Caroline Simpson and Brooke Papritz at Great Wine Performances
“I’m Singing in the Rain” or “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” might have been a good last-minute musical additions to the 14th Annual Great Wine Performances.
But “Rain, Rain Go Away” would have been the best. Rain began falling right around the time the Playhouse on the Square benefit began July 27th.
“We were parked,” says Mary Brignole. “About 5 to 6 it started to pour down.”
They sat in the car and waited. By the time they got to the check-in station, the rain stopped, Brignole says. That was about 6:15 p.m.
It still was hot. Some people bore the remnants of the shower, but that didn’t stop them from visiting the various booths, sampling wine and eating.
“Under the Big Top” was the theme of this year’s Great Wine Performances. For the first time, the event was held in Playhouse on the Square’s parking lot. Playhouse thespians in costumes at each station gave hints to what they were performing and asked a trivia question about the show. Guests also tried some wine that corresponded with the mystery show.
Guests were asked to identify the 10 shows represented, answer the trivia question, and state whether or not Playhouse ever produced the show. If they identified all 10 shows and answered the trivia, they were eligible for 60 prizes.
Liza Johnson and Barclay Rogers at Great Wine Performances (Credit: Michael Donahue)Angel and Dennis Head at Great Wine Performances (Credit: Michael Donahue)Debbi and RIchard Ross, Linn Sitler, Michael Broadway, and Susan Murrmann at Great Wine Performances (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Some Like it Hot could have been the title for Whitney Jo’s booth, but Jo, the theater’s managing director, was just grilling hot dogs and hamburgers for guests. Some Like It Hot, adapted from the 1959 Jack Lemmon/Tony Curtis movie, apparently is slated to hit Broadway this fall. Sugar, a 1972 Broadway show, also was adapted from the movie.
Whitney Jo at Great Wine Performances (Credit: Michael Donahue)Sharon and Brian Bailey at Great Wine Performances (Credit: Michael Donahue)Lester Brown, Mary Brignole, and Frank Guarino at Great Wine Performances (Credit: Michael Donahue)Murray Lace and Kevin Alexander at Great Wine Performances (Credit: Michael Donahue)
A special VIP section, where people could dine at tables, was behind Playhouse on the Square’s nearby guest housing.
Asked how she thought the event went, Jo says, “I think it was very successful. I absolutely do. It’s outside in the heat. Who wants to come to that? But we were trying to be as COVID safe as possible, so we did it in the parking lot.”
And it was a hit. “We’re still getting phone calls from people saying how much they enjoyed it.”
Would Playhouse consider doing Great Wine Performances outside again? “Yes,” Jo says. “But not in July.”
Gia Welch and Andrew Hatfield at Great Wine Performances (Credit: Michael Donahue)Nathan McHenry at Great Wine Performances (Credit: Michael Donahue)Will Graber at Great Wine Performances (Credit: Michael Donahue)Emily Jamerson, Justin Jamerson, Amanda Muir, Christine Shapiro at Great Wine Performances (Credit: Michael Donahue)Great Wine Performances (Credit: Michael Donahue) We Saw You
Should federal law forbid owning a chimpanzee as a pet?
That was a question before federal legislators, including Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis) on Thursday. Lawmakers reviewed the Captive Primate Safety Act in a Water, Oceans, and Wildlife hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee.
The bill would make a federal law against the purchase, trade, or transport of any live species of nonhuman primate like chimpanzees, galagos, gibbons, gorillas, lemurs, lorises, monkeys, orangutans, tarsiers, or any hybrid of such a species.
The bill was introduced in May by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) and has 53 co-sponsors in the House. The bill passed the House in a previous session, Blumenauer said, “only to die a lingering death the Senate.” However, he hopes the bill has a shot with the new Democratic majority in the Senate, where he believes the sponsor Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) will “be able to get it over the finish line.”
In testimony Thursday, Blumenauer said most people cannot provide the special housing and social structure primates require and “puts their welfare at risk.”
“Even if you’re not a huge fan of animal welfare, you ought to be concerned about human welfare because this behavior puts humans at risk either from the transmission of disease or serious injury or death,” he said. “When primates reach adolescence, they often demonstrate aggression towards those who they perceive as lower-ranking members of their troop.
“When kept as pets, this means these teenagers can inflict great physical harm on children, friends, and neighbors.”
Blumenauer recounted the story of a woman in eastern Oregon who was attacked by her 200-pound chimpanzee last month. The woman and her mother sustained injuries to their torsos, legs, and arms. The chimpanzee had to be shot, he said, and “was killed for expressing normal behaviors in a lifetime of captivity.”
