The Bluff City’s fans of speculative fiction have a new reason to rejoice in the recently released Trouble the Waters: Tales From the Deep Blue (Third Man Books) edited by Pan Morigan and Memphians Sheree Renée Thomas and Troy L. Wiggins. The anthology is mesmerizing, a collection sparkling with a myriad of voices, some plumbing the depths of the mystic while others cast their gaze on the far-off future.
Thomas and Wiggins are no strangers to sci-fi and speculative fiction. Both writers contributed to last year’s Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda prose anthology, and Thomas is the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science-Fiction. In this newest work, water is the unifying motif. Like water itself — freezing, fogging, fluidly expanding to fill any space — the stories within take many shapes.
“The Water Creatures in my own story,” writes Thomas in the collection’s introduction, “remind us that while the earth is round, her waters are vast and deep. We may never know all the strange, wondrous life-forms teeming below.”
In Thomas’ “Love Hangover,” the protagonist, Frankie, fawns over a siren-like singer. “Like Delilah Divine’s voice, the music was sweet water finding its own way home,” Thomas writes. “The challenge was finding a way to listen and not get drenched. With Delilah you drowned.” In the short story, as in much of Thomas’ work, music is tied to the life force; drum beats are like heartbeats (check out her collection Nine Bar Blues, which is populated by dancers, DJs, and other musical magic). The story culminates with the 1979 fire at the Infinity disco, as the author deftly balances the forces of water and fire.
Memphian Danian Darrell Jerry’s “A City Called Heaven” conjures images of epidemic in Memphis. It begins with Sibyl walking west along Beale Street, trodding familiar ground. Beneath the specter of disease, a desire for life takes root, but the question is how to hold on to that life. Music and religion, two of the city’s driving forces, figure prominently in the story.
In “Seven Generations Algorithm” by Andrea Hairston, though the future may be bleak, with the gulf between the haves and have-nots as apparent as it is today, song and story still offer a saving grace. “Refugees, squatters, and former desperadoes were pitching tents in dead big-box stores, hoping for miracles: jobs, food, electricity, a plan, a vision — maybe just cheap cell service,” Hairston writes. Meanwhile, the author and playwright continues, “Folks who could were locked up tight down in the valley behind a flood wall and megawatt gates. Electric Paradise was on the other side of the Mall — a waste of power and good river valley soil.”
Speaking over the phone, Memphian Jamey Hatley tells me about her story, “Spirits Don’t Cross Over ’Til They Do,” which follows a veteran of the Vietnam War, Rabbit, as he tries to find a place for himself. Rabbit has seen too much death, too little reason for hope. He was in Memphis when Otis Redding died, when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
“How do survivors return?” Hatley asks. “There used to be rights of passage if you were a warrior. You would go through this process to be reacclimated into the community. Even now we’re having all these talks about how our veterans are not being taken care of, how the waiting lists for mental healthcare are incredibly long. … How do you try to make yourself whole?”
Featuring authors from familiar environs such as Memphis and New Orleans, but as far away as Northern Ireland and Copenhagen, and casting a net into the world of myth and memory, of foresight and prophecy for inspiration, Trouble the Waters is as beautiful and frightening and changing as the sea itself. Poetry, magic, and Afrofuturism inform the stories within, bidding the reader to drift away, borne aloft on a sea of story, to awake on a strange and wondrous shore.
Dr. Rudolph Jackson is featured in the Pioneer portion of the exhibit. (Photo: Courtesy St. Jude/NCRM)
In honor of Black History Month, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and ALSAC, the hospital’s fundraising and awareness organization, have partnered with the National Civil Rights Museum in an exhibit reflecting on St. Jude’s legacy of defying racial inequities within healthcare.
“St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital was founded as a beacon of inclusion and equality, and I couldn’t think of a better place to share that history than the National Civil Rights Museum,” says Richard C. Shadyac Jr., president and CEO of ALSAC. “We encourage everyone to visit this amazing museum to learn more about the connected civil rights stories of Memphis, ALSAC, and St. Jude.”
