Clarion-Ledger from Jackson, Mississippi • Page 29

A I ANN LANDERS COMICS TV LOG September 8, 1982 WEDNESDAY First public radio station in Jackson iff due in early 1983 'We want to present art forms and artists that are representative of Mississippi in a very positive Omega Wilson The a computerized lion who performs Elvis music, is one of about eight such characters at Chuck E. Cheese's restaurant Restaurant cooks up new way to dine By BILL NICHOLS CUriw-Ledcer SUH Writer Plans for WMPR, Jackson's first National Public Radio station and the second in the state, continue on the Touga-loo College campus. Construction should begin shortly on the station's studio, with broadcasting tentatively scheduled to begin in the first several months of 1983. WMPR, which will be a FM station, is a project of the J.C. Maxwell Broadcasting Group, a non-profit agency formed in 1979 to build a public radio station that would emphasize programming appealing to Mississippi's black population.

Omega Wilson, former station manager of WJSU and now general manger of WMPR, said he hopes the station will be on the air early in 1983, joining WNJC-FM at Northwest Mississippi Junior College in Senatobia as the only NPR-member stations in the state. He said the central purpose of WMPR will be to air music and public affairs programs of interest to black Mississip-pians. "Mississippi's minority population statewide is one of the largest in the country," Wilson said. "There are serious needs, and we hope to be providing services that weren't provided before." As a station, Wilson said WMPR will broadcast over an approximately 80-mile radius through the center of the state, spilling over into parts of Arkansas and Louisiana. Wilson said WMPR will reach approximately one million listeners.

National Public Radio, based in Washington, D.C., is a non-profit corporation begun in 1969 that has grown to include some 280 affiliate stations in 48 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. NPR broadcasts a massive slate, some 400 hours per week, of network programs but also airs programs produced by member stations. WMPR will join only five other black-operated public radio stations in the country. Though programming schedules are far from complete, Wilson said the new station will carry two of NPR's most popular programs, Morning Edition, a Monday through Friday morning news magazine, and Jazz a weekly Pea body Award-winning series of live performances covering the spectrum of jazz. Other acclaimed NPR programs that will be available to the Jackson affiliate are All Things Considered, a daily evening news magazine that also has won a Peabody Award; World ot Opera, which presents full-length American operas recorded live in performance; Interna-tional Concert Hall, which presents well-known European orchestras; Jazz Revisited, a weekly jazz retrospective; and Folk Festival USA, a presentation of American folk festivals and concerts that has included performances in the past of artists such as Arlo Guthrie, John Hartford, Bill Monroe and Junior Wells.

NPR also offers radio drama, such as NPR Playhouse, a daily theater series, and Earplay, which has featured works by young authors such as David Mamet, Anne Commire and Janet Neipris. Wilson said local programming will include WMPR's own magazine-style public affairs programs and a musical format concentrating on jazz and blues, music indigenous to Mississippi. He said the station hopes to broaden the image of Mississippi performers, like bluesmen like Big Joe Williams, who is known internationally but not appreciated within his home state. "We want to present art forms and artists that are representative of Mississippi in a very positive way," Wilson said. The Maxwell group, made up of 25 local individuals, began to build toward realization of their goal in August 1981, when the group received a $75,000 grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to cover pre-operational expenses.

The Maxwell group also received a grant of $197,687 late in 1981 from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, an agency of the Department of Commerce. The grant was intended to cover the cost of primary expenses such as the purchase of equipment to get the station on the air. The Maxwell group also has been named in a trust fund set up by Communications Improvement the interim licensee for WLBT-TV from 1971 to 1981. According to guidelines governing the grant money set up by NPR, WMPR must be on the air during 1983, and as a community service station, the station must meet the following regulations: WMPR must have a budget of $100,000, raised from non-federal sources; have a broadcast facility with two control rooms and two adjoining studios; must be on the air 18 hours per day 365 days a year; must have a staff of five full-time professionals, three in managerial positions; and must have sufficient power to cover the city in which it broadcasts. Wilson said he couldn't estimate the budget the station will be working with until local fund-raising begins.

Public radio stations are allowed by law to offer businesses opportunities to underwrite programs, with the businesses being identified on the air as program sponsors. Staff pficrtog by K7en Newswn Joseph Giuf ria, 2, gives a glad hand to Chuck Cheese himself. By SUSAN GREETING Oartoa-Udger SUif Writer Opening night for Jackson's newest pizza restaurant was just two weeks ago, but folks are already on a first-name basis with the restaurant's mascot a man-sized mouse. As he weaved around tables of customers last week, trailing a tail that left at least one trash can wobbling in its wake, children repeatedly chimed his name. "Hey, Chuck El Cheese," they cried between bites of pizza.

