Grammy Museum Opens In Mississippi

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CLEVELAND, Miss. (WCBI)- The city of Cleveland, Mississippi now joins Los Angeles, California as one of the only cities to have a Grammy Museum.

After four years of construction, and over 20 million dollars in investments, the prestigious monument now stands tall in the Mississippi Delta.

On Saturday the 28 thousand square foot building was finally open and ready to be toured by the public.

“This is the right next place for us to be in the history of the Grammy museum,” said President and CEO of The Recording Academy, Neil Portnow.

“It’s unbelievable, it’s unbelievable that it happened in Mississippi, think about that it now, Mississippi,” said Henry Green from the gospel group, The Williams Brothers.

“But it’s so rooted in music man, it goes really really deep,” said Melvin Williams from the gospel group, The Williams Brothers.

Mississippi is known to be the birthplace of American Music, and the Delta is known as the birthplace of the blues.

Bob Santelli is the Executive Director of the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, and said it was that combination that led his team to bringing the museum to the Magnolia State.

“When we looked to start expanding, we looked at big cities,” said Santelli.  “The logical place would be New York City or Chicago or some place like that, but American Music by in large, evolved out of Mississippi and if you’re going to start putting museums elsewhere outside of Los Angeles, I think the only place to start, and everyone on my team agrees, has to be Mississippi.”
The museum features everything that deals with the the Grammy’s, including instruments that were played by popular artists such as the late B.B. King’s famous guitar, Lucille.

As well as outfits that were worn by various artists during the Grammy shows.

“A lot of the things you do in there are not behind glass,” said Santelli. “You can feel them, touch them, work them, you can mix records, you can write songs, you can do all kinds of things in there that you can’t do hardly at any other museum in America.”

City officials are expects this museum to be a cornerstone in the Delta for years to come.

And they’re also using the museum as an educational attraction for Delta State University, and a recruiting tool to help bring in more people to the state.

“This is a world wide venue so people will literally come from all across the world an come to the Mississippi delta and they’ll learn about the rich musical heritage,” said the executive director of Mississippi Development Authority, Glenn McCullough Jr.
For the Museum’s debut, they had a special exhibit on display that featured The Beatles.

Everything from instruments played by the band members, to clothing items worn on stage, to news paper clippings, were all on display in the exhibit.