The interactive poster installation traces St. Jude’s history starting with its 1962 founding as the first fully integrated children’s hospital in the South at the height of segregation. With QR codes that direct visitors to video footage and webpages, guests can read about and hear the stories of three people: Paul Williams, the African-American architect who designed the original star-shaped hospital building; patient Courtney, whose life St. Jude’s care helped save; and Dr. Rudolph Jackson, one of the first Black doctors at the institution.
“When I first came here in ’68, I came here as part of the sickle cell program,” Jackson says in one of the exhibit’s videos. “The entire country and the world were going through the same kinds of things that we were seeing in Memphis. There was the school strike going on, the garbage strike, marches. … I wanted to do something for particularly African Americans who could not afford healthcare. The kind of healthcare people get here at St. Jude, you can’t purchase. It’s so great to find so many people who have the same ideas and work three times as hard.” Jackson has passed away since the filming of this video.
The exhibit is on display through March 8th in the guest lounge on the second floor of the museum.
“ALSAC & St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital’s Commitment To Equity And Inclusion For All Children,”
National Civil Rights Museum, 450 Mulberry, on display through March 8th.
Monique Williams (Photo: Courtesy Monique Williams)
Monique Williams can create a restaurant faster than she can whip up a batch of biscuits.
Or it seems that way.
Williams is co-owner of Biscuits & Jams in Bartlett and co-owner of Trap Fusion in Whitehaven and Cordova. Many people remember when Williams owned Pat-A-Cake’s Bake Shop in Cordova.
You can thank her grandmother, the late Laura Stepter. “She was a pastry chef,” Williams says. “She worked for Memphis City Schools for almost 30 years. She did their pastries, made homemade breads, pies, turnovers, cakes, cookies, biscuits.”
Growing up in Midtown, Williams was in the kitchen with Stepter “helping her stir or licking the whisk after she made a cake. … She let me help, but she let me go in like I was in a lab and just experiment. I would make things and bring them out and she’d taste it.”
An alumna of Central High School, Williams graduated from Christian Brothers University and then Central Michigan University, where she got a master’s in health services administration.
She worked 24 years in clinical research but always baked for friends. She taught herself how to cook different cuisines. “I always wanted to have my own business. I knew it would involve food, entertainment, people.”
She remembers her grandmother and mother cooking for visiting relatives. “That feeling of eating together, getting together with food, just seemed to make people happy.”
Her first side business was making party decorations. “I’d do the gift bags, decorate the ‘jump the brooms’ for African-American weddings, make a wishing well for the gifts.”
In 2012, Williams opened Pat-A-Cake’s Bake Shop, serving cupcakes, pies, and cinnamon rolls. Like all her restaurants, Williams had “more of a neighborhood feel, where people sit and enjoy. The goal is to have regulars.”
She closed the bakery in 2016 because she needed a break and her daughter was about to go college. But, she thought, “It’s not the end. It’s just moving to the next level.”
Two years later, she opened Laura’s Kitchen in Bartlett, where she did “all kinds of Southern stuff.” Tired of leasing space, Williams closed the restaurant after a year and, with a business partner, opened Laura’s Kitchen food truck, mostly used for catering jobs. “Macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, all that good stuff you’d get on Sundays if you go to a Southern grandma’s house. At least the grandma I grew up with. The young grandmas, I’m not sure of.”
With more partners, she opened Trap Fusion, where the emphasis is on healthy food. “Seafood. We do some vegan, Caribbean, Cajun.”
“Trap” stands for “Take Risks and Prosper,” she says.
Williams opened Biscuits & Jams in 2021 because she wanted a place in Bartlett that specializes in brunch. “There are so many in Downtown and Midtown. We don’t have a lot of these boutique-style spaces that give you the cutesy feel with good food.”
Her February menu includes gumbo, crawfish étouffée, and shrimp po’ boys. Popular regular items include shrimp and crawfish Creole Benedict and bananas Foster French toast.
The “jams” in the title refer to the jams, jellies, and preserves Williams makes and serves. But it has another meaning. “I love good music. We’re in Memphis, kind of playing on that. We have live music and play music in-house.”
