NATCHEZ, Miss. – City aldermen have approved Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson’s request to attend the Mississippi Songwriters Hall of Fame induction ceremony for Glen Ballard, the Grammy award-winning Natchez native.
Aldermen agreed Tuesday for the mayor to represent the city at the September event being held in Ocean Springs, where the Mississippi Songwriters Festival is taking place.
Ballard, who grew up in Natchez and graduated from Natchez High School in 1971, is a six-time Grammy award-winning songwriter and producer and an Academy Award nominee.
He was inducted last year into the national Songwriters Hall of Fame in New York.
Ballard co-wrote and arranged Man in the Mirror for Michael Jackson and co-wrote and produced the critically acclaimed Alanis Morissette LP Jagged Little Pill — one of the best-selling records of all time at 33 million worldwide.
Among various artists he’s written songs for are Wilson Phillips, Christina Aguilera, Dave Matthews, George Strait, Josh Groban, Quincy Jones, Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand, Aerosmith, Van Halen, Andrea Bocelli, Katy Perry, Ringo Starr, George Benson, Shakira and Idina Menzel.
Gibson was absent from Tuesday’s Board of Aldermen meeting to be in Hartford, Conn., to join a delegation from Guinea, the African country from where a prince in 1788 was brought to the Natchez area and enslaved for 40 years. Prince Ibrahima was freed in 1828 and journeyed through Hartford in his trek back to Africa. Gibson was scheduled to speak at a program in Hartford this week to commemorate the prince.
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