Month: August 2001

Categories
News News Feature

Slanting Graham’s Life

Some time before he committed suicide 38 years ago, leaving the Washington Post Company in the hands of his widow Katharine, publisher Philip Graham described journalism as “the first draft of history.”

Katharine Graham’s death prompted a flood of media accolades in mid-July. But history — no matter how early the draft — should not be distorted by easy adulation of the powerful.

A few hours after she passed away, typical coverage aired on The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer. The PBS program featured a roundtable discussion “to help us assess the life and impact of Katharine Graham.” One of the guests was historian Michael Beschloss, who often appears on major TV networks.

Beschloss summed up the historic role of Katharine Graham: “She always spoke truth to power,” he said. The assertion was absurd. Naturally, it went unchallenged by the other two panelists, both longtime high-ranking employees of the Washington Post Company.

After decades in The Washington Post newsroom as a national-security reporter, Walter Pincus was on hand to comment about Graham. “She had an instinct for honesty and what’s right,” he told viewers, “and the book is the first time that became public.”

“The book” — her acclaimed autobiography Personal History — received enormous media praise and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998. Graham’s death set off a new explosion of tributes to her bestseller.

On NPR’s Morning Edition, the editor of The New Yorker magazine opted for hyperbole. “She wrote one of the great autobiographies,” David Remnick said. The day before, he had been on the same network lauding the same book as “incredibly genuine and generous and real.”

Personal History is true to the first word of the title. The book does an excellent job of chronicling an individual’s struggle to rebound from tragedy and overcome sexist barriers. Yet the book is a heavy volume of historic narcissism — a magnum opus of upper-class vainglory and scrupulous evasion.

Prior to her admirable support for the Post‘s breakthrough reporting on Watergate nearly 30 years ago, Graham was a key player in the June 1971 battle over the Pentagon Papers. But such journalistic fortitude came late in the Vietnam War. During most of the bloodshed, the Post gave consistent editorial boosts to the war and routinely regurgitated propaganda in the guise of objective reporting. Graham’s book never comes close to acknowledging that her newspaper mainly functioned as a helpmate to the war-makers in the White House, State Department, and Pentagon.

Though she was president of the Washington Post Company by then, Personal History makes no mention of the pivotal Gulf of Tonkin incident in early August 1964. Like other daily papers, the Post dutifully reported the U.S. government’s lies as facts. Within days, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, opening the door to massive escalation of the war.

Three years ago, I interviewed Murrey Marder, the reporter who wrote much of The Washington Post‘s coverage of the Tonkin Gulf events. He recalled that the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese navy had been shelling North Vietnamese coastal islands just prior to the supposed “attacks” by North Vietnam on U.S. ships in the Tonkin Gulf. But the fix was in: “Before I could do anything as a reporter, The Washington Post had endorsed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.”

Asked whether the Post ever retracted its Tonkin Gulf reporting, Marder replied: “I can assure you that there was never any retraction.” He added: “If you were making a retraction, you’d have to make a retraction of virtually everyone’s entire coverage of the Vietnam War.”

Graham’s 625-page book offers no hint of introspection about the human costs of her wartime discretion. In August 1966, she huddled with a writer in line to take charge of the editorial page. “We agreed,” she wrote, “that the Post ought to work its way out of the very supportive editorial position it had taken, but that we couldn’t be precipitous; we had to move away gradually from where we had been.” Terrible years of further carnage resulted from such unwillingness to “be precipitous.”

While devoting many pages to her warm friendships with top U.S. government officials and business tycoons, Graham expresses no concern that the Post has been serving the political and economic agendas of corporate elites. The autobiography has little use for people beyond Graham’s dazzling peers. Even activists who made history are mere walk-ons. In her book, the name of Martin Luther King Jr. was not worth mentioning.

For a book so widely touted as a feminist parable, Personal History is notably bereft of solidarity for women without affluence or white skin. They barely seem to exist in the great media executive’s range of vision.

If Katharine Graham “always spoke truth to power,” then journalism and history are lost in a murky twilight zone.

Norman Solomon’s latest book is The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media. His syndicated column focuses on media and politics.

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

The Good Earth

On Monday and Friday afternoons in the parking lot of Tsunami restaurant in Cooper-Young, customers anxiously wait to see what fresh fruits and vegetables “Tinker” Talley has brought. Talley, a 52-year-old Ripley farmer, is changing the perspective of Memphis shoppers with his California-style produce.

That produce ranges from the common Ripley tomato to the unusual blue potato. Talley grows over 40 kinds of tomatoes in all (with heirloom tomatoes, he says, by far the ugliest) and offers 12 kinds of eggplant, including the long, slim Japanese eggplant, which is hard to find in the Mid-South. Some of his most prized vegetables: daikon radishes, starburst and zapher squash, butter beans, spinach, Swiss chard, white and gold beets, baby bok choy, Caribbean red peppers, corn shoots, yellow French beans, and Roma beans. In addition, he grows a variety of fruits, including canary melons, honeydew, watermelon, huckleberries, and more.

Talley’s favorite? The red, green, and purple bell peppers.

“These things are the biggest peppers I ever saw in my life,” Talley says with pride.

On Monday and Friday mornings, Talley picks a number of fruits and vegetables and loads his trailer. He travels across Memphis delivering orders to local restaurants and parks his truck at Tsunami from 5 to 8 p.m. to sell to the public. Lulu Grille, Grisanti’s, the Plaza Club, Automatic Slim’s, Erling Jensen’s, Harrah’s casino, the Grove Grill, and the University Club all put in weekly orders. Talley also donates some of his produce to food banks and other charitable organizations around town.

Talley grew cotton and his brother grew soybeans. He is a fifth-generation farmer and he’s been driving a tractor since age 11. But three years ago Talley realized he could no longer make a living farming cotton. It was a hard thing for him to come to terms with. “I like being a farmer and I could work the tail off of anybody,” Talley says.

Instead of giving up, Talley looked in a different direction. He read seed catalogs, he searched the Internet, he made trips to California, all to learn more about growing fruits and vegetables. And it wasn’t long before the research turned into a hands-on project that kept Talley busy every day — and still does.

