Dardanelle Hadley 
Dardanelle Hadley: A Biography
Dardanelle (Marcia Marie) Hadley grew up in Avalon, Mississippi, where she studied with Gladys Bacon, a Greenwood music teacher. An internationally known singer and pianist, Dardanelle's father Marcius Mosley "Buck" Mullen never studied music, never read it, but could play anything, particularly ragtime. Today Dardanelle says she doesn't practice practice. Her "perfect" execution on the piano is a gift from her father. Her sister Marie was also a marvelous pianist, but she died at the age of nineteen from the flu. Their grandmother closed up the piano for seven years at Marie's death. The blue-eyed, talented performer was nicknamed "Peter" or "Pete" as a child because she was such a tomboy. Later the name "Dardanelle" came from newspaper stories about the Second World War in the strait of the Dardanelles.
 Musically, Dardanelle has an intricate, improvisional style which has labeled her a "jazz musician." Her career included many recordings and live performances from New York to London. She moved back to Mississippi in the middle 1980's and from 1986-1988 she was Artist in Residence at Ole Miss. Stories about her past were recorded during a radio show she did in Senabobia for WJNC. WKNO in Memphis then picked them up and in 1996 the vignettes ran on PRM. The cassette is entitled "Dardanelle Down Home: The Way Things Used to Be."
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Timeline
1986-1988--Artist in Residence at Ole Miss.
1994 - moved to Winona, Mississippi.
1997, May--Classic cabaret performance at Lamar King Music Hall in Confederate Memorial Building in Greenwood,
Mississippi. She was joined for the performance by Dr. London Branch, a bassist, and Murray Kornfeld, a drummer.
1997 --Dardanelle died.
Dardanelle Down Home with the Loonis McGlohon
PERSONNEL: Dardanelle Hadley, vocals and vibes; Loonis McGlohon, piano;
arrangements, leader; Rob Brendle or Terry Peoples, bass; Bill Stowe, drums. 
TUNES: Dinner On the Ground; Moonlight Mississippi; Stars Fell On Alabama; Just A Little Bit South of North Carolina; Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans; Sweet Kentucky Ham; Georgia On My Mind; Birmingham; Memphis In June; Winchester in Apple Blossom Time; Atlanta G.A.; Blue Grass; Down to Steamboat Tennessee; New Orleans; Little Gray House; I'm Coming, Virginia.
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Bibliography
the Commonwealth (May 19, 1997), Greenwood, Mississippi
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