Of course, new restaurants are on Williams’ horizon. One will be a small baker’s commercial kitchen/dinner spot. Another will be “a small-plate venue,” she says. “And great drinks.”
Biscuits & Jams is at 5806 Stage in Bartlett, (901) 672-7905.
Trap Fusion is at 4637 Boeingshire in Whitehaven, (901) 207-5565; and 670 N. Germantown Pkwy. in Cordova, (901) 672-7061.
A bill to restrict stock trading by members of Congress was introduced in the Senate in January. Unlike previous attempts, this one actually appears to have a good chance of becoming law.
The bill wasn’t introduced in a vacuum. It comes after transactions by numerous members and their spouses have been called into question (sometimes humorously, as in the case of Nancy Pelosi’s husband and his emerging reputation as one of the better investors of all time). It does seem right to restrict congressional trading, but how much of a burden is this restriction to an average member of Congress?
The answer, in our opinion, is “not much burden at all.” There are four things necessary for an individual to successfully invest in individual stocks for the long run, which members probably don’t have. Our definition of success is beating the long-term returns of a well-constructed, diversified portfolio of equity funds for years into decades — no fair claiming you’re a stock market wizard for doubling up $500 in GameStop last year. You have to consider long-term returns of your portfolio as a whole, including any cash on the sidelines, and compare that to a reasonable benchmark across time.
To really be successful buying individual stocks, you need these four elements:
A good plan. What kind of investor are you? Do you buy undervalued companies unrecognized by the market? Do you use momentum? Do you look for fast earnings growth? Picking companies that have products you like is not enough. Even picking successful companies is not enough. Price matters, so even the greatest company in the world with the best prospects might be a poor investment (cough cough, Tesla at current valuations!).
Plenty of time. Researching individual stocks thoroughly takes a lot of time. Well-regarded funds have large teams of analysts to put together a portfolio of sometimes just a handful of stocks. You can’t glance over a Reddit post and call it due diligence. To confidently put your money to work for the long run, you need to know what’s happening under the hood. Let’s hope most members of Congress are busy solving our problems rather than thoroughly researching investment opportunities.
Good timing. Even if you correctly select companies that will outperform in the long run, there can be agonizing periods of underperformance that can take away from your ability to compound your investments over time. The fewer stocks you own, the more impact a long-term laggard will have.
Good luck. Even if you’ve done everything right, you still need a little luck in avoiding big negative surprises. An unexpected event like an accounting scandal can hurt a lot, especially if you only hold a few different positions. By definition the worst kinds of surprises are, well, very surprising.
It’s hard to imagine any member of Congress — or any average person with a day job, family obligations, and a life — to really excel at being a stock picker in the long term. In fact, we suspect the average return of an average ethical member will improve if their portfolios move into blind trusts managed by competent professionals.
We acknowledge it can be fun (or even necessary, as an insider) to take positions in individual stocks, but we always suggest that it should be as small a portion of the portfolio as possible, with the rest invested in well-constructed, well-diversified mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs). Unless you have some (wink, wink) “special” knowledge gleaned from your job as a senator or representative, true long-term success in individual stocks will likely remain elusive.
Gene Gard is Chief Investment Officer at Telarray, a Memphis-based wealth management firm that helps families navigate investment, tax, estate, and retirement decisions. Ask him your question at ggard@telarrayadvisors.com or sign up for the next free online seminar on the Events tab at telarrayadvisors.com.
Van Turner, the two-term holder of the District 12 seat on the Shelby County Commission, a former commission chair, and one of the body’s most influential members, is term-limited and thus ineligible to run for re-election. Turner, who is also president of the Memphis chapter of the NAACP, has declared himself to be a likely candidate for mayor of Memphis in 2023 and, in the judgment of many observers, is a probable front-runner in the race to succeed Mayor Jim Strickland, who is himself term-limited.
Meanwhile, four candidates have successfully filed for election to the District 12 (southeast Memphis) commission seat, and all of them, at one point or another, had asked Turner for his support — and why shouldn’t they want the backing of the current, much-respected seat-holder?
