Jackson Free Press

Here are a few interesting things about JFP Chick Ball performers Valley Gordon and Melody Moody:

1. Moody fell in love with old-time music while growing up in northeast Tennessee, and Gordon did the same while growing up in Brandon.
2. 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."
3. 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.
4. Gordon delivers babies at Baptist Hospital.
5. 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.
6. Both have solo projects: Moody plays with her band called the Untitled Melody Project, and Gordon leads the band Little Miss So and So.
7. Moody lived in the attic of Gordon's house in Belhaven for nearly four years.
8. Sometimes their band mates refer to them as "the muppets."
9. 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.
10. Gordon and Moody play 11 instruments between them and often switch during shows.