Salemburg to honor local musician with hometown mural

SALEMBURG — The small Sampson County town is about to become home to a new art project that will pay homage to one of Salemburg’s most famous natives — legendary bass player Willie Weeks. The project: a mural that will be painted on a building in the heart of the town.

The mural, which will be painted on the outer wall of the 112 N Main Street building, beside Scrub Stylez & More, is part of a statewide initiative called North Carolina Musicians Mural project. The goal is to showcase and celebrate the musical talent of musicians that once called N.C. home, and Salemburg is home to Weeks.

The desire for creating the Weeks’ mural was a collaboration between the Salemburg town board and the Sampson Arts Council, all which started from a simple inquiry, explained Salemburg Mayor Joe Warren.

“The Arts Council called me and asked me if I’d be willing to do it, and of course I said we’d love to,” Warren said of agreeing to have the mural painted in the western Sampson town.

Arts Council Executive Director Kara Donatelli said the concept for the mural came to her after reading an article on artist Scott Nurkin, who will be painting the mural. Nurkin also started the North Carolina Musicians Mural project in 2020.

“I had seen the artist, Scott Nurkin in Our State magazine,” Donatelli recalled. “There was an article about him and how he does musician murals across North Carolina. And so, I knew about Willie Weeks and had recently found he had some family members still in the area.”

It was that discovery that ultimately got the project rolling, a project that came with Weeks’ blessing.

“I’d been looking for him (Weeks) for a long time, and I just didn’t have any contact information for him, but then I was able to to reach some of the family,” the arts director said. “We just wanted to make sure Willie was interested in having something like this done. When we got the OK, I then called Mayor Warren and put a bug in his ear about putting this project together.”

Knowing that Weeks was a very private person who didn’t like talking about his success in the music industry, Donatelli approached the idea carefully but hopefully. She was elated that he agreed to the project.

“I feel like a lot of people in Sampson County don’t even know about Willie, so I’m excited that we get to help change that with this mural,” she attested.

Nurkin is also a North Carolina artist. A native of Charlotte, hecurrently livs ein Chapel Hill where he attend college, graduating with an art degree in 2000. He began his musician painting artistry after a friend requested artwork from him for the new location of his eatery, Pepper’s Pizza, in 2006. He’s continued that work ever since.

Nurkin’s artistic love is two-fold as he’s also a lon-time musician and lover of music. One of his all-time favorite musicians, ironically, is Weeks. Now being given the task of bringing one of his idols to life on a mural in his former hometown, Nurkin said, was a true honor.

“This is great, it’s a true honor. I’ve been a fan of Willie Weeks most of my life,” he said. “He’s one of the greatest bass players of all time. As an American musician, he’s played with everybody that’s anybody and they’re lucky to have him. He’s lesser known just because he’s kind of in the shadows of most well known people, but he, I feel like, needs to to be up there with the top people, as far as notoriety goes.”

When Nurkin found out that Weeks was from Salemburg, he knew he had to paint a mural there.

“When I found that he was from this small town, I came to visit, met with Mayor Warren, and I was like, we gotta get this going,” he said. “He’s so enthusiastic about it, and he’s been working hard to find me a wall to paint. We’ve finally found a wall, and now I can’t wait to get started. I’ve got some other stuff I have to do before this one; I really want to put that away as soon as I can so we can jump to this.”

Nurkin’s excitement was matched by Warren’s.

“Oh, it’s an honor for me, as mayor, to get to do something like this,” the Salemburg mayor said. “Anything you can do good for this town to enhance it, you do it.”

Drafting of the mural is currently set for March 17, and Nurkin said if everything goes smoothly the project should only take a few days.

“It’ll take me two days to finish, normally, with something this size,” he said. “I’m assuming weather is nice and optimal, like sunny, and there’s no rain for two to three days or so. I’ll lay down a base paint that sort of seals up the brick, which gives me like a layer form of canvas like a gesso. Then I’ll do like a grid amount and then just spray paint it up pretty quick.”

“And I have to say that this is for sure gonna be the most exciting thing I got going on so I’m real, real excited to get started,” he said.

Weeks, born in Salemburg, began playing bass as a teenager in the early 1960s, according to the information from the N.C. Music Hall of Fame. Influenced by the music he heard on the radio and by bassists Ron Carter, James Jamerson and Ray Brown, he developed into an in-demand studio session bassist as well as a member of top-line artists touring bands.

That talent earned him the prestige to work alongside household names such as Chaka Khan, David Bowie, The Doobie Brothers, Aretha Frnaklin, Isaac Hayes, Billy Joe, B.B. King, The Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, Etta James and many more. The N.C. Music HoF said Weeks has even appeared in two movies — Blues Brothers 2000 and Lightning in a Bottle.

As a multi-genre bassist, Weeks is known for playing everything from blues, soul, R&B, country and jazz. His three and a half minute bass solo on Donny Hathaway’s 1972 Live album for song “Voices Inside (Everything Is Everything)” is touted as a landmark recording for bass players, according to the N.C. Music HoF.

“For fans of the bass, Willie Weeks plays a 1962 Fender Bass, a 1958 Precision bass, a 1964 Jazz Bass,” N.C. Music HoF wrote in Weeks biography. “During tours, in addition to those basses, he has played other basses made by Fender, Kay and Alleva Coppolo. He is acknowledged as one of the greatest bass players to ever play that instrument and known all over the world as a bass player’s bass player.”

While it wasn’t set in stone, Warren also noted Weeks expressed a desire to be present the day of the reveal but it was uncertain as he’s currenly touring in Japan.