BY SHELLEY CRUNK DBJ Contributing Writer

Eagle Academy director Joe Johnson sums up his school’s mission in simple words: “Teach ‘em how to fish, not just to know the fisherman.”
This Mound Bayou music school teaches far more than notes and chords. The school provides area youth with a general music education, while simultaneously exposing them to the music and media industry and its broad spectrum of career opportunities. Johnson wants his students to understand that it’s not just the singers and videos they see on television that comprise the music industry. He wants them to understand the many options available to them “behind the curtains”. “What’s not seen makes what they see,” he explains.
Johnson, a native of Mound Bayou, first got the idea for Eagle Academy from his mentor, Ed Townsend. Townsend was a recording artists himself who became a pop producer in the seventies, working with such artists as Marvin Gaye and Main Ingredient. Townsend came to Mound Bayou one summer, drawn by the intrigue of Delta blues. He was interested in the town and wanted to get a group of children together to start a record company. Johnson joined with him that summer and “eventually ended up staying with him.”
Johnson explains, “I knew I loved music, but I didn’t understand the technical part.” Then Townsend showed him the technicalities of music production, and Johnson ended up working with him for four years, eventually becoming his “right hand man.”
“He enlightened me a whole lot about how the business works,” Johnson says. The experience also awakened in Johnson a strong desire to see the state of poverty broken in the Delta. “The Delta is known for blues musicians not being able to gain financially from their works,” Johnson explains. “I have a desire to see that state of poverty broken here.”
And through Eagle Academy, Johnson is attempting to do just that. By teaching students about the many facets of the music and media industry, Johnson hopes to empower them and make both them and his school self-sufficient. “That’s how we’re gonna attack poverty in this area,” he says firmly.
Many classes at Eagle Academy focus on the technical side of recording. Students receive training in areas not usually thought of or even covered in the most prestigious of music programs. Students in this program gain experience in recording, sequencing, and mixing. A student who has been through the Eagle Academy should have “the ability to take an artist and do a full production,” explains Johnson. And when he feels his students are ready to do a full production, Johnson has several record companies, including MTL, Malaco, and GGNet Music willing to work with them.
The students are also given exposure to different equipment, some state-of-the-art and some almost antiquated. Johnson explains that there is a whole field of experts in old equipment, both in maintenance and to “research and make better, up to date.” In this area alone, Johnson says there are a “vast number of job opportunities, even down to the [microphone] cord.”
Students at Eagle Academy have many experiences working with outside consultants who are experts in their fields. Though Johnson does the bulk of the instruction, he is not afraid to call in the reinforcements when it is time to teach a subject with which he is not familiar. One such example is Charles Hodges from Memphis. Hodges, who played the organ on Al Green’s recordings, will come to Eagle Academy this summer to teach students about the Hammond Organ. “The Hammond Organ is almost extinct,” Johnson says, “because of the new synthesizers which provide an easy way out.” In order to play the Hammond Organ, students have to master many particular skills, all of which Hodges will teach this summer.
Eagle Academy opened two years ago in the Walk of Faith ministries building. It is an after-school program for approximately fifteen children, changing into “full swing” all day during the summer. General music students range from age eight to nineteen, though certain exceptions can be made if “natural talent” is evident. Technical students are ages thirteen and up.
Students must apply to the school, and only a limited amount are accepted due to the size of the current facility. But with recent grant applications comes the hope that soon Eagle Academy will be in its own building, able to accept more students into its program.
Eventually Johnson hopes each of the departments of Eagle Academy will be self-sufficient. He foresees the audio, video, 3-D animation, and computer graphic departments as one day being run by the students, both attracting their own business and continuing on with the education of other young students. It is not grants that will keep Eagle Academy viable, Johnson stresses. These departments must be self-sufficient “in order to survive.”
Johnson is also quick to point out that Eagle Academy is not his alone. “It takes a lot of help, a lot of support. It really works out when people can lend their special skill, be it marketing, bookkeeping, or a talent.” Anyone interested in sharing their skills with Eagle Academy is welcome to call Joe Johnson at 662-741-2788. DBJ