He also recalled the story of Connecticut’s Charla Nash, whose pet chimp, Travis, mauled her in 2009. The attack was so severe, Nash needed and received a face transplant. Toxicology reports found Travis had been given tea laced with Xanax on the day of the account, perhaps explaining his aggressive behavior, officials said.
(Credit: Wikipedia) Travis the chimpanzee
Cohen cited a report from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which said about 75 percent of wild primate populations are declining. He asked Steve Guertin, deputy director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, whether or not U.S. primate pet ownership played a role in the declines.
“The pet trade of nonhuman primates certainly drives a market that contributes to the decline of wild populations, and the U.S. is a part of that trade,” Guertin said. “However, we believe that the primary threat to the conservation of the species globally is the removal of primates in the wild. This is poaching. This is bushmeat. This is illegal trafficking.”
For this, Guertin said his department’s focus is on law enforcement to shut down poachers and shut down criminal networks of animal traffickers.
Tennessee, like many other states, already has laws on the books against owning a primate as a pet. Here, primates are categorized as Class I wildlife, species that are “inherently dangerous to humans.” They’re in the same class as wolves, bears, elephants, rhinoceroses, lions, and more. In Tennessee, this class of wildlife can only be possessed by zoos, circuses, and commercial propagators.
Firebird at Off the Walls Arts (Credit: Hattie Greene)
Last night’s soft opening of Firebird, a new immersive modern dance work being staged at Off the Walls Arts through August 7, was a paradox: using only the simplest of forms and set pieces, it transported the audience to new realms.
Staged in the same space that once housed the elaborate Baron von Opperbean’s Exploratorium by Christopher Reyes, the contrast couldn’t have been greater. Where neon forests and planetary landscapes once stood in the former exhibit, there now stands a stark, spare area, stone gray except for a few black arboreal forms and a vivid mural of a phoenix on one wall. At one end, velvet curtains hang.
Those curtains were the only real indication that the space has now become a dance stage. Some audience members even clustered on the floor informally at the foot of the curtains, while others sat in folding chairs behind a strip of tape that established the edge of the performance area.
“This blue line marks the edge of the action,” one usher noted to those of us in the front row. “There’s going to be a large swinging structure. Stay back or you might end up with someone in your lap.”
Being perched on the precipice of the performance made it all the more effective when the lights went down, the aggressive techno-flavored opening music revved up, and the five-person ensemble burst out from behind the curtains, ferociously dragging a large spherical framework. From that point on, we were transported.
The spherical frame proved to be a versatile structure for myriad movements, inspiring vigorous dance and gymnastics from the performers. While the piece may have been sparked by The Firebird ballet that premiered in 1910, there was not a hint of Stravinsky here. The music, composed by Michael Wall, a faculty member at the University of Utah, varied abruptly from pounding industrial jams to gentle, ambient sound design, making for sonic contrasts that perfectly matched the stark lighting and shifting movements.
Firebird at Off the Walls Arts (Credit: Hattie Greene)
Meanwhile, the dance itself, choreographed by Neile Martin and Ashley Volner, embraced such contrasts, from gritty interpersonal struggle to the tenderest of romantic duets, sometimes in the space of a breath. The dancers — Martin, Volner, Aiyanna LaRue, Kimberly Madsen-Thomas, and Connor Chaparro — gravitated to the sphere, dragging it to and fro, climbing it, imprisoned by it, sometimes abandoning it altogether as they moved across the space. And then it was done, the entire work lasting only about a half hour.
Reluctant to shake off the spell cast by the dancers, I spoke with Off the Walls Arts founder and set-builder Yvonne Bobo and the choreographers to hear how such a piece, unmoored from any established dance company, came to be.
Memphis Flyer:Yvonne, in your opening remarks, you said you envisioned a space that fostered interdisciplinary arts. Could you expand on that?
Yvonne Bobo: I’ve been doing sculpture on my own for a long time. And when I left Crosstown, I was looking for a building where I could be long term, and where other artists could be. A lot of us are working on the outskirts by ourselves. So I bought the building, not knowing what would happen. But we have, including this group, thirty artists in the building. Dance, woodworkers, mixed media, photographers, sculpture, everything.
Recently, I met Ashley at a friend’s house, and I ran into Neile at Memphis Rocks, and we all were talking about Elizabeth Streb’s choreography, using big metal structures. So I said, ‘Why don’t we do a collaboration? I’ll build the structures, you guys dance.’