He works his 30-acre farm seven days a week. He chain-smokes and drinks one Mountain Dew after another (for the caffeine). He wears loafers instead of heavy boots and holds out his oversized T-shirt to substitute as a basket when he’s out picking produce.

Talley says he’s learning daily through what he calls “on-the-job training,” and each vegetable and seed comes with a story. The hot peppers he picks wearing gloves because they’re so hot, and the corn shoots only grow at night. Talley buys seeds from 14 states to keep up the variety. “I found that I can grow things that people don’t even know about,” Talley says. “There are people willing to try them, though, and that’s what makes this thing work.”

Customers often ask Talley the best way to cook his vegetables, and he just as often tells them with a blank face, “You don’t have to grow it and I don’t have to cook it.” In fact, Talley claims to rarely eat his own produce, much less cook it. But he does admit with a grin, “My wife did make a fine huckleberry pie not too long ago. “

As Talley prepares to plant for the next season, he says he’ll be tickled to death if he breaks even at the end of the year. “It’s still a risky business and I’m paying for my own mistakes.”

But he’s not ready to quit. “Being on the farm is what makes me happy,” Talley says and then reveals that one day he wants to have a commercial kitchen and sell salsa made from his own fresh ingredients.

“And when I’m dead, I’m going to stop worrying about the farm. But until then, I’ll keep doing what I love the most,” he says, as he laughs and picks more bell peppers.

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

Holding His Own

PHOTO BY LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
Will Solomon at the Grizzlies’ rookie camp at Rhodes College.

There’s just so much to learn. Imagine getting to the top of a mountain and realizing that mountain was just a molehill. The real mountain is in the distance. The only consolation is that the mountain is at least visible now — though there may be more mountains beyond.

That’s what it is like to make the transition from college to the pros. Every aspect of the game has changed. Just ask Will Solomon, a stand-out guard from Clemson University. He holds 15 school records there and scored in double figures for 52 games straight. He led the ACC in scoring his sophomore year and is second in career three-pointers at Clemson.

But during his first press conference in Memphis, after being drafted by the Grizzlies along with Shane Battier and Pau Gasol, Solomon is just that other guy. The one the Grizzlies took in the second round and who will play behind both starter Jason Williams and back-up Brevin Knight. He’s the one too small to play his college position of shooting guard and has been moved to point guard, where he doesn’t have the experience or ball-handling skills.

Solomon has also yet to master his public presentation. During the press conference, Solomon wore a T-shirt and shorts. His counterparts wore expensive suits. When asked questions, Solomon either deferred to his teammates or repeated what Battier had already said, talking in halting media speak, with clichés to spare.

So what does this mean? Absolutely nothing. Sitting down to talk to Solomon, it becomes obvious that this quiet 22-year-old has something to say. He just isn’t used to talking about it. But when the clichés run out, he reveals the savvy and intelligence that allow him to change his game, to focus on the pass instead of the shot and on defending rather than scoring.

Just ask a simple question. What’s your favorite play? “You know the Grizzlies offense fits my style of play,” Solomon says. “They like to run and gun. That’s something that fits me. I like to run. Making the transition from a shooting guard to a point guard, it’s something that I have really enjoyed.”

That’s nice, but what’s your favorite play? There’s a pause and a feeling of steely eyes sizing up a defender before a shot is fired to the basket. “I’d probably call a ‘Fist 9’,” he says. “It’s just a running-ball screen, where the guard brings it up for the point guard to create something for himself or others.” Fist 9 is a play loaded with options and opportunities for someone who can score and pass like Solomon. It only requires someone with on-court chutzpah to make the play happen.

“It’s just confidence,” he says with a shrug. “You have to have a lot of confidence to play this game. You have to be willing to get the ball in your hands at any time and be comfortable with that. That’s just part of my game. I feel comfortable at any time: the first four minutes, the last four minutes.”

Solomon personifies the combination of talent and practice that makes basketball physical poetry. Within the strict confines of the rules, individual brilliance and hard work flourish. It’s impossible to ask an artist how to make art, and it’s just as hard to ask a basketball player to explain how to be good. How exactly do you explain a three-point play? An alley-oop pass? A blinding cross-over dribble? It’s just something good players do when the time is right.

Solomon knows this. He knows that the transition offense the Grizzlies are teaching him requires these sorts of unconscious adjustments. “You have to have a lot of trust in your players to let them keep going up and down,” says Solomon. “A lot of things can happen, turn-overs, bad passes, forced shots, just because it’s a transition game.”

Solomon runs his defensive game the same way. He’s just going to go out there and play. “I don’t watch a lot of tape,” he says. “After the first couple of moves you know how to defend them.”

Solomon might not have the niceties of the NBA down to a science. But so what? He is learning the game faster than many might expect and has earned his contract during the summer leagues (second-round draft picks don’t have guaranteed contracts). So allow him his clichés. “Hopefully, I’ll have the opportunity to fill whatever holes need to be filled,” he says. “I’m just willing to learn first and take my time and help the team win some ball games.”

The molehill of his college experience is behind him. Now all he has to do is climb that mountain.

Categories
Theater Theater Feature

Wildflowers

Kim Justis and Jenny Odle have their act together. They would like to take it on the road someday soon.

“Your article could help get us an agent,” Jenny says, fussing with her long, enviously thick mane of dark blond hair. “You could say how incredible we are and make us sound really smart.” She crinkles up her nose, shoves her face into the dressing room mirror, pulls the lower lid of her left eye down just about as far as a lower lid will pull without detaching, and begins to probe for stray lashes with her index finger.

“Yes, make us sound really smart,” Kim chimes in. “That’s a really good idea, Jenny.” Kim, significantly shorter and darker than her statuesque acting partner, is piddling with her own shorter, darker hair, twisting it into a tight corkscrew, then clamping it in place with some dangerous-looking variation on the dreaded banana clip, only to unclip it a moment later and clip it again. “You can say a bunch of things and make us sound very in-tuh-leck-shool.”

