Fall 2021 Showcase Gaines

Lucy Gaines
Freak Out: The Early Days of Bebop Record Shop

Founded in 1974 by three college grads, Bebop Record Shop was an anchor for off-beat music seekers in unlikely Jackson, Mississippi. Staffed by music gurus and diverse musicians, Bebop became a hangout for Jackson’s “freaks and weirdos,” and an incubator of bands fighting the current of the local music scene. Through a sea of cover bands, bands like The Germans, Oral Sox, Used Goods, and more emerged from the Bebop crew to push original punk music to the fore.

Bebop ushered diversity through Jackson’s music scene for 37 years, leaving its legacy not only in the vinyl still occupying our shelves, but in the unabashed creative community it fostered. Freak Out investigates the magic so many attribute to the record shop and its earliest days.

Lucy Gaines is an MFA candidate in Southern Studies and Documentary Expression at the University of Mississippi. Originally from Jackson, MS, she earned a BA in English Literature and BFA in Studio Art from Rhodes College in Memphis before moving to Nashville where she worked in writing and marketing. Now back in her home state, she continues to write and document the South in oral histories and film.