Erika Sugarmon (Photo: Courtesy Erika Sugarmon)
At least two of them have been publicly rumored to have gained Turner’s support — a fact clearly demanding of some clarification. Which of the two — the Rev. Reginald Boyce, the well-regarded pastor of Riverside Missionary Baptist Church, or Erika Sugarmon, a teacher and voting-rights activist — actually has Turner’s endorsement?
The fact is, they both do. Early on, Boyce asked for, and got, a pledge of support from Turner, who offered him both verbal and financial backing. Then Sugarmon, member of a family renowned for its role in local civil rights history, filed closer to the deadline and reminded Turner of a tentative commitment he had made to her some months earlier.
It was a predicament familiar to many of those Shelby County citizens — in business and civil life in general, as well as in politics — who are asked to underwrite the electoral efforts of others and whose support, in races as close as the one in District 12 is said to be, can be all-important.
Turner decided that he couldn’t renounce the support he’d already offered Boyce, nor could he see himself turning Sugarmon away.
He determined that both candidates were equally deserving and is at present underwriting both their campaigns, verbally and financially. Moreover, he has kind words as well for the other two candidates in the race — David Walker, a former high school classmate of his, and James Bacchus, a retired principal who served at both Whitehaven High School and Hamilton High School. A fifth possible candidate, who ended up not filing, was Ronald Pope, with whom Turner also had good relations.
“It’s difficult when my friends end up running against each other,” says Turner, and his dilemma is, after all, similar to the one we all have when we look at a candidate list and have a hard time deciding which way to go with it. The fact is, the election roster of 2022 offers several such conundrums — races in which more than one candidate has impressive enough credentials to warrant a vote.
(And, yes, of course, there may be one or two races in which nobody seems to measure up.)
In any case, somebody has to win, and everybody can’t.
There are ways of mitigating the perplexities of choice, and one of them — ranked-choice voting — allows for ranking one’s preferences so as to acknowledge the ambiguities of choosing between alternatives and, collectively, to help resolve them. Our betters in the Tennessee General Assembly have just banned that process, though, taking away a tool that we voters of Shelby County had twice approved at the ballot box without much head-scratching at all.
In October of 2019, I found a bedraggled kitten covered in mud and hiding under a large piece of machinery next to the train tracks across the street from my house. It had stormed the night before — lashing rain, booming thunder, and a tornado touched down in Parkway Village — and the kitten had been lost in the tempest.
I waited a little while to see if the kitten’s piteous cries would lead his mother to him, but no go. So I stole a can of tuna from my housemate and coaxed the mud-covered feline into a towel-lined cardboard box. I called Memphis Animal Services, but it was after hours, so I left a message and took the sad little stray to my girlfriend’s apartment. Though I told Syd, “Don’t get attached. We’re not keeping him,” by the time I got a call back from MAS, I had taken the cat to the vet for a checkup, vaccinations, and to find out if I needed to bottle-feed him. Before long, the little kitten known on his vet intake papers as “stray domestic shorthair” was called Ampersand, and he was here to stay.
Yeah, they know exactly what they’re doing at MAS. They played me like a fiddle, and to be honest, I’m glad they did.
That was two and a half years ago. These days my girlfriend is my fiancée, we live in a different house farther away from train tracks, and Ampersand is definitely eating solid food. As I write these words, the gray gremlin is recovering from a rough couple of weeks.
Not long ago, Amp came down with what’s called feline idiopathic cystitis. The “idiopathic” is there because, as I understand it, the condition is more or less “an inflamed bladder, and we don’t know why.” It’s the diagnosis the vets give after they rule out stones or an infection or any of the other usual suspects for, uh, let’s say, “litter box difficulties.”
Though he had been improving since he was first diagnosed, about a week before then, last Friday, Ampersand was not acting like himself. He growled at me. He was wobbly on his feet. After a brief visit to his usual vet, where Amp was referred to the local emergency clinic for animals, I found myself standing at the counter of said clinic and signing a consent form so they could rush him back to be seen by a doctor. I transferred an exorbitant sum of money to the vet, and they told me Amp had developed a urinary blockage. Well, I would growl at people too if my bladder was swelling without any hope of relief.
