Alex Chilton, the Memphis-bred leader of classic bands the Box Tops and Big Star who died March 17th, was cremated yesterday in his adopted home of New Orleans. Memphians will get their chance to pay tribute Tuesday, March 30th, when a public memorial organized by family and friends will be held at Minglewood Hall.
Read more at Sing All Kinds
Alex Chilton, the Memphis-bred leader of classic bands the Box Tops and Big Star who died March 17th, was cremated yesterday in his adopted home of New Orleans. Chilton’s life and music was celebrated in the days after his death at Austin’s South by Southwest Music Festival, where Big Star had been scheduled to perform. But Memphians will get their chance to pay tribute Tuesday, March 30th, when a public memorial organized by family and friends will be held at Minglewood Hall.
The memorial, which is scheduled to run from 5 to 8 p.m., will be a low-key affair, according to Ron Easley, a Memphis musician who was a longtime friend and musical collaborator of Chilton’s and who is helping organize the memorial along with Chilton’s wife, Laura, and sister, Cecilia.
Easley says that he and Chilton’s wife, a flute player, might play, but that there is otherwise no plan for a performance component to the event. Instead, Paul Williams, owner of Midtown’s Audiomania store, will put together a set of music — Chilton’s own and music he loved — for the event. There will also a couple of screens and a projector set up to show photos and other visuals related to the late musician.
In the last month or so, three people that I consider well-informed and responsible types have suggested that I look into the fire department, which has 57 stations and accounts for 25 percent of the operating budget.
So what does that have to do with Edward Hull “Boss” Crump who died in 1954? Find out in City Beat.
On Monday, March 29th, Bellevue Baptist Church is hosting a “Stand for the Family” rally to promote what they call “traditional families.” I can only assume they mean “heterosexual families” considering that the rally’s guest speaker is Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, a well-known foe of marriage equality.
In protest, the Memphis Gay & Lesbian Community Center (MGLCC) has organized a counter-rally billed as “Stand for ALL Families: A Rally to Celebrate and Promote Every Family” at Neshoba Unitarian Universalist Church (7350 Raleigh-Lagrange Rd.) on Monday, March 29th from 6 to 8 p.m.
Says MGLCC director Will Batts: “MGLCC stands for all types of families because we value the unconditional love that builds those relationships. Many of the kids we assist have been hurt by traditional families that see only rigid, limited ways of expressing love.”
This is shaping up to be a busy weekend. This afternoon I have every intention of catching at least part of the Green Shakespeare Symposium at Rhodes College, then it’s off to see pick the twins up from school. Against my best judgment and general policy we will dine in the car on something purchased from a drive-through-window as I drive them out to hang with their mom, the technical director for Hutchison’s Weiner Theatre, which is opening a musical revue featuring a mix of contemporary Broadway show tunes alongside pieces by Memphis acts like Lord T & Eloise and Muck Sticky. Yes, we’re a very theatrical family. But I won’t be sticking around for that one though because I’ve got a hot ticket for the opening night of La Cage aux Folles.
I’ll never forget the first time I saw Harvey Fierstein’s musical adaptation of La Cage. Well, actually I have forgotten it. Or much of it. Or rather, it all seems like a phantasmagoric blur of song and sequins. It was the 1987 Broadway tour and I had a fever of 103. Threw up on my date right after curtain call. True story. And I have to confess that the experience created a kind of Freudian aversion to the material, which can be completely delightful. Today I’m feeling fit as a fiddle and hoping that tonight’s performance—directed by Mitzi Hamilton— will undo what was done all those years ago.
La Cage functions as a frothy farce, a tender love story, and a political statement all rolled into one. It tells the story od Georges, the manager and emcee of a nightclub featuring extravagant drag shows and partner Albin, a popular entertainer who performs as the great Zaza. The serious silliness gets underway when Jean-Michel, Georges’ son from a brief, ill-advised fling, plans a party to introduce his father and mother-figure to his fiancée’s conservative parents.
On Saturday, after taking in some afternoon events connected to the Sivads of March festival I’m off to Germantown City Hall for the Tennessee Shakespeare Company’s 8-woman production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. That’s all I’m going to say about that for the moment.
On Sunday afternoon I’ll be taking in Frost/Nixon which I was unable to see when it opened at Playhouse on the Square last week, but which I previewed here. The show has great buzz and as a political junkie who once bid way too much on a black velvet painting of Nixon on ebay (which I didn’t win, damnit) I’m genuinely excited.
Hope to see you in the theater.
Hey Shakespeare fans the Green Shakespeare Symposium is at Rhodes College today from 2-5 p.m. Here’s what Flyer writer Leonard Gill has to say about it.
Once all the seasons are announced I’ll put together a picks list and look at the best and worst of what’s on the horizon. In the meantime, here’s what’s coming up at Theatre Memphis
The Lohrey Stage
Annie Get Your Gun
August 20 — September 12, 2010
Music and Lyrics by Irving Berlin
Original Book by Herbert Fields, Dorothy Fields
as revised by Peter Stone
Tony Award Winner for Best Revival of a Musical. Annie Oakley is the best shot around, and she manages to support her little brother and sisters by selling the game she hunts. When she’s discovered by Col. Buffalo Bill, he persuades this novel sharpshooter to join his Wild West Show. It only takes one glance for her to fall head over heels for dashing shooting ace Frank Butler, who headlines the show. She soon eclipses Butler as the main attraction which, while good for business, is bad for romance. The rousing, sure-fire finale hits the mark every time in a testament to the power of female ingenuity.
Fact or urban legend? A Memphis political figure dead and in his grave for 56 years is responsible for bloated expenditures in the current city budget for fire stations.
The political figure is Edward Hull “Boss” Crump, a Memphis mayor, congressman, and political kingmaker in the first half of the 20th century who died in 1954. In the last month or so, three people that I consider well-informed and responsible types have suggested that I look into the fire department, which has 57 stations and accounts for 25 percent of the operating budget. Moreover, they suggested that it all goes back to Crump’s insurance company, which was one of the biggest in the South in its day.
So I asked Crump scholar G. Wayne Dowdy, archivist at the Memphis Public Library and author of “Mayor Crump Don’t Like It: Machine Politics in Memphis.”
It’s day one of the 20-day “win a bucket of crawfish” promo held by City Auto in anticipation of April 18th’s Rajun Cajun Crawfish Festival.
Normally, the festival, an annual fund-raiser for Porter-Leath held downtown at Wagner Place, offers 500 pounds of free crawfish to first-comers. The City Auto contest is in lieu of that.
Having made falafel many times, I know it’s as easy to whip up as it is to screw up. I have baked it, fried it, used a box mix, and started from scratch — all to varying results. So when I’m looking for consistency in this Middle Eastern chickpea patty, I leave the kitchen and go to Sean’s Café for the Falafel Plate.
