.

Highway 45 was named Rockabilly Highway and Rockabilly Way by the Tennessee and Mississippi legislatures, respectively, honoring the region’s heritage. The Latta company building now houses the McNairy County Visitors and Cultural Center, home to Arts in McNairy. 

The second mural was completed in June 2012 and was based on singer Eileen Rose with guitarist Rich Gilbert, set against Leonard Brown’s two-door 1950 Ford. The signage on the far end of the mural was inspired by roadside attraction signs from the rockabilly era. 

In Tull’s words, “Photorealism is well-suited for capturing moments that occur with little notice, but are nonetheless revealing in their narrative.”