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MURALS

 

Dyersburg Mural

Location: 215 S Mill Ave, Dyersburg, TN 38024
Artist: @mksoriginals – MK Alford

Pictured is artwork submitted by local artist MK Alford. The image portrays many of Dyersburg's most treasured aspects such as the Dyer County Courthouse, agriculture, the Dyer County Fair, the Mississippi River bridge, and finally a field of cotton, a nod to the former Cotton Mill, which served as one of Dyersburg's leading industries for many decades.

 

Dyersburg Mural
Dyersburg Mural
Dyersburg Mural


Butterfly Mural

Location: At the Farmers Market - 334 Clark Ave. Dyersburg, TN
Artist: Jonathan Futch

Because West Tennessee is on the Monarch Migration path, and the proximity to the Farmer’s Market, the butterfly mural was a perfect fit for the Leadership class 2022 mural project. The Dyer County master gardeners as they placed a butterfly garden that fits perfectly with their mural.

Commissioned to complete the mural was Jonathan Futch. Futch has been a resident of Dyer County Since 1990. He shared some about his life as an artist. “Art is my God giving talent, as a little kid drawing was my thing,” stated Futch. Now I paint window murals all across the area for different business and organizations. Since 2017, I’ve traveled to 9 different states and painted 14 murals for a seafood restaurant. I’ve painted for many people and places. It gives me so much joy to see people enjoying them. I thank God for my talent, it is a blessing for me and so many people."

 

Butterfly Mural
Butterfly Mural
Butterfly Mural
Butterfly Mural
Butterfly Mural


Mengelwood Mural

Location: on the square at the Pocket Park.
Artist: Whitney Herrington

In Mengelwood, there were two “juke joints” where workers relaxed after a week of hard labor either in the woods or in the mill. Life in Mengelwood was hard. The schools were segregated and the bosses in the mill were white. Workers, both black and white, were paid in company script, not dollars and cents. If you needed shoes or a broom, you went to the company store and paid for those items using the company script you earned working for “the man”. On weekends one might frequent one of the juke joints to relax with a drink or dance to the music coming from a piano, banjo or harmonica.

It was inside a juke joint in Mengelwood that yet another historic music story of Dyer County develops. A young black man from Henning, Tennessee would come to play in a joint in Mengelwood on the weekends. His skills as a harmonica player were recognized throughout West Tennessee because he could play two harmonicas at once. One with his mouth and the other with his nose! The man’s name was Noah Lewis and he wrote a song about the small town on the Obion River in western Dyer County. Noah sold The Minglewood Blues to another performer who often played in Memphis. Gus Cannon and his band, Cannon’s Jug Stompers, recorded Noah’s Minglewood Blues on Victor records in the early 1920s. Interestingly, Noah Lewis was a member of Cannon’s Jug Stompers along with Gus Cannon and Ashley Thompson who was from the Brownsville/Ripley area of Tennessee. After a few years passed, Noah realized his song was popular in the black community and he wasn’t benefiting from it, financially. He changed the song a bit and recorded it himself as The New Minglewood Blues.

It took an unknown group from San Francisco in the 1960s to revive Noah’s song once more. That group spent time researching many of the songs from the 1920s and the Memphis/Mississippi Delta area and found Noah’s song. They decided to rework the song and record it themselves. They called their version of the song The New, New Minglewood Blues and they placed it on their first album. That album was called “Shakedown Street” and that group was The Grateful Dead. It was released in 1967. Over the past fifty years the song has been covered by groups and individuals around the world. From Patrick Costello to Bob Dylan, the song that began in a joint on the Obion River in western Dyer County nearly 100 years ago lives on, today.

 

Menglewood
Menglewood
Menglewood