[Editorial]  To Be a Music City, Support Musicians

June 22, 2011

In the first issue of the Jackson Free Press nearly nine years ago, we ran a cover story written by Publisher Todd Stauffer called "Creative Class Rising." He reported that development guru Richard Florida, author of the "Creative Class" books, had ranked Jackson high on his "creative" potential scale: No. 75 out of 278 cities studies. We came in higher than Memphis or New Orleans.

We launched the paper in a hopeless climate filled with crime obsession, a pigeon-infested King Edward Hotel shell and a corporate daily newspaper that tended to bash the city and send locals out of town in its weekend "best bets" (and would famously call our nightlife "non-existent" in a news story).

In contrast, we came out swinging with hope and a mission to help foster a creative capital city where young people wanted to gather and create and make music and write and paint and start small businesses. We would not accept no for an answer on the King Edward's renovation—it had to happen, we proclaimed with wide eyes—and we started to dissect other media's faulty crime coverage. And we brought the idea of stubbornly supporting locally owned business in our very first issue—and we're happy to see that our "Think Local, Shop Local" meme has been picked up throughout the metro.

Believing in our city's ability to become a haven for artists, we immediately started heralding a Farish Street Entertainment District that would outdo Beale Street if for no other reason than it would be more diversely owned and operated.

Not a decade later, we are seeing the fruits of the labors of all the urban warriors we've reported on for nine years. Our creative class is rising—with vibrant artistic scenes dotted around the city from Midtown to Fondren, Jackson State to downtown. It hasn't been without struggles—and with any luck we'll finally see Farish Street spring to life with a new B.B. King's and other venues soon.

Meantime, though, venues like Hal & Mal's, Fenian's and the George Street clubs have been plugging at this effort for years. But, they can't do it alone. If we want to do what Austin did back in the 1980s and blow up musically, it will take our entire village to make it happen. Yes, that means attending live music shows (and booking shows early enough to get crowds on weeknights).

We must also get creative, as Austin visionaries did, about ways to really support our musicians. Large-scale development is great, but let's put our heads together to get artists in some of those empty downtown spaces and study smart efforts such as the Austin Music Foundation. We need a Jackson Music Office to help with bookings, attracting national acts traveling in the south, helping compile CDs (perhaps to go out in a welcome kit or maybe even our BOOM magazine), creating local music events and more.

As we have from day one, the JFP stands ready to assist and promote such efforts: Who will step up in the public and private sectors to really make Jackson into the music city we should and can be? We believe; do you?

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