So Amp spent the weekend at the emergency clinic. They removed the blockage and hooked him up to a catheter to drain his bladder and IVs to feed him fluids. It seemed to do the trick. Since he’s been back home, my feline shadow has been acting much more like himself, but it’s clear he’s still got some healing to do.
This might seem like an awful lot of trouble to go to for a creature I found in the mud under some construction equipment, and honestly, I can’t disagree. But after three trips to the vet, a weekend stay at the animal ER, the medication I have to give him every six hours, the different medication I have to give him every 12 hours, and that time he peed on me, I can say one thing with certainty: It’s worth it, and in the end it’s a bargain.
Over the course of the past week and a half, I’ve spent hours at various veterinary offices, and I saw absolutely irrational kindness on display. You want to see unconditional love? Go spend an hour in the lobby of the emergency animal clinic on a Sunday night. That’s not how any sane person would want to spend an evening, but I didn’t see a soul who wasn’t ready to do whatever they had to to help the creatures in their care. These days, the world is often confusing and frightening, and the love on display was a comfort.
Maybe it seems silly beyond belief, infantile even, to write about my darn cat. I should be writing about Ukraine or any number of other, more serious topics. But I suspect I’ll get the chance in weeks to come. Today I’m thankful for the things that force us to show compassion, even when — especially when — it doesn’t make much sense.
The best pets are brought into our lives when we need them, which is, in my experience, exactly when another responsibility is the last thing we would choose for ourselves. Sometimes we need a shove in the right direction, and, even after a hectic (and, frankly, gross) week, I’m glad that an autumn storm brought Amp to my doorstep.
In the midst of a civil war, 9-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill) and his family retreat into the escapism of movies and TV shows.
Belfast begins in August 1969 with a boy’s-eye view of the beginning of the Troubles. For almost 30 years, the largely Protestant Unionists, who wanted Northern Ireland to remain a part of the United Kingdom, fought the largely Catholic Irish Nationalists, who wanted to unite with the Republic of Ireland, which had broken away from the UK in 1921.
Director Kenneth Branagh, who wrote the script based on his own memories of growing up in the impoverished Irish city, immediately puts the audience in the point of view of Buddy (Jude Hill), a 9-year-old kid obsessed with movies, whom we meet running around the city streets with a wooden sword and trash can lid shield. But his fantasies of heroic conflict run headlong into a real riot.
The specifics of the Troubles are complex, with decades shifting allegiances between paramilitary groups and the various governments with interests in the outcome. But for Buddy and his family, it’s simple enough. Both Catholics and Protestants live in the brown row houses of their street in Belfast, and the Ulster Protestants, of whom Buddy’s family are ostensible members, want the Catholics gone. The fighting escalates when British troops arrive. Branagh depicts the running street battle at kid level, highlighting the little details that jump out at the easily distracted Buddy, like the sewer grates the rioters pick up to throw through windows and close-ups of tank treads glimpsed from shuttered windows.
Buddy and his older brother Will (Lewis McAskie) are mostly alone with their Ma (Caitriona Balfe) while their Pa (Jamie Dornan) works in London. The unemployment rate in Belfast, a television news announcer tells us, is the highest in Europe, and it is gradually revealed that the family’s finances are under even more pressure because Pa didn’t pay his taxes and now Her Majesty’s Government has come to collect. “Why do you cry when the mail comes?” Buddy asks his Ma.
The semi-long-distance relationship is taking its toll on Ma and Pa, but Buddy gets plenty of love from his kindly but cantankerous grandparents, played by Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds. Buddy is largely clueless to all the conflicts and struggles, instead focusing mostly on his dreams of becoming a football star and acing his schoolwork so he can sit close to Catherine (Olive Tennant), the blonde teacher’s pet he’s crushing on. He gets used to walking through the barricades manned by militiamen bearing guns and clipboards, trying to enforce religious segregation. But the Troubles come for everyone in the end. Pa, caught up in his own troubles, thinks religion is silly and has no stomach for street violence. But small-time gangster turned local Ulster militia leader Billy (Colin Morgan) won’t take no for an answer and turns up the pressure on the family to choose sides. With Grandpa ailing, Pa contemplates the unthinkable: leaving Belfast for the greener pastures of London, where the Troubles can’t reach them.
