Memphis Music and Heritage Festival 2009

The Memphis Music and Heritage Festival is 2-day celebration of the music, culture, arts, and rhythms of the South.


For over two decades, the Center for Southern Folklore's Memphis Music & Heritage Festival has showcased artists whose music has helped define their region to the world. From urban blues to rockabilly, from folk to gospel, soul to salsa, the 2008 line-up was as diverse as ever. This year's festival takes place in Downtown Memphis, on Main Street between Peabody Place and Gayoso Avenue as well as in Peabody Place on Saturday, September 5 and Sunday, September 6, 2009.


The Memphis Music and Heritage Festival features foods, music, arts, and dance from African, Asian, Latino, and other immigrant communities who are now very much part of Memphis' cultural fabric - think of it as contemporary southern folklore, music, foods, and dance! Between 90 and 120 artists will play on 5 music stages in front of more than 30,000 people at this year's festival. Artists may be given compensation for performances and travel/lodging when necessary.


Over 120 artists performed at on six stages at last year's festival! 2008 performers include: Bobby Rush; Joyce Cobb; Billy Lee Riley; Jason D Williams, Darrel Petties & SIP, Jim Dickinson & Jimmy Crosthwait & Sid Selvidge, Al Kapone, Sonny Burgess and The Pacers, Eddie Bond's Country Music Show, Harlan T Bobo; Blind Mississippi Morris, Eden Brent; FreeWorld; Kenny Brown; The US Navy Big Band; William Lee Ellis; Reba Russell; Niko Lyras; The Tim Terry Experience; Giant Bear; Homemade Jamz Blues Band; Devil Train; Brown Singers, songwriting workshops from Mary Unobsky, Pierce Pettis, and Kim Richardson; Spirit of Memphis; Tonya Dyson & Green Onions; Jumpin' Chi Chis; the Kattawar Brothers; The Johnny Yancey Big Band; Sensational 6; Daddy Mack Blues Band; Alicja Trout and The Rivercity Tanlines; Billy Gibson Blues Band; Renardo Ward and The Promise; Elmo & the Shades; Susan Marshall; Orange Mound Jazz Messengers; Nathaniel Kent and Exodus; Randal Morton and Grassfire; Barbara Blue; and many more.


The Center for Southern Folklore is a private, non-profit organization whose mission is to preserve, defend, and protect the music, culture, arts, and rhythms of the South. The Center also offers music events and educational programs, maintains its multimedia archives, Folklore Store, and website.


With major support from The Assisi Foundation of Memphis, The Plough Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts among others the Center has launched A Five Year Program to digitize its Multimedia Archives. The Center's archives contain hundreds of hours of film and recorded interviews and music in addition to major historic photography collections, which Michael Taft, Head of the Archive of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress, assesses to be "one of the most extensive collections of ethnographic materials in the country. It is an important cultural treasure, and demands to be both preserved and made accessible to those outside the Center." Sponsorship from businesses and community agencies allows the festival to continue to be a free family event.