Jackson Free Press

Since becoming Visit Mississippi's music programs manager in September 2015, Drew Young has represented our state's musical contributions far and wide at events such as the annual Mississippi Night at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles and Folk Alliance International in Kansas City, Mo.

For his latest project, Young is heading closer—and all around—home. The Americana in Mississippi Tour, which kicks off Tuesday, March 1, at Duling Hall and ends Thursday, April 28, will travel to 16 cities around the state for free concerts intended to showcase the quality of music in each location both to visitors and to residents.

To do that, Young is bringing along the tour's house band, Rambling Steve Gardner & the Jericho Road Show, to play alongside some of the region's best Americana acts, including Oh, Jeremiah, who will perform in Jackson, Memphis folk-rockers Lucero and Jackson natives Young Valley. Young says he turned to the convention and visitors bureaus of each city to ensure that the tour was a community effort.

"We actually engaged with our local CVB partners in each location, so they were very instrumental in really being our eyes and ears and boots on the ground," he says. "We didn't want to come in and say, 'This is what we're going to do about your community.' We wanted them to be full partners in it."

Young says the tour is an outgrowth of a five-state initiative called the Americana Music Triangle, which celebrates the history and culture that comes from the areas between Nashville, Tenn., New Orleans and Memphis, Tenn. The resulting "triangle" includes parts of Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama and nearly all of Mississippi. The tour was able to tap into some of the existing resources from the Americana Music Triangle, selecting venues in each of the Mississippi locations in the triangle and adding a few of their own, including Ocean Springs. Young says he hopes that it will become an annual event, perhaps changing genres, hitting more cities and even stretching beyond Mississippi.

"In a lot of ways, it's been wonderful for me, being really new in this chair, to allow me to get to know our partners, and that's been invaluable," he says. "Obviously, I knew a lot about the state, but now, and especially once I get done with the tour, I'm going to have an even (stronger) grasp and understanding of music in the state."

Young also interviewed many of the musicians who will be performing to discuss topics such as Mississippi's music culture. He created a series of one-hour radio shows from the interviews with the help of Wilbur Martin, the general manager of WUSM at the University of Southern Mississippi. The series will stream online and air on WUSM and radio stations in Sweden and the United Kingdom.

In addition to the concerts, Young and his team created a series of "Eat, Stay, Play" itineraries that present some of the best activities, restaurants and entertainment from the area to ensure that the Americana in Mississippi Tour won't be the only experience that someone has in Indianola, Meridian, Clarksdale, West Point or any of the other stops on the tour's route.

Young says: "These are suggestions for our visitors to say, 'Hey, you know, it's not just this one thing. There's much more you can do here, so why not stay a little bit longer?' And it's also just for people in the community who maybe didn't know."

From his past running a study-abroad program in Europe and working for New York record label Putumayo World Music, Young says he has seen the way that Mississippi's Americana music—which, outside of the U.S., includes blues, folk and other indigenous genres—has the ability to reach around the globe.

"A lot of our visitors and people who are interested in Mississippi outside of Mississippi come from other parts of the world," he says. "The long-term goal of this is a way to do anything we can to support not just our musicians but the club owners and venue operators because when people come from the U.K. or Scandinavia, the first things they want to know are where to eat and where can they see music. ... The worst thing that could happen would be if there wasn't music for them to see."

Of course, that doesn't mean that he doesn't have goals for the Americana in Mississippi Tour right here in our state, as well.

"When you think about even 30 years ago when the entertainment choices were not so vast, live music was a much larger part of the general population's life," Young says. "Now, there are so many competing things for people's time—Netflix, video games, more restaurants and all these different things—so sometimes, live music can seem like an afterthought for some people. ... If 20 people come to one of these shows who haven't been to a show in a couple years, then the next time they have free time, (they'll say), 'Hey, remember that great time we had at Duling Hall?'"

The Americana in Mississippi Tour is at 6 p.m., Tuesday, March 1, at Duling Hall (662 Duling Ave., 601-292-7121). Admission is free. For more information, go to visitmississippi.org/americana.