The two actresses have come together to recreate their award-winning performances in Kathy Najimy and Mo Gaffney’s HBO phenomenon Parallel Lives, a series of wildly comic sketches about everything from death to dating that requires each actress to morph into some 30-odd characters. Emphasis on “odd.” Equal emphasis on “characters.” Unlike most of the feminist theater and performance art that emerged in the overly serious Eighties — grueling anatomical laundry lists and overwrought declarations of independence — Parallel Lives is about characters, not causes. Punch lines replace platitudes, and the result is pure comic catharsis. It’s smart without being even the teeniest bit pretentious. It’s entertaining but never frothy, shot through with powerful moments when the comedy sneaks ever so quietly off stage, leaving devastatingly accurate introspection all alone in the spotlight. Only the rarest of performers are capable of taking on a show like Parallel Lives with any hope of success.

Fiercely smart, disarmingly casual, and disgustingly talented, these actresses are a perfect fit. But this is no great revelation. If you saw the first production of Parallel Lives, a show that shattered box-office records for Theatre Memphis’ Little Theatre, you know this. If you have ever seen one of their infamous cabaret shows you know this all too well. Though the sky-scraping blond and the diminutive brunette could not be more physically dissimilar, they work together like a set of identical twins. They are the very definition of chemistry. Backstage they finish each other’s sentences.

On opening night an admirer sends them both bud vases full of black-eyed Susans. For these two, the offering seems far more appropriate than the more traditional and certainly more precious gift of roses. The house manager delivers the wildflowers, winking, “You both look vurry, vurry purdy t’night.” Director Ann Marie Hall enters with more opening-night gifts. She too notes that the girls look “vurry, vurry purdy t’night.” Others enter and exit the dressing room, each repeating the slurred compliment with Stepfordian precision. It is of course a line from the show’s most memorable piece, and Kim Justis, topped with a cowboy hat, sucking on a Marlboro and a Lone Star, delivers it so perfectly that there is no way to avoid getting it stuck in your head. But with frequent, less studied repetition the phrase seems to stale.

“Don’t you guys get tired of hearing that?”

“Hearing what?” Kim asks. I’ve been trapped by a master trapper. Now I have to say it too. So I do, and the pair answer in unison with a resounding, and certainly not surprising, “No, nope, unh-uh, never get tired of hearing that.” “It’s always such a surprise,” Kim adds.

“One time when I was at Circuit Playhouse, Grayson Smith — the guy who cleans carpets for all of the theaters — he made me this paper flower. And he gave it to me and said, ‘You look vurry, vurry purdy t’night.’ You can’t ever get tired of something like that.”

The bigger question, however, is will Memphis audiences get tired of Parallel Lives? It’s scarcely been a year-and-a-half since the show was last performed here and nearly 10 years after its multiple ACE Award-winning debut on HBO, and the original cast production frequently shows up in the TV Guide listings. This doesn’t seem to bother the girls at all.

“We really know these characters now,” Jenny says. “People are always coming up and saying things like, ‘I saw this show on HBO and liked you guys so much better,’ or ‘It was so different.’ Now there are so many new textures, so many deeper things happening.”

Not content to merely revive Parallel Lives again and again, Jenny and Kim have begun to work with a screenwriter friend in L.A. in order to develop an original script custom-tailored for their unique talents. They aren’t ready to dispense the details just yet, but they did hint that it might all take place in a bathroom. A vurry, vurry purdy bathroom, no doubt.

Parallel Lives is in the Little Theatre at Theatre Memphis through August 19th.

Categories
Theater Theater Feature

Sealing the Envelope

The nominees for this year’s Memphis Theatre Awards, recently rechristened the Ostranders, are in. The awards will be given on Sunday, August 26th, at The Dixon Gallery and Gardens. Watch for my annual “picks and pans” in next week’s issue.

SET DESIGN

Zombie Prom — Tim McMath, Circuit Playhouse

Blithe Spirit — Michael Walker, Theatre Memphis

Far East — Michael Walker, Theatre Memphis

Stop Kiss — Tim McMath, Circuit Play- house

Side Man — Mark Guirguis, Playhouse on the Square

COSTUME DESIGN

Dreamgirls — Gregory Horton, Play- house on the Square and Memphis Black Repertory Theater

Zombie Prom — Elizabeth R. Payne, Cir- cuit Playhouse

Far East — Andre Bruce Ward, Theatre Memphis

Hay Fever — Rebecca Y. Powell, Play- house on the Square

Blithe Spirit — Andre Bruce Ward, The- atre Memphis

LIGHTING DESIGN

Far East — Melissa Schapira Hanson, Theatre Memphis

Love! Valour! Compassion! — Carin L. Edwards-Orr, Circuit Playhouse

Stop Kiss — Caroline Yacono, Circuit Playhouse

Blithe Spirit — Melissa Schapira Hanson, Theatre Memphis

Side Man — Michael J. Delorm, Play- house on the Square

MUSIC DIRECTION

John and Jen — Sean Pollock, Germantown Community Theatre

I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change — Carla McDonald, Circuit Playhouse

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN

A MUSICAL

Barbara Clinton — Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Theatre Memphis

Betsy Brow — You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Theatre Memphis

Topaza Watkins — Dreamgirls, Memphis Black Repertory Theatre and Play house on the Square

Renee Davis — Grease, Playhouse on the Square

Susan Boyle — Grease, Playhouse on the Square

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN

A MUSICAL

Kent Fleshman — Zombie Prom, Circuit Playhouse

David Shipley — You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Theatre Memphis

John Hemphill — The Fantasticks, Harrell Performing Arts Center

Ron Gordon — Annie Warbucks, Germantown Community Theatre

LEADING ACTRESS IN A MUSICAL

Carla McDonald — I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, Circuit Play- house

Sally Kroeker — Zombie Prom, Circuit Playhouse

Lar Jeanette Williams — Dreamgirls, Memphis Black Repertory Theatre

Madalyn Stanford — Annie Warbucks, Germantown Community Theatre

Kim Justis — I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change — Circuit Playhouse

LEADING ACTOR IN A MUSICAL

Christopher Swan — I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, Circuit Play- house

John David Macon III — Dreamgirls, Memphis Black Repertory Theatre

Jonathan Christian — John and Jen, Germantown Community Theatre

DIRECTION OF A MUSICAL

Kevin Shaw — I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, Circuit Playhouse

