Music Maker Productions
Colvard Student Union, suite 300
Mississippi State, MS 39762

Contact: Samantha Musil, Assistant Director of Colvard Student Union
Cindy Melby, MS Best Grassroots Concert Project Director
Phone: 662-325-2930

January 20, 2009
For Immediate Release

3rd Annual Mississippi’s Best Grassroots Concert

Starkville, MS – Mississippi’s rich and diverse musical heritage will be featured in an art show and concert in Lee Hall Auditorium at Mississippi State University on Tuesday, February 10, 2009.

The 3rd annual Mississippi’s Best Grassroots Concert begins at 6:00 pm with the art show, followed by the concert at 7:00 pm. There is no admission charged, however donations in support of North Mississippi’s excelling artistic talent are deeply appreciated. The event celebrates Mississippi’s heritage as an arts community by bringing together the best performing and visual artists from north Mississippi for an inspiring concert and art show.

The host band Nash Street, consisting of five young local musicians, was hailed the “best new act in country music.” Mixing sounds from mandolin, guitar, fiddle, bass, and vocals, Nash Street fashions their own personal versions of old time, bluegrass, folk, and blues. Great music stays in the family, or so it seems with Kent Burnside and The New Generation. Grandson of blues legend, R.L. Burnside, the band brings its own style of “Cotton Blues Disco” and urban blues sound. The Doss Family from West Point with sisters Wanda, Christina, Clarissa, Cheryl, Carol and their mother Cinderella along with their brother Leroy and cousin Brandon Deanes give their hearts in the form of earnest, heartfelt gospel music. They have sung all their lives, and commonly perform at local area churches and community events. Hailing just north of Greenville, Mississippi on the small Highway 1 in the Mississippi Delta, Eden Brent comes with her immense collection of jazz and blues. Performing all over the South and around the world Eden Brent invites us to come listen to her certain, melancholic, and times even loud message.

Headlining the music entertainment will be Paul Thorn, native son of Tupelo. A skydiver, chair maker, and story teller, his music fuses blues, rock and roll, and classic R&B to generate an exceptional sound with an accurate sense of blue-collar, working man poetry. Thorn will also be emceeing the event along with MSU student Sarah Beth James, the reigning Miss MSU.

This event is sponsored by Grassroots Entertainment, Music Maker Productions, Holmes Cultural Diversity Center, WMSV, and other local business. It is a collaboration between MSU and the Starkville community. This project is supported in part by funding from the Mississippi Arts Commission, a state agency, and in part from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. For more information about this event please call (662) 325-2930.