The city of Cleveland will play home to the Mississippi Songwriters Festival this weekend, June 16 and 17.
The festival, which began in 2010, is intended to encourage and inspire songwriters of both the present and the future.
“The Mississippi Songwriters Festival has grown in so many ways since its inception,” Scott Stradtner, board member for both the festival and its alliance, said. “We now operate under an official non-profit status as the Mississippi Songwriters Alliance.”
The Delta Regional Festival will feature the talents and guidance of four professional songwriters and over 20 local and regional songwriters.
One of this year’s featured writers is Clay Mills. Mills, a member of the Mississippi Songwriters Hall of Fame, has penned No. 1 hits such as Diamond Rio’s “Beautiful mess” and Darius Rucker’s “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It.”
Bridgette Tatum, Tricia Walker, and Sean Gasaway will join Mills in teaching workshops throughout the weekend. Tatum is best known for being the mind behind Jason Aldean’s “She’s Country,” while Walker has won a Grammy for her “Looking in the Eyes of Love.”
“Our goal is to promote and preserve our cultural music history and cultivate and promote original Mississippi music,” Stradtner continued. “We achieve this through increasing tourism and promoting Mississippi, our cities, and our artists. For our musicians, we strive to bring the music industry closer to Mississippi through education, producing shows, clinics, and bringing some of the most successful songwriters in the industry to our events.”
The full schedule and more information on the Mississippi Songwriters Festival (Delta Region) can be found here.
