The beat lives on: Ferriday museum preserves musical legacy of Delta region performers

FERRIDAY – The Delta Music Museum in the heart of Ferriday is a rare and unusual little gem. There’s no admission charged though donations are encouraged.

Ferriday is a tiny town located over an hour east of Alexandria. It's known as the hometown of the late rock and roll icon Jerry Lee "The Killer" Lewis and his cousins, the late country singer and songwriter Mickey Gilley, and televangelist and gospel singer Jimmy Lee Swaggart, the only living member of the trio.

The old Post Office building on the corner of South Third Street and Louisiana Avenue is home to the museum. It's open Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The three cousins

As you enter the first room to the left, you'll see three life-size mannequins around a piano. Behind them are posters with photos of the three cousins. Hanging on the wall is also a well-known photo of the Million Dollar Quartet. It is the one with Lewis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley at Sun Records in 1956.

The museum contains a large collection of photos and memorabilia dedicated to Lewis, Gilley and Swaggart. There are many photos of them throughout the museum. School photos, family photos, photos with other celebrities like the one with Gilley and John Travolta and another with Lewis and Paul McCartney.

Lewis’ boyhood home is not far from here. It's on the corner of Eighth Street and Louisiana. It was once a museum dedicated to Lewis that was run by his sister Frankie Jean Lewis. It closed after she died in 2016.

Preserving the Delta musical legacy

But the Delta Music Museum, part of the Mississippi Blues Trail, serves to preserve the musical legacy of the all the performers from the Delta region, said tourism information counselor Shaun Davis. All genres of music that are part of the culture of the Delta such as rock n’ roll, rhythm and blues, country and western, soul, jazz, zydeco and southern gospel are represented.

“We have 29 inductees in our museum and they are all from the Delta area,” said Charlotte Guillory, who is with the Friends of the Delta Museum. She said the Delta encompasses the region from New Orleans to Memphis to Nashville creating a triangle. There are a couple of inductees from Texas but they are from areas close to the Delta.

There are exhibits dedicated to some of the inductees like Aaron Neville, Fats Domino, Conway Twitty, Irma Thomas, Percy Sledge, John Fred and his Playboy Band and Johnny Horton.

Singer Linda Gail Lewis, Lewis’ baby sister, is also an inductee.

“When Jerry Lee Lewis started getting famous and touring, he would take Linda Gail with him,” said Guillory. “She was just a teenager. That’s how she got started in the music business.”

Linda Gail, 73, still tours and has a band with her husband and two daughters, said Guillory.

The museum has a painting of the late Gov. Jimmie Davis, another inductee, on his horse. The horse’s name was Sunshine. Davis wrote the song, “You Are My Sunshine.”

Another inductee Guillory points out is James Burton of Shreveport who was the lead guitarist for Elvis Presley.

“He played with Elvis just about the entire time he was famous,” said Guillory. Burton still lives in Shreveport and has a foundation for children who want to learn how to play the guitar.

Davis said country legend Conway Twitty was born in Friars Point, Miss., but his family moved to Tallulah, La. where he went to school. His real name was Harold Lloyd Jenkins but he took the stage name Conway Twitty.

People from around the world visit

“People actually come from other countries to just come here,” said Davis. Lewis is still a worldwide impact, particularly in Europe.

“So people come a long distance to see this stuff," he said.

Many traveled to Ferriday from Europe when Lewis’ funeral was held last November, said Davis.

Their most recent visitors were a family from Hilo, Hawaii, who took their vacation to Ferriday just to see the museum.

The family patriarch was a serviceman who saw Lewis perform at a military base in Hawaii in 1958, said Davis.

“And he said, ‘Now, it’s technically I got to see him because it was so packed I couldn’t get in the dance hall but I stood in the parking lot and they have the doors open and I could see him performing. So, I’ve seen him play live just from a distance,’” Davis recalled the visitor’s story. Visiting the museum was a real pilgrimage for him.

Lee Serio of Baton Rouge was passing through Ferriday when he dropped in for the first time. He said he passes through the area on business and always wanted to visit.

“It’s pretty cool. I love the building that it’s in,” he said.

Serio is a musician who sings in a band that does mostly 1970s classics but he does sing a couple of Lewis’ songs.

About the museum

The museum was established in 2001 in the old Post Office. It is one of seven rural museums under the Louisiana Secretary of State’s Office and the only one dedicated to music, said Davis. A local businessman purchased the old Post Office to keep it from being demolished and donated it to the state to use as a museum.

The Arcade Theater, Ferriday’s former movie theater, is a performance space next door to the museum where live events such as music performances or plays are held.

This article originally appeared on Alexandria Town Talk: Ferriday museum preserves musical legacy of Delta region performers