Clinton to get Second Blues Trail marker
By Randy Bell
Once located on the site of the MC President’s Home, the Mississippi College Hilltop Theatre was once the site of The Grits and Gravy Recording Studio.
More than two years ago, Clinton’s first Mississippi Blues Trail marker was dedicated, honoring two native musicians and a poet. Now, the city is getting ready to add a second marker at the site of the Grits and Gravy recording studio, which produced a Grammy-nominated record in the 1960s.
“I was ready to pay for the marker,” says Clinton Visitor Center Director Marsha Barham. And then she got some good news from the state’s tourism agency, Visit Mississippi. “They called and they said, ‘You know what? We have a grant that’s still open, and we want to extend it to you.’”
For Clinton, it was a stroke of financial luck.
“Right now, Blues Trail markers cost $9,000,” says Barham.
The inscription on the marker to be located on Capitol Street will read: “Grits and Gravy was a historic recording studio housed in the building that once was the Hilltop Theatre. Before it was demolished, the structure also served as the Choctaw Band Hall, and, in 2013, the Mississippi College president’s home was built on the site. Bob McRee, Cliff Thomas and Ed Thomas operated the studio, working with producer Huey Meaux and others. Among the artists who recorded here were Dorothy Moore, Junior Parker, Barbara Lynn, Freddy Fender and the duo Peggy Scott and Jo Jo Benson.”
It was Scott and Benson who were nominated for a Grammy in two categories in 1969 for their hit record, Pickin’ Wild Mountain Berries. It lost to Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” for Best Rhythm and Blues Song and to The Temptations’ “Cloud Nine” in the category of Best Rhythm and Blues Performance by a Duo or Group, Vocal or Instrumental.
Barham says the spot chosen for the marker will give visitors an opportunity to park their cars, get out and learn the history of the location.
“We’re in agreement that we think, on Capitol Street, where the president has that back parking lot, [the marker] could be well seen there, and that gives people a place to pull up and read it.”
And there’ll be more than the inscription on the front to see.
“A Blues marker is different than a state [historical] marker, [which] has the same verbiage, front and back,” she says. “But a Blues marker, you’ve got something totally different, with the vinyl being on the back. Sometimes that shows record shapes and photographs and things like that.”
A timeline for installing the new marker is still up in the air.
“[We] still can’t pinpoint a date right now,” Barham says, noting that it sometimes takes six months for a foundry to cast a marker. “Once we get it, it immediately goes to this other group of people in Greenwood that do the back vinyl. So, I’ll get with Visit Mississippi, we’ll discuss the back again, even though some of it is written. And we’ll edit it and make sure it’s good for us and it gets made.”
According to Barham, the next step would be to choose a date which doesn’t conflict with any other City event and to send invitations to guests to attend the dedication. Unfortunately, the two artists who recorded the Grammy-nominated song in Clinton have passed away. Benson died in 2014 and Scott in 2023.
Clinton’s first Blues Trail marker, dedicated October 27, 2022, stands at West Northside Drive and Clinton-Tinnin Road and honors Eddie Cotton, Jarekus Singleton and Sterling Plumpp, while exploring the connection between Black churches and the blues. The back of the marker features several photos, including one that shows the building which housed the Grits and Gravy studio.
The Mississippi Blues Trail was established in 2006 “to offer tourists and targeted groups a structured tour of Mississippi blues historical sites and performance venues.” More than two hundred markers have been erected across Mississippi and in other states from Los Angeles to Rockland, Maine, along with markers in Norway, France and England.
