FERRIDAY — Tickets to hear “Room Full of Roses” in person from the man who recorded it are still available.

Mickey Gilley will host a two-hour benefit concert at the Vidalia Conference and Convention Center from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Aug. 1. The concert will benefit the Delta Music Museum.

Tickets to the event are $25.

“Mickey is coming down and he is not charging us for his time,” Delta Music Museum Director Lisa Marks said. “All the proceeds are going to be donated to the Friends of the Delta Music Museum Foundation to keep the museum open. He has always come to the museum’s aid in the past, and he is always willing to help out.”

The museum faced scaled-back operations during the last fiscal year after the Louisiana Secretary of State’s office took a $1 million mid-year budget cut from the state. Cuts at the local level were staved off by local donations.

Marks said the museum has been waiting to hear about state funding for the current fiscal year.

“They were supposed to let us know something July 1, and we were sent a notice that they will let us know something a little closer to the first week of August,” she said.

Approximately 13,000 visitors make their way through the museum and its associated property — the Arcade Theater — annually.

With a mission to collect, preserve and exhibit the musical heritage along the the Mississippi River, the Delta Music museum — located in the former Ferriday post office — is a free admission facility.

Twenty-one musical acts — including among others Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimmy Swaggart, Pewee Whitaker, Percy Sledge and Pete Fountain — have been inducted into the museum’s Hall of Fame. Newsman Howard K. Smith, a Ferriday native, has likewise been received into the Hall.

Gilley — who along with his cousins Lewis and Swaggart are Ferriday-area natives — was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2002.

A country singer who eventually became a figurehead in the so-called Countrypolitan movement, Gilley was named the Academy of Country Music’s top new male vocalist in 1974, top male vocalist and entertainer of the year in 1976 and Music City News’ most promising male artist of the year in 1976.

He also received the country music academy’s single of the year, song of the year and album of the year in 1976.

Tickets to the concert can be purchased at any Concordia Bank branch, the Vidalia and Ferriday branches of Delta Bank, the Vidalia branch of Tensas Bank, at Hammer’s Drive Thru in Vidalia, the Concordia Chamber of Commerce in Vidalia, Spokane Resort on Lake St. John and at the Delta Music Museum.

Tickets can also be purchased by calling the museum at 318-757-9999. The museum is open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Friday

Checks can be made out to Friends of the Delta Music Museum, P.O. Box 1733, Ferriday LA 71334.

“The Vidalia conference center has told us they will have 980 chairs, so we would love to have a sell out,” Marks said. “We need the people really get out, and I think the tickets are really reasonable.”