Ashley Volner: The third piece is actually a tribute to one of Elizabeth Streb’s dancers who passed away about two months ago. I’m from Memphis, but when I lived in New York, I ended up working with Elizabeth Streb in JAMPack’d, which is a company under her main company. I also train upper level gymnasts.
There’s a lot of gymnastics in Firebird. It reminded me of Cirque de Soleilin places.
AV: Yes. And we have incredible gymnasts in Memphis.
So this piece was inspired by The Firebird?
Neile Martin: It’s a Russian folk tale, but you see phoenixes and firebirds in a lot of mythology. And when we started looking at the story, we knew we wanted to use a story that was familiar, to make modern dance feel more palpable to people who aren’t sure what they’re supposed to be thinking or feeling when they see modern dance. We’ll use something that people know, and then play in that framework of a familiar story. Something that came out in the past couple weeks was the dynamic shift when something powerful meets something equally powerful, and they recognize in each other what it means to have that kind of power. And that’s the struggle that occurs between the sorcerer and the firebird at the end. And out of that recognition of self and self, comes kindness and forgiveness and acceptance.
YB: That moment is very powerful, when they come to forgive. The quiet moments are as strong as the loud ones.
NM: What does it mean to have such a burden of power? What do you do with it? What do you want?
YB: That’s what’s interesting about the sphere, too. You feel all the pieces that are moving. You think there are two sides to a story, but there are so many more. And you see them all.
NM: The language and vocabulary of modern dance gives us freedom to express that complexity with a larger physicality.
Firebird at Off the Walls Arts (Credit: Hattie Greene)
Even in modern dance, you don’t always see works so driven by the set pieces. Maybe in work by Meredith Monk or Twyla Tharpe.
NM: Yeah, Twyla’s quite a force to be reckoned with. But it also comes down to the brilliance of Yvonne. [To Bobo] You hearing us talk, and then making Betty…
YB: That’s what we call the big structure.
NM: We named her Betty. But she’s Liz when she’s feeling feisty.
YB: What’s funny is, that was my mom’s name. They just coincidentally named the structure Betty. And my mom liked to be the center of everything.
NM: Seeing Betty for the first time, our vision just took off from that moment.
AV: I think Neile immediately climbed on it. There was no verbal response at first, it was just like this frog climbing up.
It evokes jungle gyms and childhood. And when you’re a kid, in a jungle gym, that’s your universe. You can create a million stories in that structure.
YB: To be inside, to be outside, even to be trapped inside. And then get out! It’s an orb that’s a cage; it may just be an idea, or magic. It’s a sentiment.
But also liberating: climbing upside down, or climbing to the top.
YB: Yeah, getting really high! Like when you’re a little kid and get brave enough to get to the top. You’re king of the orb, right?
The audience seemed absorbed the whole time.
YB: This is our soft opening, which sold out, and that was a little daunting. We were like, ‘Great! Oh crap! It’s happening!’
NM: That’s what I love about performing live. You get to live in the moment. And then you’re like, ‘Oh, it’s done! Okay, I’m gonna do it again.’
The rawness of the space evokes venues in New York where I’d see performances in the 80s, like P.S. 122 or warehouses that hosted performance art. It creates that feeling of an urgent, urban wellspring of creativity that you don’t always get in Memphis.
YB: As a public artist, I feel like the committees, the approvals, the calls, all the things where they tell you what they want you to do, it’s like they dilute us over and over again. There can be so many stages of approval that there’s just nothing left to look at. So when I imagined Off the Walls, I thought, why don’t artists run a nonprofit? So what I see in Firebird is, artists want to do stuff! But where are they going to do it?
NM: There’s no other place in Memphis that’s an incubator for professional artists to have time and space to play and build to create a product like this.
YB: And I have no idea what we’re going to do next.
Firebird Immersive Modern Dance runs through August 7 at Off the Walls Arts, 360 Walnut Street. For showtimes and to purchase tickets, click here.
MLK50: Justice Through Journalism named Adrienne Johnson Martin as the nonprofit newsroom’s first executive editor. She will begin her tenure starting September 7th.
“The strength of Adrienne’s ideas and her passion for justice made her the perfect choice for this job,” said Wendi C. Thomas, founding editor and publisher of MLK50. “As we move from startup mode to sustainability, it’s essential that our leadership bench has depth and that’s what Adrienne brings. I am elated that she’s joining the team and I look forward to building the organization together.”
