Kenny Brown, Performing Musician
Raised in northern Mississippi’s hill country, as a child Brown absorbed the region’s rich musical heritage. Largely self-taught on guitar, his guitar-playing neighbor, the under-recorded bluesman Joe Callicott, gave him encouragement and coaching. At the start of the 70s, Brown, who still had a day job in the construction industry, met R.L. Burnside and suggested they team up. Thereafter, he played with Burnside whenever possible, also working with George ‘Mojo’ Buford, Mississippi Fred McDowell and Johnny Woods before his partnership with Burnside filled his working life. At one point, he and Burnside played with Jon Spencer’s punk blues band. By the early 90s, Burnside and Brown were a formidable team, touring the USA, playing everything from juke joints to small festivals. 

Carolyn Brown, Author of  The Artist’s Sketch: Biography of Painter Kate Freeman Clark
“In the book I write that the stated intentions of Clark’s will are quite extraordinary: She envisioned building a permanent gallery for her artwork and she hoped that her home, Freeman Place, and its contents, could “fill some useful social or artistic function, such as a museum, library, art gallery or a civic guest house or woman’s club.” She also recognized that her extensive clothing collection, “costumes and apparel of sufficient interest and preservation to illustrate fashions and manners … (could) show the amazing change between 1914 to 1933 minds, modes and manners, etc.” She was concerned about her legacy since she left no direct heirs. In her will, much to the surprise of her home town of Holly Springs, Clark left her paintings stored at a warehouse in New York for over forty years, and money to build an art gallery.” said Brown.
Author of Art in Mississippi, 1720-1980, Patti Carr Black said, “Mississippi’s most nationally admired artist during her lifetime is not widely known today. Kate Freeman Clark of Holly Springs exhibited her work at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, The Corcoran Gallery, The Carnegie Institute, New York School of Art, the Society of American Artists, and other prominent galleries in the Northeast. Cheers for Carolyn J. Brown’s well-written, well-researched, and beautifully illustrated biography.”

$50 per person after September 18th, tickets available at the door. Tax deductible so keep your receipt.

* Chalmers Institute still stands at the same location (151 S. W. Boundary Rd.) as one of the city’s oldest buildings and as one of the state’s most endangered yet historically significant structures. Preserve Marshall County and Holly Springs, a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit organization, works toward the stabilization and renovation of Chalmers Institute as part of the mission to protect the historic resources and cultural legacy of the county and city.

For more information call us at 901-336-4090 or email info@preservemarshallcounty.org.