Michael Dugan — Zombie Prom, Cir- cuit Playhouse

MUSICAL PRODUCTION

Zombie Prom — Circuit Playhouse

I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change — Circuit Playhouse

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN

A DRAMA

Dorothy Blackwood — Bizet’s Locket, Playwrights’ Forum

Ruby O’Gray — The Trial of One Short Sighted Black Woman, Memphis Black Repertory Theatre

Blanche Tosh — The Exact Center of the Universe, Theatre Memphis

Janie Paris — Blithe Spirit, Theatre Mem- phis

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN

A DRAMA

Jason Craig — Side Man, Playhouse on the Square

Jack Kendall — Shadowlands, Germantown Community Theatre

Jeff Bailey — Pride’s Crossing, Little The- atre/Theatre Memphis

John Rone — The Moon is Blue, Germantown Community Theatre

Pete Montgomery — Improper Attention, Playwrights’ Forum

LEADING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA

Marlene May — Amy’s View, Circuit Playhouse

Ann Dauber — Stop Kiss, Circuit Play- house

Sara K. Armstrong — Stop Kiss, Circuit Playhouse

Sara Morsey — Wit, Playhouse on the Square

Lisa McCormick — Side Man, Playhouse on the Square

LEADING ACTOR IN A DRAMA

Michael Detroit — Side Man, Playhouse on the Square

Tony Isbell — Blithe Spirit, Theatre Memphis

Michael Gravois — Love! Valour! Com- passion!, Circuit Playhouse

Randy Hartzog — Love! Valour! Compas- sion!, Circuit Playhouse

Ramone Cox — A Soldier’s Play, Theatre Memphis

Jeff Godsey — Love! Valour! Compassion!, Circuit Playhouse

DIRECTION OF A DRAMA

Robert Satterlee — Side Man, Playhouse on the Square

Dave Landis — Love! Valour! Compassion!, Circuit Playhouse

Ann Marie Hall — Stop Kiss, Circuit Play- house

Jerry Chipman — Far East, Theatre Memphis

Cookie Ewing — Amy’s View, Circuit Playhouse

DRAMATIC PRODUCTION

Side Man — Playhouse on the Square

Love! Valour! Compassion! — Circuit Play- house

Stop Kiss — Circuit Playhouse

Amy’s View — Circuit Playhouse

Blithe Spirit — Theatre Memphis

ENSEMBLE ACTING

Love! Valour! Compassion!

A Soldier’s Play

I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change

Side Man

CAMEO ROLES

Barry Fuller — Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Theatre Memphis

Jo Malin — Wit, Playhouse on the Square

Guy Olivieri — Grease, Playhouse on the Square

THEATRE AWARDS 2001: COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY DIVISION

SET DESIGN

Jason McDaniel — Sight Unseen, University of Memphis

Laura Canon — Iphigenia, McCoy The- atre/Rhodes College

Kim Yeager — All My Sons, University of Memphis

COSTUME DESIGN

Douglas Koertge — Sweeney Todd, Uni- versity of Memphis

David Jilg — Into the Woods, McCoy The- atre/Rhodes College

Sandra London — All My Sons, Univer- sity of Memphis

LIGHTING DESIGN

John McFadden — Sweeney Todd, Uni- versity of Memphis

John McFadden — Sight Unseen, Univer- sity of Memphis

Laura Canon — Iphigenia, McCoy The- atre/Rhodes College

MUSIC DIRECTION

Mark Ensley — Sweeney Todd, University of Memphis

Michael Meeks — Into the Woods, McCoy Theatre/Rhodes College

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN

A MUSICAL

Katie Walsh — Into the Woods, McCoy Theatre/Rhodes College

Amy-Lin Slezak — Sweeney Todd, Uni- versity of Memphis

Ashley Sewell — Canterbury Tales, McCoy Theatre/Rhodes College

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN

A MUSICAL

David Shipley — Sweeney Todd, Univer- sity of Memphis

Jonathan Russom — Into the Woods, McCoy Theatre/Rhodes College

Brian Herrin — Sweeney Todd, Univer- sity of Memphis

LEADING ACTRESS IN A MUSICAL

Susan Boyle — Sweeney Todd, University of Memphis

Ashley Sewell — Into the Woods, McCoy Theatre/Rhodes College

Cequita Monique — Soul of a People, McCoy Theatre/Rhodes College

LEADING ACTOR IN A MUSICAL

Brad Damare — Into the Woods, McCoy Theatre/Rhodes College

Darius Wallace — Soul of a People, McCoy Theatre/Rhodes College

MUSICAL PRODUCTION

Sweeney Todd — University of Memphis

Into the Woods — McCoy Theatre/ Rhodes College

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN

A DRAMA

Julia Hinson — Charley’s Aunt, Univer- sity of Memphis

Samantha Butler — Charley’s Aunt, Uni- versity of Memphis

Tamra Patterson — Iphigenia, McCoy Theatre/Rhodes College

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN

A DRAMA

Kyle Hatley — Iphigenia, McCoy The- atre/Rhodes College

Dan Poor — All My Sons, University of Memphis

Bill Lewis — Sight Unseen, University of Memphis

LEADING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA

Kelly Morton — Sight Unseen, Univer- sity of Memphis

Jenny Hollingsworth — The Misanthrope, University of Memphis

Alice Berry — All My Sons, University of Memphis

LEADING ACTOR IN A DRAMA

Nate Eppler — Sight Unseen, University of Memphis

David Williams — Charley’s Aunt, University of Memphis

Dan Poor — Charley’s Aunt, University of Memphis

DIRECTION OF A DRAMA OR

MUSICAL PRODUCTION

Stephen Hancock — Sight Unseen, Uni- versity of Memphis

Bob Hetherington — Sweeney Todd, Uni- versity of Memphis

Barry Fuller — Into the Woods, McCoy Theatre/Rhodes College

DRAMATIC PRODUCTION

Sight Unseen — University of Memphis

All My Sons — University of Memphis

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

My Turn To Teach

Dear Christian Brothers University,

You don’t know me, but I am a 1997 graduate of your school, where I got a solid education and learned some stuff, too. But I must admit I’m still confused about why you forbade Reverend James Lawson to speak at CBU back in July. It seemed like you were afraid of what he might say, but I just read where Calvary Episcopal Church let Rev. Lawson speak at their place instead and he was real nice about what you did to him, so I can’t figure out what you were afraid of.

