Sep. 18 -- Although Kinston, Lenoir County and this portion of eastern North Carolina is home to legends in the blues and jazz fields, many locals are not aware of it.
An announcement at the Kinston Community Council of the Arts on Thursday morning may change all that.
The N.C. Department of Transportation allotted $250,000 to the new African-American Heritage Music Trail, an endeavor that will be based in Kinston and will include stops in eight ENC counties: Lenoir, Greene, Jones, Pitt, Wayne, Wilson, Nash and Edgecombe.
The project, which will help educate cultural visitors to those eight counties, will include interactive video and audio kiosks at dozens of sites. The trail is expected to be completed by 2011.
Visitors will begin at the arts Council building on Queen Street and continue to the sites all over ENC, where they will discover the music and talent that originated in this area.
The trail is a dream come true for arts council director Sandy Landis, who led the effort to bring the concept to life over the past five years.
"These are creative economies in action," Landis said. "This is using the arts to help with community development."
Landis was part of the announcement ceremony Thursday that included N.C. Secretary of Cultural Resources Linda Carlisle, Lenoir County Economic Development Director Mark Pope and Mary B. Regan, the executive director of the North Carolina Arts Council.
Carlisle stressed the importance of cultural tourism to North Carolina -- and gave a lot of credit to Landis for putting legs under the idea.
"If not for Sandy Landis, we'd probably be announcing this project in another part of the state," Carlisle said.
Before the ceremony began, an all-star ensemble of area music greats -- including Maceo and Melvin Parker, Dick Knight, Sadatrius Boxley-Brown and Wilburt Croom -- entertained those in attendance with an impromptu jazz performance. Following Carlisle's speech, the ensemble played for another 10 minutes until Maceo Parker, who headlined his own world-famous band after playing with the likes of James Brown and Ray Charles, took the microphone to share his memories of growing up in Lenoir County.
He regaled the assembled group with tales of his and his brother Melvin's first meetings with Brown and thanked those who helped him as he was growing up in Lenoir County.
Those are the kind of stories Landis and Pope are hoping will be learned by visitors to the new music trail -- and will encourage new owners of new companies to locate in this area.
"Having this here will help enhance the quality of life," Pope said. "Sites and buildings are nice when recruiting companies, but you have to sell the whole package. This helps enhance that whole package."
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