As the restaurant's goodwill ambassador, Chuck is to pizza what Ronald McDonald is to Big Macs. But while Ronald's appearances are rare, Chuck is always in the wings as resident rodent of Chuck EL Cheese's Pizza Time Theater, 5465 1-55 North. The restaurant, one of 154 in the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theater chain, offers families more than a menu of sandwiches, salads, sundaes and pizza, said William Melvin, who co-owns the Jackson restaurant with Richard Ciaccio. Diners get a side dish of entertainment thanks to the antics of the animated, computerized characters that sing and tell jokes in the three (lining rooms.

Chuck is the "main mouse," but be shares the billing with at least seven other performers including Jasper T. Jowls, a banjo-playing hound dog, and Madame Oink, a porcine player of plentiful proportions. In one room, a lion labeled "The King" warbles Elvis music while four beagles mouth Beatles' songs in another section. The characters click on automatically about every eight minutes, said Melvin, but customers also can activate them by inserting tokens. Each character has 18 programs he can perform.

Chuck EL Cheese's also boasts a game room with more than 70 electronic games. For tots too young for games like Donkey-Kong, there are small rides. Chuck EL Cheese's is the brainchild of Nolan Bush- must be accompanied by an adult "We want everything supervised," he said. Children are the chain's main target and much is done to woo them. The restaurant sponsors youth athletic teams and also offers group tours, which include an inspection of the kitchen, an examination of the computer control system for the robot characters and electronic games, food, free tokens to play the electronic games and a personal appearance by Chuck E.

Cheese. Some of the restaurant's characters also can be loaned out for personal appear ancesat school functions or benefits. Children can join the restaurant fan club and receive several freebies, and birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese's also include extras. Although some might single out the games and characters as the restaurant's main attraction, Melvin said the food is his foremost concern.

"We want to have the best pizza in town," he said. "This is a restaurant and that is what we are here to provide. Everything after that is a bonus." nell, the microelectronics expert who founded Atari electronic games in 1972. Bushnell's idea was to offer families a good meal plus an evening of entertainment The first Pizza Time Theater debuted in San Jose in 1977 and the Sunnvale, company has grown steadily since then. Melvin and Ciaccio, who both have worked for McDonald's, bought the rights to build Chuck E.

Cheese's in Arkansas and Mississippi. Melvin said they plan to use Jackson as their base of operations. Chuck E. Cheese's first foray into Mississippi seems to be successful, if one examines the remarks customers have written on the company's response cards. Almost all rated the restaurant "excellent" and some even added compliments like, "Good food and fun," and "I just love it" "They've been unbelievable," Melvin said.

"It's been like we wrote them." Melvin believes Chuck E. Cheese's secret to success is that it is family oriented. Any customer under age 18 Vicksburg man finally switches fields cotton to songwriting and lead vocals. 'My long-term goal is really my short-term goal. I want to buy me an antebellum home in Vicksburg, overlooking the Mississippi River, and watch the Delta Queen go by and fish with my brothers Mark Gray By LESLIE R.

MYERS darte-Ledger SUM Writer It's a long haul across the state line from Mississippi cotton fields to Nashville recording studios. But Mississippi's Mark Gray managed to write his ticket for the trek through songwriting. Gray, whose work has already produced a No. 1 hit and the beginnings of his own publishing company, found fame and fortune in Nash- ville "after coming off a tractor in a pi cotton field. "I used to sing harmony with the exhaust pipe all day long.

I'd come to the end of a row, pull back the throttle and change keys," he said of early "rehearsals" while working on his brother's Utica farm. Since those days, Gray, 29, has changed his occupation from picking cotton to picking hits on music charts, the Vicksburg native explained in a telephone interview from his Nashville home. "Now, I'd say royalties have changed my whole outlook on life," he said, anticipating revenues from five new recorded singles that he co-wrote. "I was wondering if I ever was going to quit eating tomato soup, Cheetos and cornflakes with water." Gray's success began this summer when a song he had co-written a few years ago raite Me Down became a No. 1 hit when it was recorded by country music's top band, Alabama.

"I seem to be having a lot of luck," he said. Now edging up the charts is another Gray co-penned single, It Ain't Easy Being Easy, recorded by Janie Fricke. Scheduled to be released in January are four more songs co-written by Gray in quite diverse musical catagories. "I write everything from to country music to rock 'n' roll," he said. Testifying to that variety will be the Gray sounds of Mce Girls, to be released a by June Pointer of the famed Pointer Sisters; Whatever It Is, to be released by the still-successful Four Tops; Poor Boy, to be sung by Gray spent three years with the group and world tours became part of his schedule.