I remember hearing in philosophy class that you can learn a lot by listening to other people, even if you don’t always agree with what they say. (I also remember trying to reach a consensus on whether morality is relative or absolute, but we ended up ordering pizza instead.) Like all of you, I prefer to think that I’m a pretty good person. I don’t shoplift, litter, or talk on the phone while driving. I donate to charity, I floss almost daily, and I love kids. Oh, and I’m also pro-choice like Rev. Lawson.

See, I really wish that we lived in a perfect world where all babies were born into loving homes. But until we teach sex education to our children, and until more pro-life adults adopt unwanted kids, and until we realize that expecting chastity from teenagers is plain silly, and until everyone has free access to birth control, and until men stop raping women — well, it seems like we could try harder to fix the problem from the other end, you know?

I’m not afraid of your opinions, so long as you don’t use bullets and bombs to make your point, and I have nothing but respect for those who truly act on the belief that all life is sacred. You’ve got to admire a person who speaks out equally against abortion, fur coats, capital punishment, insecticides, warfare, hamburgers, terrorism, leather shoes, euthanasia, and antibiotics. I don’t actually know any people who do all of that, but I like to think they’d exist in a perfect world.

But let’s talk about CBU now. Y’all must be extra-qualified to judge Rev. Lawson. I mean, didn’t you risk your life on civil rights marches? Weren’t you jailed for protesting injustice and war? Wasn’t the hatred and saliva just hell to wash out of your hair after those sit-ins? And haven’t you been banned from speaking on college campuses because people were so afraid of what you might say? I bet you have some great answers to my questions, so I will wait until I hear back before I respond to your latest alumni fund-raising appeal.

I read one of Rev. Lawson’s speeches once where he explains his response to the people who enforced racial segregation: “My sense of their being human beings nevertheless in spite of their behavior towards me was forged [by] a need, at least in me at the time, to be a human being and to resist evil, not by imitating evil, but by seeking to overcome it with good.”

That seems like such sensible advice (watch out, Ann Landers!) that I’m going to stick it on my fridge next to a quote from another brave man who was silenced because people were afraid of him: “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” I know the grammar and spelling are kind of funny — being as how the guy didn’t have the benefit of an English degree from CBU like me — but it’s an interesting idea anyway. Don’t you think?

Naomi Van Tol is a Memphian who works in the field of environmental activism.

Categories
Music Music Features

Local Record Roundup

On the intro to Both Worlds *69 (Hypnotize Minds/Loud; Grade: B-), the sophomore release from Three 6 Mafia moll Gangsta Boo, one of the Three 6 impresarios announces that the record is dedicated to “all you motherfuckers that went pop. Hypnotize Minds is gonna keep it gangsta.” This tough talk no doubt comes from the heart and has an element of truth — the Three 6 family has made what is likely the roughest stuff (lyrically and musically) to ever scale the Billboard Top 10. But the statement is also disingenuous: Three 6’s music has gotten more “pop” over the last couple of years — which is precisely why they’ve moved from regional phenomenon to national commercial force — and the music is all the better for it.

This evolution is more detectable on Three 6 satellite releases than on the more rabidly antisocial records under the Three 6 Mafia moniker. Project Pat’s relatively relaxed and witty Mista Don’t Play from earlier this year earned its success with chart-worthy singles “Don’t Save Her” and the sublimely funny “Chickenhead.” Now comes Both Worlds, a quantum leap over Boo’s 1999 debut, Enquiring Minds.

Both Worlds opens rather conventionally, with the belligerent, charmless, hater-hating “Hard Not 2 Kill” and “They Don’t Love Me.” But then Boo turns the musical corner with three memorable songs that offer real insight on real subjects. “Mask 2 My Face” transitions out of the bludgeoning opening songs with a believable ode to drug purchasing that moves from trolling the projects to a flight to Amsterdam. Then comes the good stuff: “Love Don’t Live (U Abandoned Me)” is a break-up song that makes brilliant use of a title hook sampled from Rose Royce, a move we wouldn’t have expected from Three 6 a few years ago. Then there’s “Can I Get Paid (Get Your Broke Ass Out),” which is artistically ambitious in that Boo raps in a voice that isn’t quite her own. Here Boo is a stripper (whose favorite song to dance to is Gangsta Boo’s “Where Dem Dollars At”) spitting a diatribe against cheap patrons. Surely the recent hip-hop fixation on strip-club culture deserves a deeper analysis than Boo’s accepting commentary, but she adds plenty of righteous common sense to the subject by merely proffering the blunt chorus “Get your broke ass out the club/If you ain’t gonna tip.”

After that trifecta, Both Worlds takes another turn for the typical, and the group’s chronic musical limitations are more noticeable: the tiring horrorcore synths and a chanting, metronomic flow that doesn’t hold up very well over 70 minutes. But the record rebounds with useful cameos from Project Pat and Three 6’s Crunchy Black and with Boo finding her footing again with a couple of ribald sex tales: Boo gives a “player” what he deserves with the title-says-it-all “I Faked It” and takes an unexpected turn on the cheating song “Your Girl’s Man.”

Longtime local faves Big Ass Truck may be on hiatus right now (though they will play an in-store at Tower Records downtown on August 18th), but if the band’s latest release, The Rug (Terminus; Grade: A-), is any indication, they’re as strong a recording unit as ever.

During an interview with the Flyer earlier this year, singer-guitarists Robby Grant and Steve Selvidge characterized The Rug as an experimental detour for the band, with a “real” record to follow later. But the relaxed, tossed-off quality here obviously agrees with the band. Recorded locally at Easley-McCain Studios, the 37-minute, mostly vocal-free The Rug is a playful project that finds the band experimenting with a variety of sounds and styles and finding success with all of them. The album opens with the mid-tempo art-funk of “The Path,” probably the closest the record comes to establishing the standard sound of this extremely eclectic band. From there, The Rug sets off for parts unknown. With its active, almost exotic(a) percussion and guitar and keyboard lines that border on reverie, “The Me” evokes indie heroes Yo La Tengo at their loveliest. DJ Colin Butler scratches up “Doughblood,” giving some indication what Frank Zappa might have sounded like if he’d been influenced by hip hop. “The 0,” which is driven by the propulsive blare of local horn players Jim Spake and Scott Thompson, forges a new genre — call it Afro-(big) beat, Fatboy Slim meets Fela Kuti. The title track is an anthemic, spacey finale. And the rare vocal songs don’t disappoint either: Robby Grant’s smooth vocals mesh well with the almost tropicalia backdrop of “The Wardrobe,” while the first single, “Locked In,” provides an apt motto for a band that still finds fertile collaborative ground after almost a decade together.