Johnson Martin is based in Raleigh, North Carolina. She recently held the position of managing editor for Duke Magazine, Duke University’s alumni publication, and has plenty of previous journalism experience. She worked at the Los Angeles Times as a copy editor and writer, and was part of the 1994 team that won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Northridge earthquake. She also covered radio, television, and film for the The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, before becoming the publication’s associate features editor.
“I love that I’ll have the chance to be in community with a team that knows we don’t have to live in a zero-sum world and is committed to telling the stories of those on the losing side of that paradigm,” said Johnson Martin. “These are journalists who use their talents in service of justice. What’s better than that?
“The executive editor job is an incredible opportunity for me to support Wendi’s vision and to ensure that MLK50 becomes embraced by and deeply embedded in the Memphis community.”
Satan, the conductor of the Hellbound Train, in James and Eloyce Gist's 1930 film.
Crosstown Theater resumed programming last week with Reigning Sound. Now, Crosstown Arts is resuming its film series with a unique offering. Beginning in October, 2019, programmers Justin Thompson and Courtney Fly have been asking Memphis musicians to compose and perform scores for silent films. The results have been pretty spectacular.
Tonight, the film in question is Hellbound Train. It was created in 1930 by a husband-and-wife team of traveling Black evangelists named James and Eloyce Gist, who taught themselves to use a 16 mm, handheld movie camera. That’s the kind of DIY spirit I love to celebrate. As you can see from the image above, their costuming was crude, to say the least. The story, which was accompanied by real-time commentary from the Gists—call it a “live-preach”—was of thoughtless sinners who boarded a train driven by Satan himself, and faced the infernal consequences of their actions. As you can see, the Gists had a particular bee in their bonnets about dancing.
Wait ’til they hear about twerking.
Hellbound Train was thought lost, as so many films have been from the silent era, but it was recently rediscovered and restored by Kino Lorber and released by Criteron as a part of their efforts to preserve early examples Black cinema.
Performing the live score will be Memphis gospel singer Elizabeth King, accompanied by guitarist Will Sexton and producer Matt Ross-Spang, with percussion by Will McClary. Follow this link for a little taste of what you can expect at Crosstown Theater tonight at 7:30 PM sharp.
One benefit of live-streaming is the way it offers samplings of what’s going on around town at the click of a mouse. This coming week is a good example. Sure, you may know of Devil Train, but how about that other group with a residency at the live-stream-equipped B-Side Memphis, Evil Rain? You can catch their psychedelic jazz every Monday evening. And how many outside of those who frequent Beale Street know the genius of Earl the Pearl, the bluesman who gave Teenie Hodges his first guitar lessons? This week, you can tune into his show at Hernando’s Hide-a-way. Then there are those devoted song-slingers, Richard Wilson, our favorite U.K. transplant, Bill Shipper, composer of the inimitable “Dirty Data” and “Global Eyes,” and freestyle kings Ross Johnson and Jeffery Evans. Try them all out, then throw some coinage to your favorites. Keep the stream flowing!
ALL TIMES CDT
Thursday, July 29 7 p.m. Velvetina’s Blue Moon Revue — at Hernando’s Hide-a-way Website
The resurgent interest in vinyl is real, and apparently here to stay. Even as streaming services simultaneously make artists’ music more accessible and less lucrative, vinyl releases and re-releases continue to escalate, lending musical works a kind of permanence. “Vinylus longa, vita brevis,” goes the old Latin saying (or does it?), and for those who never stopped loving LPs, there’s no little satisfaction in knowing the medium has staying power.
Furthermore, when albums from the CD-dominated era are re-released as LPs, musical works can take on a new life, reassessed in light of the intervening years. And so it is with Doing the Distance, the 2004 sophomore release by local power pop stalwarts Snowglobe, which is now being released in its first vinyl iteration by Black & Wyatt Records. The album’s title could not be more appropriate, for the one phrase that springs to mind on its re-emergence is “staying power.”
For the many Snowglobe fans around town, this comes as no surprise. It’s been heartening to see their occasional reunions greeted with great enthusiasm, such as their 2017 appearance at one of Robert Wyatt’s beloved Harbert Porch Parties.
Snowglobe play a Harbert Porch Party, ca. 2017 (Illustration by Michael Arthur, courtesy Black & Wyatt Records).
