Here are a few interesting things about JFP Chick Ball performers Valley Gordon and Melody Moody:
- Moody fell in love with old-time music while growing up in northeast Tennessee, and Gordon did the same while growing up in Brandon.
- Moody and Gordon both play banjo, but each plays a different style. The first time Gordon and Moody hung out, Gordon taught Moody traditional "clawhammer style."
- Moody and Gordon were both members of the local old-time band, The Scramblers. The Scramblers were a five-piece string band that played around Jackson from 2007-2009, singing and playing oldtime traditional Mississippi fiddle tunes from the '20s and '30s.
- Gordon delivers babies at Baptist Hospital.
- They helped create The Hot Tamales, a six-piece, all-female band to play at the 2008 JFP Chick Ball. Billed as the Hot Tamales.
- Both have solo projects: Moody plays with her band called the Untitled Melody Project, and Gordon leads the band Little Miss So and So.
- Moody lived in the attic of Gordon's house in Belhaven for nearly four years.
- Sometimes their band mates refer to them as "the muppets."
- Moody's friends call her a "professional volunteer of America." She runs Bike Walk Mississippi as its executive director, co-founded the Jackson Bike Advocates and was director of development for the Neighborhood Christian Center.
- Gordon and Moody play 11 instruments between them and often switch during shows.
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