The Word (Ropeadope/Atlantic; Grade: A-) is an instrumental gospel (which may seem like an oxymoron to some) collaboration between local faves The North Mississippi Allstars, jazz-funk keyboardist John Medeski (of Medeski, Martin and Wood), and young steel-guitar virtuoso Robert Randolph. Given the Allstars’ growing national status and Medeski’s strong cult following, The Word is likely to bring unprecedented secular attention to a music subculture — Pentecostal-bred sacred steel guitar — that previously found its most visible expression on a couple of relatively obscure Arhoolie compilations. But Randolph, until recently only heard on the Arhoolie compilations and at his New Jersey church, is the focal point here.

Though any non-Christian with an ear for soulful music should still be able to hear the glory in great gospel artists such as Mahalia Jackson and Clara Ward, the subject matter of religious music can still be forbidding to those who don’t subscribe to the particular beliefs being expressed. As an instrumental record, The Word makes it easy for non-believers to still thrill to the emotion and skill of the music. Allstars rhythm section Cody Dickinson and Chris Chew join Medeski to lay a solid foundation upon which Luther Dickinson and, especially, Randolph can, as one song title indicates, “fly away.” The result is exploratory jams that, for once, give the word jam a good name. Some songs attack with the Hendrixian/Allmanesque fury of classic rock, as on the epic “Without God” and “Waiting On My Wings.” Some move with a more graceful, more clearly church-born lilt, as on “At the Cross” and “I’ll Fly Away.” But everything lives up to the title of The Word‘s bookend cuts — “Joyful Sounds.”

The only thing — and I mean the only thing — wrong with The Best of the Memphis Jug Band (Yazoo; Grade: A), a 23-track compilation of sides from the most highly regarded of all jug bands, is a random track listing that ignores chronology and thus does disservice to a body of work that clearly evolves over time. Reprogram your CD and you can hear an arc over the record’s 1927-1934 span that goes from the already thrilling to the downright heroic.

Rock-and-roll fans who have never been able to get into solo acoustic blues should be all over this record — with a multipiece band, frequent harmony vocals, and a mishmash of styles that absorbs blues, hillbilly, vaudeville, ragtime, and jazz, this is as much proto-rock-and-roll as any other pop music of the pre-World War II era.

The Best of the Memphis Jug Band showcases a wonderful array of vocalists who spent time with the group — the bluesy style of founder Will Shade (“A Black Woman is Like a Black Snake”), the more hillbilly sound of jug player Jab Jones (“Stealin’, Stealin'”), the power of female vocalist Hattie Hart (the unforgettable “Cocaine Habit Blues”), and my favorite, the more polished, vaudevillian presence of Charlie Nickerson (“You May Leave, But This Will Bring You Back” and “He’s In The Jailhouse Now”), whose humorous contributions to the band could make them an early version of the Coasters. Truly essential listening.

You can e-mail Chris Herrington at herrington@memphisflyer.com.

local beat

by CHRIS HERRINGTON

Plans for The Acoustic Highway, a pilot broadcast of an Internet program based on the Flying Saucer’s weekly Memphis Troubadours Acoustic Showcase, have undergone some changes since reported in these pages a couple weeks ago. What was originally slated to be a live broadcast from a Los Angeles soundstage on Tuesday, August 14th, will now be a taping at Newby’s on the same date before a live audience. The program itself will be broadcast at a yet-to-be-determined date in September, according to creative director and showcase founder Wayne LeeLoy.

Tuesday’s taping at Newby’s is free and open to the public and starts at 7 p.m. Musicians will include LeeLoy, who performs regularly under the name Native Son, local singer-songwriter Cory Branan, regional fave Garrison Starr, and singer-songwriter Paul Thorn. At least one other local artist is expected to be added to the lineup. For more information on the project, you can check out the program’s Web site at www.acoustic.tv.

Among the myriad Elvis Week offerings is “Baby, Let’s Play House,” a fund-raiser for the Center For Southern Folklore. The center will hold a patio party at the home Elvis once owned at 1034 Audubon Drive — currently owned by local Elvis historians Mike Freeman and Cindy Hazen — on Tuesday, August 14th, from 5 to 10 p.m. Tickets to the party are $35, which includes a tour of the house, a buffet filled with Elvis-related foods, an auction, and music from Elvis Presley’s Memphis regulars The Dempseys.

Malco Theatres will be the local host for a live satellite broadcast of a Sugar Ray and Uncle Kracker concert from Atlanta. The concert will be broadcast at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, August 15th, and shown locally at Malco’s Wolfchase and Majestic theaters. Admission is $15. This first-of-its-kind broadcast is apparently the beginning of a new spin on the old pay-per-view gambit, with the possibility of other live events — concerts, sports, Broadway shows — shown theatrically in the near future.

Odds and ends: The finals of the Beale Street Blues Society‘s annual talent search will be held Saturday, August 11th, at Blues City Café The Jazz Foundation of Memphis, sponsors of semiregular events such as the World Class Jazz Series and the Essence of Jazz Festival, has announced a fund-raising drive. For more information on becoming a Jazz Foundation member call 725-1528 The new Tower Records at Peabody Place got its in-store performance schedule off to a great start over the weekend with artists such as Tracy Nelson and the Full Gospel Tabernacle Choir. The music continues on Saturday, August 18th, with an afternoon performance by Big Ass Truck.

Categories
Music Music Features

sound advice

Having conquered music-video channels, hard-rock radio stations, and metal magazines nationwide, local boys Saliva return to town this week to shoot the video for their next single, the rap-metal room-shaker “Click, Click, Boom.” Saliva will give a concert at the New Daisy Theatre on Friday, August 10th, with out-of-town hard-rockers Life, Systematic, and Stereomud.

