Oxford Sounds Premieres

Documentary series features ‘depth of Oxford musical talent.’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72ARr4E6YYo

It’s finally here.

The much-anticipated television premiere of Oxford Sounds on Mississippi Public Broadcasting is June 1 at 10 p.m., with more airings June 3 at 11 p.m., June 8 at 9 p.m., and June 10 at 12:30 a.m. This first episode is a 90-minute program featuring Blue Mountain and Jimbo Mathus and the Tri-State Coalition, with Jim Dees hosting a special wrap around of the first program that includes interviews of Mathus and Andrew Ratcliffe, owner of Tweed Recording Studio. The program itself if hosted by Jojo Hermann of Widespread Panic, formerly of Oxford group Beanland.

Marie Antoon readily accepted the role of spearheading the Oxford Sounds concept when Will Norton, Jr., dean of the University of Mississippi’s Meek School of Journalism and New Media, and Ed Meek, for whom the school is named, approached her after her retirement from Mississippi Public Broadcasting. They challenged her to create a project as a sustainable model for funding, using multiple multimedia platforms.

Antoon considered the vast musical resources of Mississippi and realized specifically that Oxford was the perfect contained area on which to focus—especially in light of the creative economy of the several recording studios in the Oxford area. Oxford Sounds now has recorded and filmed 19 musicians, songwriters, and groups that are from Oxford or are a part of the Oxford music scene.

The series gives the public a look inside Oxford recording studios such as Tweed Recording, Sweet Tea, Fat Possum, and Black Wings, a side of music-making normally unseen by fans hearing music in bars, theaters, and from CDs, albums, and mp3s.

Another platform of the project is putting the music into albums, which already have made quite a splash on iTunes.

“It’s shown me the depth of Oxford music talent and the studios,” Antoon says. “It’s part of the story that people don’t realize, how deep that part of Oxford is.” Oxford Sounds is made possible by grants from the Oxford Tourism and Convention Bureau, the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council, and the Ed and Becky Meek Foundation.

For more information, contact Marie Antoon at MarieAntoon@gmail.com.

— Tad Wilkes, tad.wilkes@hottytoddy.com