Even at its initial CD-only release, Doing the Distance was much loved by those few who heard it. Chris Herrington gave it a glowing review in the Memphis Flyer:
These 16 tracks — recorded locally, mostly at Memphis Soundworks and Easley-McCain Studios — are more like a 44-minute rock symphony. Each song melds into the next and orchestral touches and instrumental interludes share time with more conventional song structures and locked-in classic-rock guitar solos…Cello and violins and sleighbells, mellotron and musical saw, layered vocals and subliminal drops of musical Americana, squiggly guitars and churning pianos: This is studio rock of truly intense craft that also maintains an air of spontaneity and playfulness. They aren’t late-’60s Beatles or the Band, of course, but Snowglobe honor the comparison. Certainly, no other Memphis band is making music (or ever has made music?) so casually dense.
Snowglobe (Photo courtesy Black & Wyatt Records)
Herrington hit the nail on the head with his classic rock comparisons, for undergirding all the refined aural candy of synthesizers, strings and effects are solid songs that rock righteously. And if the lyrics are a tad oblique, that only lends them enough mystery to have one coming back for more, the better to chew over their layered meanings. All told, the lyrics have a very real resonance with their times, alternately paranoid, despondent, and idealistic, with a finely-tuned philosophical bent that lends them a life beyond any topical concerns of the George W. Bush era.
Scanning the music journalistic universe, one quickly sees that this album has been discovered and re-discovered multiple times over the years, belying levels of appreciation that mere sales figures from its original release can’t capture. Fourteen years ago, gaming and entertainment webzine IGN called it “The best three year old album you’ve never heard.” Writing about this latest reissue, The Vinyl District refers to Snowglobe as “a Memphis indie rock institution.”
Indeed, hearing Doing the Distance on vinyl confirms that sentiment, cementing the band’s underground reputation as pop innovators. And, as if in recognition of that, this re-release will be the first subject of a listening party focused on a single album at the Memphis Listening Lab.
On Saturday, August 7 from 6 to 8 p.m., the entire LP will be presented on the Memphis Listening Lab’s Egglestonworks high-end loudspeakers. There will be a discussion afterwards. Attendees paying admission of $25 per person/$30 per couple will also receive a copy of the album.
The Hernando De Soto Bridge will partially reopen next week, officials with the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) announced Wednesday.
Eastbound lanes of the bridge will open Monday at 6 a.m. Westbound lanes will open Friday at a time not yet determined. This schedule could change with any complications that arise. TDOT will update the plan on Friday.
TDOT said contractors will have completed all the phase three plating by Friday. They will begin to demobilize, break down platforms, remove equipment, and barriers starting with the eastbound direction. Doing this one side at a time is safest for workers.
However, the bridge will remain an active work zone, TDOT said, and they ask drivers motorists to pay attention to all signs on the bridge.
…our team made the repairs and performed extensive inspections to ensure it’s structurally sound for many years to come.
TDOT Commissioner Clay Bright
TDOT Commissioner Clay Bright said when TDOT closed the bridge in May, “we did not know then what all would be involved” but the team “worked tirelessly to safely reopen the bridge as soon as possible.”
“We know having the bridge closed has been incredibly inconvenient,” said TDOT Commissioner Clay Bright. “We appreciate the public’s patience while our team made the repairs and performed extensive inspections to ensure it’s structurally sound for many years to come.”
The same party that politicized state oversight of COVID-19 vaccines now urges Tennesseans to get the vaccine, saying it “should not be political.”
Many members of the Tennessee state Senate Republican Caucus signed a letter issued Tuesday noting the recent spike in cases and said that “virtually all” of those who require hospitalization have been unvaccinated.
House Republicans said in a committee meeting last month that they would consider dissolving the part of the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) that oversees vaccine awareness. They were angered over the department’s moves to get more minors vaccinated, especially those who might get the vaccine without their parents’ permission.
Rep. Scott Cepicky (R-Culleoka) said those efforts amounted to “peer pressure applied by the state of Tennessee,” according to a story at the time from The Tennessean. Cepicky said he found the move to be “reprehensible … that you would do that to our youth.”
Sen. Kerry Roberts (R-Springfield), who did not sign Tuesday’s vaccine letter, said it seemed the state was “advocating” and said, “market to parents, don’t market to children. Period.”
Shortly after the hearing, Gov. Bill Lee fired Dr. Michelle Fiscus, the state’s top vaccine official. She claims she was scapegoated to appease Republicans angered over efforts to vaccine minors.
The news made headlines across the country in stories that mostly criticized Tennessee Republicans and the Lee administration. State GOP leaders fired back with a statement calling attacks on them “intellectually dishonest and wrong.” Their concerns about vaccines and minors was interpreted as “anti-vaccine” they said.