Though they have roots in the mid-’90s avant-garde indie-rock group Three Mile Pilot, Pinback boasts a sound much more accessible than that band and every bit as compelling. The band’s forthcoming album, Blue Screen Life, balances churning guitars and chanted vocals with a clear pop sensibility in a sound that strongly evokes one of the present period’s biggest alt-rock bands, Modest Mouse, who played a highly successful local show last year at Last Place on Earth. Pinback will join Snowglobe, one of the local music scene’s best-kept secrets, for a show at the Hi-Tone Café on Sunday, August 12th. — Chris Herrington

The Bottle Rockets, those rough-and-tumble desperadoes from Festus, Missouri, often get branded as alt-country outlaws. I’m not sure I know what that means. Alt-outlaws? Hmm. I do know that these heroes of the No Depression scene have an uncanny ability to match simple, emotionally charged lyrics with simple, emotionally charged hooks and as such mirror the best of what traditional country has to offer. I also know that the Bottle Rockets can be a straight-up Southern rock band the likes of which you just don’t see very often. Hearken back to the mid-’80s when the Georgia Satellites were getting tied down with chains and you’ll get the picture. Add a sardonic dash of Wynn Stewart-style heartbreak and a pinch of Skynyrd’s bad-boy attitude and that’s the Bottle Rockets in a nutshell. Before the Drive-By Truckers came along and stole some thunder, these guys were the unquestioned kings of the trailer-park boogie. “She’s Smoking 100’s Alone,” essentially a male’s answer to Patsy Cline’s “Three Cigarettes In the Ashtray,” will make country purists moist with glee, while numbers like “Gas Girl” rock like it was 1975. Every now and again they’ll even dish up a howling, banjo-driven storm of pure Appalachian meanness. They’re at the Hi-Tone Café with Jason Ringenberg on Saturday, August 11th.

Regular readers know I’ve never had a good thing to say about contemporary country music. That was only because Dwight Yoakam (the Anti-Garth) hadn’t made it to town yet. Yoakam may crank out the pop-pablum to keep steak on the table, but he’s one of the few celebs of mainstream country who hasn’t forgotten where his roots are planted. Not since Hank Williams moaned “Lost Highway” have vocals sounded so impossibly lonesome and desperate. Yoakam’s “Sad Side of Town” and “Heartaches Are Free” are two of the best pedal-steel-heavy, cry-in-your-tequila recordings made since George Jones left Mercury back before the flood. Yoakam will be at Horseshoe Casino on Thursday, August 9th. — Chris Davis

Categories
Music Record Reviews

Short Cuts

Avalon Blues: A Tribute To the Music of

Mississippi John Hurt

Various Artists

(Vanguard)

This 15-song, 15-artist tribute to the music of late, great bluesman Mississippi John Hurt is the latest installment of Vanguard’s recent reexploration of the Hurt legacy, which began with the 1998 one-disc anthology Rediscovered. That 24-song compilation deserves to be an essential part of any record collection, but for listeners who wanted more, Vanguard released the three-disc The Complete Studio Recordings last year, repackaging ’60s albums Today!, The Immortal Mississippi John Hurt, and Last Sessions.

The body of work collected on those reissues is one of the most distinctive the blues has thus far produced — warm, gentle, wise — and features some of the most endearing compositions in all of American popular song. With such a rich body of work still obscure to the average music fan, Hurt would seem an ideal candidate for a tribute record, and Avalon Blues is an admirable effort. But tribute albums are still a dicey proposition: I’ve only heard one great one, 1997’s The Songs of Jimmie Rodgers, and if Hurt’s material is as worthy of investigation as Rodgers’, the key difference between the two albums is that Avalon Blues doesn’t boast quite as A-list a lineup as the Bob Dylan-produced Rodgers tribute.

With all the source material of similar style and quality, it’s no surprise that the artists who stand out the most on Avalon Blues are those who are most compelling on their own terms or who — for better or worse — invest Hurt’s songs with their own personalities.

Lucinda Williams and Gillian Welch have both been accused of pretension and overly studied vocals (though seldom by the same critics), but a comparison of Williams’ “Angels Laid Him Away” and Welch’s “Beulah Land” illustrates the difference between perfectionist genius (Williams) and hopeless mimicry (Welch). Williams owns “Angels Laid Him Away” so completely that if you didn’t know otherwise, you’d never guess that it isn’t one of her own songs. Welch’s “Beulah Land” (and is there any doubt that she would choose such an “old-timey” title to cover?) is a painstaking but hollow reproduction, just the kind of arch performance that’s won her hosannahs from roots fetishists over the last few years.

Elsewhere, Alvin Youngblood Hart is great as usual with his Memphis-recorded, one-man-band take on “Here I Am, Oh Lord, Send Me,” while Victoria Williams, whose skittish innocence can be charming in some settings, turns in a nearly unlistenable performance with her too-precious take on the Hurt classic “Since I’ve Laid My Burden Down.” And Beck’s solid, straight-faced take on “Stagger Lee” (recorded at Sun Studios in 1994) is highly recommended to fans of his acoustic K Records album One Foot In the Grave.

Folkie Bill Morrisey (“Pay Day”) and eclectic bluesman Taj Mahal (“My Creole Belle”) probably owe more to Hurt than anyone else on Avalon Blues, and both acquit themselves well. Of the journeymen roots performers who make up the bulk of the record and whose performances convey less personality, Chris Smither and John Hiatt come across best, offering fine takes on “Frankie & Albert” and “I’m Satisfied,” respectively, while Bruce Cockburn (“Avalon, My Home Town”) and Mark Selby (whose gruff vocal and insistent backbeat are unwelcome additions to perhaps Hurt’s most charming song, “Make Me a Pallet On Your Floor”) don’t fare quite as well.

In all, Avalon Blues is well worth your time but not if you haven’t “rediscovered” Hurt himself first. — Chris Herrington

Grade: B+

Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts from the

British Empire and Beyond 1965-69

Various Artists

(Rhino Records)

As the follow-up to the landmark 1998 four-disc re-release of Lenny Kaye’s 1972 garage-rock comp Nuggets, Nuggets II follows the global dissemination of four pop meta-themes: simplicity (“Three chords and the truth”), brevity (“in three minutes or less”), misanthropy (“‘cos I’m so misunderstood”) and — will we ever learn? — misogyny (“and my woman’s such a cold bitch”). It’s also an encomium for the singles culture of the ’60s, which was also the last time white foreigners earnestly attempted to replicate the nasty electric rhythm and blues of Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, and other luminaries.

