Miles Davis

The Arkansas delta’s rich musical and cultural heritage is often overshadowed by the Mississippi delta. Yet as Jimmy Cunningham Jr. and Donna Cunningham note in their book Delta Music and Film: Jefferson County and the Lowlands, published by Arcadia, the Arkansas delta has much to be proud of. Celebrated jazz musician Miles Davis spent time in his formative years with his grandfather in the Noble Lake area. He writes in his autobiography: “We’d be walking on these dark country roads at night and all of a sudden this music would seem to come out of nowhere…that blues, church, back-road funk kind of thing that southern…rural sound and rhythm. I think it started getting into my blood on them spook-filled Arkansas back-roads after dark when the owls come out hooting.”