Tuesday’s letter lauds the country’s general vaccine history, saying it has “been saving lives for over a century” and has eradicated polio and smallpox. Even the “new mRNA technology, which has caused some people to be vaccine hesitant, has been around for decades,” they said, adding an explanation on how it works.
As for the COVID-19 vaccine, “we are well beyond the COVID-19 vaccine trial stag,” said the GOP missive. It noted that nearly 338 million doses have been given with “few adverse effects.”
”Please compare the very rare instances of side effects with the more than 600,000 deaths in the U.S. which have occurred due to COVID-19,” reads the letter. “The facts are clear — the benefits of the vaccines far outweigh the risks.”
However, “under no circumstances” will Tennessee mandate vaccines or vaccine passports, Republicans said, as “we recognize this is a personal choice.” Still, they urged “Tennesseans who do not have a religious objection or a legitimate medical issue to get vaccinated.”
“Unfortunately, efforts to get more people vaccinated have been hampered by politicization of COVID-19,” reads the letter from the party that politicized COVID-19. “This should not be political. Tennesseans need factual information to make educated decisions regarding their health.”
When you visit the Sumlight Bistro food truck, bring a white tablecloth. Chef/owner Daris Leatherwood serves “elevated street food” — the type of cuisine you’d get at a fine dining restaurant.
Leatherwood is slated to re-launch his food truck the first week of August. Instead of hamburgers, you might be eating his truffle-crusted lamb chops.
“I have the fine dining background,” he says. “So, it’s just taking something that you would normally sit down and eat at a white tablecloth setting, but off the food truck. Same presentation. But it’s also comfortable at the same time.”
Leatherwood cooked as a child in Cleaborn Homes. “It started with me scrambling eggs. I went through two cartons of eggs. I would have too much heat, not enough heat, not enough oil, until I got the math right.
“I just kind of picked it up on my own,” he continues. “I started doing it when no one was around. I knew at an early age that I could make things taste really good.”
Cooking “went from a hobby to a passion, and a passion to a career. In the back of my high school yearbook it says I wanted to be a chef. And I’m one of two people who lived up to what they wanted to be.”
His first job was at Isaac Hayes Nightclub & Restaurant in Peabody Place, where the chef took him under his wing. “He began teaching me about the mother sauces,” Leatherwood says. “I started doing sauté. The rest is history. I started working around the kitchen mastering each station.”
Hayes? “I met him. We cooked for him. Yes, I did. I think he had the rib tips with the french fries.”
Leatherwood then got a job at Ruth’s Chris Steak House, where he went from “salad guy” to “master broiler.” He kept learning. “Learning things from other people, but I bought my own books. Like teaching myself about French cuisine.”
The old Madison Hotel was next. “That was one of the best times in my life. I was running a boutique luxury hotel in Memphis.”
Leatherwood cooked for rapper Lil Wayne. “He had a show here in Memphis, and I ended up cooking for him and his whole entourage.”
He ended up going to Miami to cook for the performer. “He didn’t talk much, but I knew when I saw those clean plates he was happy.”
Leatherwood rose to executive chef while working on the American Empress cruise ship. “On that boat, I was able to save a substantial amount of money ’cause I couldn’t spend it. I was thinking of ways to create a business for myself. What better way than a food truck. Low overhead, full creativity.”
Leatherwood, who returned to Ruth’s Chris as executive chef, bought his first food truck in 2018. He thought, “Why can’t we have fine dining on a food truck? That’s a concept I’d never heard of.”
He began serving grilled salmon sliders, seafood gumbo, Cajun pastas, lamb chops, lollipop lobster tails, crab cakes. His food “mirrored the food” he was cooking on a corporate level. “The type of food I was comfortable with.”
He continued to work at Ruth’s Chris and operate his food truck until the pandemic. He then catered and did pop-ups. Seven months ago, Leatherwood bought a bigger and taller food truck. He and chef Mary Wallace are collaborating this time.
“We just work so well together. We have the same passion about food. The love we put in the food. We’re ready to take it to the next level. I want to cater to the people who want the high-end cuisine, but I want some affordable cuisine as well,” he says. “It will be elevated street food, but I will have vegan options in there as well.”
“Sumlight” is what Leatherwood says when fellow chefs ask what he’s making. “Oh, that’s sum’ [something] light.”
But, he still could be making “something that blows your mind.”
