{"id":49062,"date":"2018-10-08T11:15:20","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T17:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=49062"},"modified":"2018-10-17T14:20:17","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T20:20:17","slug":"jim-weatherly-touches-down-on-thacker-mountain-radio-with-midnight-train-october-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/jim-weatherly-touches-down-on-thacker-mountain-radio-with-midnight-train-october-18\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Weatherly Touches Down on Thacker Mountain Radio with “Midnight Train” October 18"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thacker Mountain Radio will be at The Lyric Theater starting at 6 pm Thursday October 18.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

“From the college football stadiums of the South to enshrinement in the Songwriters Hall of Fame<\/strong> in New York\u2014I’m Jim Weatherly<\/strong>, and this is my story.<\/span><\/p>\n

I began writing songs as a boy in a small town in Mississippi during the first decade of rock and roll in the 1950s, a path that would eventually lead to my being inducted into five different music halls of fame<\/span><\/p>\n

As I continued to write songs during my youth, I was also excelling in sports, quarterbacking my high school football team to conference championships and statewide recognition.<\/span><\/p>\n

I had a rock and roll band throughout my high school days and I was the lead singer for the group. Music and sports have always been my two greatest passions.<\/span><\/p>\n

I became a scholarship football player at the University of Mississippi<\/strong> in Oxford, just half an hour’s drive from my hometown of Pontotoc<\/strong>. I continued to play music during my college years at Ole Miss with my rock and roll band. I would perform with my group after football season and in the spring and summer, and we became one of the more popular bands in Mississippi and the surrounding states.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a college sophomore in 1962, I was the backup quarterback on the only unbeaten and untied team in Ole Miss<\/strong> history. The Rebels were Southeastern Conference champions, national champions, and won the Sugar Bowl<\/strong> against Arkansas<\/strong> in New Orleans<\/strong> that season.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

It was during the 1962 football season that the University of Mississippi became a battleground of the civil rights movement with much turmoil surrounding the admission of the first black student, James Meredith<\/strong>. On September 29, 1962, a riot ensued to prevent the admission of Meredith. There were multiple injuries and two deaths that night.<\/span><\/p>\n

I played two more seasons for Ole Miss as the Rebels<\/strong> continued their winning ways, and I also continued to write songs and play music.<\/span><\/p>\n

After college, my band, The Gordian Knot<\/strong>, traveled to Los Angeles to look for a record deal. When that didn’t pan out the band split up, and I was on my own. I kept searching and searching for someone who liked my songs enough to give me a publishing deal.<\/span><\/p>\n

After a tremendous struggle, I eventually found someone who loved my songs and promised to “push them through the sky.” I then began to have songwriting success with several Rhythm & Blues artists who recorded my songs as well as country, jazz, and gospel artists.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gladys Knight & The Pips<\/strong> were the musical key to my success. “Neither One of Us,” “Midnight Train to Georgia,”<\/strong> and “You’re the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me”<\/strong> were all chart-toppers for the group. The first two of those were Grammy winners.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a small portion of an uplifting story of perseverance and my discovery of my own self-worth. Sometimes I can’t believe it happened to me.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thacker Mountain Radio will be at The Lyric Theater starting at 6 pm Thursday October 18. “From the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":49284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2239],"tags":[13376,13378,40,13375,7987,13373,13377,7067,4126,8107,602,846,13374,655],"class_list":["post-49062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-literary-events","tag-neither-one-of-us","tag-youre-the-best-thing-that-ever-happened-to-me","tag-football","tag-gladys-knight-the-pips","tag-jim-weatherly","tag-midnight-train","tag-midnight-train-to-georgia","tag-ole-miss","tag-pontotoc","tag-songwriters-hall-of-fame","tag-square-books","tag-thacker-mountain-radio","tag-the-gordian-knot","tag-university-of-mississippi"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Weatherly-feat.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}