One of Tallahatchie County’s most renowned native sons is coming home.
Mose Allison, an internationally celebrated jazz-blues pianist, trumpeter, vocalist, poet and songwriter, was born Nov. 11, 1927, in the farming community of Tippo.
In many ways, he never left.
Last week, on the morning of Tuesday, Nov. 15, surrounded by family at his home in Hilton Head, South Carolina, Allison passed away peacefully. He was 89.
“Dad was comfortable and waited until we were all there to take his last breath,” said his son, John Allison of Jackson.
The four-time Grammy-nominated musical icon had been in declining health for several years and was in hospice care, John explained.
Now, the patriarch’s family — who also include his wife, Audre, and daughters Janine, Alissa and Amy — will ensure that Allison is returned to the place where his inspiration to create music took root.
John said his father’s wish was to be “cremated and returned to the earth,” and not just any earth — but the fertile soil of his beloved Mississippi Delta homeland.
Although his dad was not a fan of public celebrations in his honor, there will be one that local residents may attend if they desire to pay their respects, explained John.
Details will come later, but a certainty is that, per his wishes, Allison’s ashes will be returned to the Tippo area and buried on “the island,” near the same artesian well he drank from as a child, John noted.
Once the site of his grandfather’s house and 80-acre farm, the island is so called because it is completely encircled by Tippo Bayou.
It is where Allison was born, and it is where as a young child he watched with eager curiosity as his grandfather tickled the ivories of a player piano.
John said the local remembrance for his father may include a service at Tippo Methodist Church, followed by burial of his ashes on the island, and concluding with a gathering at the site of the old Allison Mercantile Store in Tippo.
At that latter location stands a Mississippi Blues Trail marker, unveiled in February 2012, honoring Allison’s many contributions to jazz and blues music.
Allison and his family were in Tallahatchie County for that ceremony and for a “Mose Allison Day” reception at the Charleston Arts Center.
There were other public appearances during that trip for the man labeled “The William Faulkner of Jazz,” including a concert by him at the Bologna Performing Arts Center in Cleveland and a ceremony in Jackson, where he was honored for “Lifetime Achievement” as one of five recipients of the 2012 Mississippi Governor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts.
Those were some of his last public appearances in the Magnolia State.
John said his father’s proudest moment came in 2013, when he was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts’ “Jazz Masters” award at Lincoln Center in New York.
“That’s the highest award anyone can get,” said John.
— * —
At the request of his mother, Allison took piano lessons for several years starting at the age of 5, before losing interest — in the instruction, not the music. He eventually learned to play piano by ear.
He later played trumpet in the Charleston High School Marching Band, then went to Ole Miss for two semesters before enlisting in the Army in 1946.
At Colorado Springs, Colo., he hooked up with the Army band at Camp Carson and spent the rest of his service as a musician.
In 1950, he began playing in clubs, showcasing a unique musical style that he later said was influenced by a bluesman who lived and performed on his father’s Tippo farm.
In 1952 at LSU, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in philosophy and then went out into the world, getting married.
In 1956, the couple moved to New York City, where he got jobs playing as a musical accompanist. In 1957, he launched his solo career.
“He went there because he heard you could make a living,” said John. “What he did was bring Tippo with him in the musical form of sketches or songs that he called ‘Cotton Country Suite.’”
John said the collection included songs that he had authored, such as “Mojo Woman,” “Devil in the Cane Field,” “One Room Country Shack,” “Parchman Farm” and “Highway 49.”
“He gave that to Prestige Records and they loved it, but they thought it would have a better name for marketing if they called it ‘Back Country Suite,’” John added. “It got five-star reviews everywhere, so he did three albums that first year in 1957. In 1958, he released three more. He was straight out of the Delta, but for some reason the music community in New York and other places just ate up his renditions of the Delta.”
Allison’s appeal grew and spread, perhaps faster than he himself wanted.
Eventually, he began mixing in some overseas shows.
“When he went to London, England, he played 28 nights a year there for 15 years and they were all sold-out shows,” John recalled. “In 1964, the Rolling Stones opened up for him.”
But the modest country boy from Tippo, who penned 250 songs, recorded more than 50 albums and had his work covered by such artists as Van Morrison, Bonnie Raitt, The Clash, Eric Clapton, Elvis Costello, Bobbie Gentry and dozens more, never fully embraced the bright lights of stardom.
He preferred playing small clubs with intimate settings and eschewed the limelight.
“He called his career, 65 years of on-the-job training,” noted John, who recalled that his father often passed up award ceremonies, choosing instead to send him with some written comments to read on his behalf.
And in acknowledging the acccolades, Allison’s thoughts always drifted toward home.
“It was all about, ‘Everything I needed to learn in life, I learned in Tippo, Mississippi,’” said John. “He also had another one: ‘If it’s true it takes a village to raise a child, then I was truly raised by Tippo, Mississippi.’”
IN THE PHOTO: Mose Allison is pictured in a 2012 portrait by Michael Wilson.