However, rhythm and blues is just a starting point. The snarl and pout of the pre-’65 Stones is all over this superb box set, but so are the noise of the Stooges’ debut and the sonic shimmer of Hendrix’s ballads. Amazingly, the results are never nostalgic. Nuggets II is a tougher listen than its predecessor in every respect: more songs, fewer recognizable hits, more feedback, fewer ballads, more copies of songs you’ve heard before (Procol Harum and the Who are two more apparently bottomless fountains of rip-off), and more evidence that anyone — anyone in the universe — can make great rock-and-roll. Music this brittle, propulsive, corrosive, and obstinately mid-fi can start to dismantle your brain after more than two consecutive discs’ worth, but once your freakout resistors and retroactive PC receptors are burned out, the shoulda-been hits never stop.

The annual flood of legitimate reissues and repackaged product virtually guarantees that you could enjoy great, unheard music every year without actually buying anything from the year you’re living in. Thus, tiny, specialized niches are too easy to fall in these days — rock-and-roll generalists are becoming as rare as generalist historians. So generalists and collectors alike should rejoice at this spirited, revelatory revision of rock-and-roll history. Unfortunately, prima facie evidence of a vibrant international pop underground that stretches back at least 40 years shouldn’t be such a specialized item. But seldom has consumer courage reaped such rich dividends. Points of entry, two of which are on the fourth disc: The Master’s Apprentices’ “War or Hands of Time,” the Mops’ “I’m Just a Mops,” Los Shakers’ “Break It All,” the Marmalade’s “I See the Rain,” and the Easybeats’ ebullient classic “Friday on My Mind.” Actually, you may have heard that last one. — Addison Engelking

Grade: A+

Tell the Truth

Lee Roy Parnell

(Vanguard)

Although Lee Roy Parnell’s past work sometimes deteriorated into country-rock schlock, it was always redeemed by his considerable guitar talents. Parnell has that rare Santana-ish ability to make one note soar and shimmer over everything else, and his slidework manages to conjure up shades of Duane Allman yet be innovative at the same time. With Tell the Truth, his first recording for an independent label, he’s finally hit his stride. Once again, he tackles gospel, blues, country, and rock. But in a smart move, Parnell hooked up with veteran songwriter Dan Penn for several tracks, and the result is an album that’s carried by songs of substance as well as his versatile guitar. In addition, Parnell recruited the grand duchess and duke of honky tonk and country blues, Bonnie Bramlett and Delbert McClinton, for some feisty duets, as well as ace fingerpicker Keb’ Mo’ for some down-home acoustic blues.

Parnell reminds me of a Texas version of Sonny Landreth, another full-steam-ahead rocker whose songs are driven by ferocious guitar work and who also mines his regional roots for inspiration. Like Landreth, Parnell can rip it up most righteously, especially with McClinton on the barrelhouse boogie track “South By Southwest.” But he also has the potential to go further, showing his soulful side on a ballad with Bramlett and with the very Southern guitar that graces the sensual ending of “Guardian Angel.” Despite a few stilted moments on one confessional track, Tell the Truth is a fresh start that shows off Parnell’s many talents to perfection. — Lisa Lumb

Grade: B+

You can e-mail Chris Herrington at herrington@memphisflyer.com.

Categories
Hot Properties Real Estate

Repeating History

William and Oliver Greenlaw arrived in Memphis in the early days of the city’s growth. They built open-air markets, one on Beale at Fourth, the other at the north end of town on Poplar. By 1849 they were assembling land north of the Bayou Gayoso and by 1856 had laid out a 30-block subdivision with cobbled streets, granite curbs, and sycamore trees.

The area prospered. Sawmills, brickyards, and breweries were built along the banks of the Wolf River and close to barge traffic into town. To the east, larger homes sat on prominent corner locations. Smaller duplexes filled in the blocks, and shotguns sat close together on the alleyways. The largest homes were clustered along Seventh Street, which still follows the line of an original Indian trail running north. Seventh Street (originally called High Street) had the only bridge across the bayou connecting Greenlaw to Memphis until the Front Street bridge was built in 1867.

During the Yellow Fever years Greenlaw and the more northern suburb of Chelsea considered seceding and forming their own city. In 1887 the first wells tapped into the artesian water supply below the city and made mosquito-rich cisterns unnecessary. With the advent of a modern water system, population grew. The last two decades of the 19th century were the big building years for Greenlaw.

George Love built a grand home at 619 North Seventh Street in 1888. It stands today and is now home to the city’s Center for Neighborhoods. Love built and bought a lot of property in Greenlaw over the years. Four of the houses he once owned facing North Sixth Street, circa 1890, have recently been renovated by Memphis Heritage, the city’s only preservation nonprofit. Two have been sold and two are still available.

Federal and city funds contributing to their renovation require that these homes go to first-time homebuyers who make less than 80 percent of the city’s median income. That means a single person can make no more than $31,550, whereas a family of three can make as much as $40,550.

These homes still evoke the gracious 19th-century style of Memphis’ early subdivisions. Twelve-foot ceilings and eight-foot doors with transoms above were retained. The houses were gutted, rewired, repiped, and fully insulated. Central heat and air, telephone cables, and security were installed. The grand front parlors are intact, although the original fireplaces were regretfully lost. Just restoring a mantel to its original location would add a lot to these rooms. New baths and kitchens were installed, with the kitchens open to a back gathering room for easy living. Bedrooms have generous walk-in closets.

These houses sit close together, showing how Greenlaw’s density resembled that of New Orleans and resembles neotraditional plans like Harbor Town located just across the Wolf River Basin. The “Uptown” initiative will bring new homes to Greenlaw and lead to even more renovation of original buildings. As downtown fills with lofts for living and entertainment, Greenlaw seems once again poised to be the “renewed” subdivision just north of downtown.

612 and 622 North Sixth Street

1,320 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 1 bath; $55,900

Realtor: Sowell & Company, 278-4380

Agent: Steve Solomon