The band gained recognition with such songs as Want to Kiss You All Over, Part of Me That Needs You Most and You're Good For Me. The latter song was co-written by Gray. During those years, Gray and lead guitarist J.P. Pennington wrote Take Me Down the song first recorded by Exile that later would bring notoriety to Gray in the hands of Alabama. With other popular artists anxious to record other Gray songs, he left Exile about three months ago in pursuit of his own publishing company and his own solo singing career, he said.

Maintaining a songwriting agreement with Exile's recording company, Warner Brothers Records, Gray now has established his publishing company and bis songs will be administered through Warner Brothers. "It gives me about three-fourths of the (financial) pie and they (Warner Brothers) get one-fourth," he said, explaining the incentive to start his own business. Earnings from that partnership, however, won't begin to roll in until the four singles are released next year, he said. For Gray, success hasn't meant forgetting his roots and his family in Mississippi. He was quick to point out that he named his publishing company Daticabo "because I've got four brothers and a sister in Mississippi Dennis, Austin, Terry, Charles and Bonnie.

Somewhere in that name, there's an initial for each one of them. It's for them" In addition to the songs he has written for others, Gray hopes people will be able to hear his own voice, a bit of piano playing and more of his self-penned songs on his first solo album For the effort, Gray said he already has rounded up two producers: Bob Montgomery, who has guided such talents as Janie Fricke and Ray Stevens, and Steve Buckingham, who produced albums for such golden-throated vocalists as Dionne Warwick and Melissa Manchester. Tm going in (to record) soon we're A. music. They said they needed someone like me in their company to help screen songs," Gray said of his first big break and his initial move to Nashville.

"I went to 'college' with the Oak Ridge Boys that was my education." His work in their publishing company continued for about two years; finally, the money ran out, Gray's car was reposessed and he moved back home to work in the cotton fields. Between work shifts on the farm, Gray continued to practice what he had learned from the gospel group that would turn out to be one of country music's finest He recorded demo tapes with Malaco Records in Jackson as well as companies in Nashville. With increasing expertise, he began to make a musical living by combining his singing and piano-playing talents and performing in Jackson restaurants and nightclubs during the mid-'70s. "I did five years of piano vocals in Jackson," Gray said with some pride. In his first few years of solo performing he appeared in such spots as The Red Barn, Main Harbor and Bernard's Bistro.

Later, he opened Oliver's restaurant at Highland Village, where he played for three years, he said. Convinced he was ready to take on Nashville again, he returned to the city in 1978 "with 40 songs in my pocket." Within two weeks, he earned a songwriting contract with Records. This trip, Gray was able to pay the rent but real recognition didn't come until he got a phone call from members of Exile. They had heard his voice a Nashville demo tape and asked him tojoin them on piano Razzy Bailey; and Baby, You're Just Like Me by Michael Johnson. Gray started his career as a musician and eventually broadened bis marketable talents by writing songs.

"It's hard to say where my songs come from," he said. He first began making them up as a child when "I didn't have sense to write them down." In his latest efforts, "Poor Boy was derived directly from Mississippi, but I had to put 'Alabama' in the first verse because that's where Razzy is from. Take Me Down could have been experienced with any woman anywhere. "I don't think any writer really lives everything they write they just try to touch on the emotion they think is in everyone," he said. "I put enough of me in it to touch everyone because everyone is alike in some ways." Gray may be one of the newer faces in Nashville's songwriting industry.

But he is no stranger to his hometown, to the Jackson music circuit enthusiasts or to folks who used to follow the contemporary-rock band Exile. As a 16-year-old student at Warren Central High School in Vicksburg, his singing and guitar playing skills first were recognized in a school talent contest, which later earned him a spot on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour in Memphis, i In the early 1970s after graduation, Gray was playing backup instrumentals for a gospel group in a Meridian show and met a gospel group called the Oak Ridge Bcfys. "It was during their transition into country MARK GRAY 'ingoing to cut some hits," Gray said enthusiasti- cally about the proposed country soul album. Gray's ultimate definition of success isn't earning a spot on Nashville's tour of country music stars' homes. "My long-term goal is really my short-term goal I want to buy me an antebellum home in Vicksburg, overlooking the Mississippi River, and watch the Delta Queen go by and fish with my brothers," he said.

"And I'll perform when I want to perform. "Performing to an artist is like cooking tb a chef," he said. 1.