Branagh’s long and fruitful career as a director has gone from the supernatural thriller Dead Again to Shakespeare adaptations to the first Thor movie. Even now, as Belfast is poised to make a splash in one of the most competitive Oscar seasons in recent memory, his adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile is also in theaters. The performances, as you would expect from someone who now has a theater troupe named after him, are all solid. Hill, who was actually 10 when Belfast was filmed, shows exceptional range, from the wide-eyed wonder he displays while watching a stage performance of A Christmas Carol to the screaming fit he throws when he hears they might have to leave Belfast.
The black-and-white photography owes a lot to another auteurist autobiography, Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma. But when Buddy and the family go to the theater, the film bursts into color. Branagh chooses Buddy’s films and TV shows judiciously to reinforce his themes. When the sectarian hatred outside reaches a fever pitch, Buddy retreats to the egalitarian utopia of Star Trek. When his father must make a choice to fight or flee, they watch High Noon. But the film clips also telegraph Belfast’s swerve into maudlin nostalgia, as when the director outs himself as a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang superfan. Belfast is conventionally constructed and terminally nostalgic, but the cast and crew’s heart is in it, and sometimes, that’s enough.
Now playing at Forest Hill Cinema Grill and available to stream online
An under-recognized aspect of the punk and garage scene in Memphis is the musicians’ love of strange, old records. After all, one of the best models for kicking back against corporate rock hegemony is hearing how artists made music when rock and other genres were considered the radical fringe. Such was the context back in the ’90s, when the heathen underground played venues like the Antenna and Barristers. By day, many of those club denizens were fanning out to the city’s thrift stores, combing through vinyl.
The Royal Pendletons were mainstays of the local scene then, often making the trip north from their home base in New Orleans to play with such local pioneers as Impala or the Oblivians. It’s no accident that all of the players in those bands — notably Michael Hurtt and Matt Uhlman of the Royal Pendletons, Scott Bomar of Impala, and Greg Cartwright and Eric Friedl of the Oblivians — are respected DJs and curators of rare vinyl to this day. The gigs of the ’90s often gave way to all-night record parties. Incredibly, seeds were planted then for a phoenix-like revival of the most galvanizing gospel music ever recorded in Memphis, nearly 30 years later.
Photo: Courtesy Bible & Tire Recording Co.
A Friend You Haven’t Met Yet Michael Hurtt recalls those days vividly. “It was during our real reign of Memphis popularity, if you will, that I found the first single,” he says. “Matt Uhlman and I were coming to Memphis even before the Pendletons. … We were always looking for records. That was a big part of the attraction. There were countless fascinating labels in Memphis that I was discovering, every time I came to town.
“As I did that, I’d find a couple things on a small label and think, ‘Wow, this is really interesting.’ Then you find more and start wondering, ‘What’s the story behind it?’ They become these living, breathing entities in your mind. It’s almost like a friend who you haven’t met yet. They’re certainly not just objects. Records aren’t inanimate. There’s a whole story there in the grooves. That’s what happened with D-Vine Spirituals.”
For a music devotee fascinated with the history and many expressions of the groove, gospel was a natural interest. “To me, it was just another genre that I loved and had to know about. Since I was always fascinated by Memphis music and so taken by the city and its culture, I was always buying gospel records alongside every other country and garage and rock-and-roll record. So when I first saw that D-Vine Spirituals hand-drawn logo, I thought, ‘What is this?’ It’s got so much mystique to it.”
Of course, beyond the look and feel of the old records, there was the music itself. “The whole catalog is so good and so interesting,” Hurtt says. Hearing the impassioned singing, the raw beats, and silky harmonies, he felt he’d stumbled on a vein of gold running through the thrift and record shops of the city. “I kept finding more of the records. And I thought, ‘Jesus, this label’s amazing!’”
Michael Hurtt with D-Vine Spirituals founder Pastor Juan Shipp (Photo: Bruce Watson)
The Punk Meets the Godfather Sometime around 2007, after accumulating many of the D-Vine Spirituals releases over a decade, Hurtt, by then living in Detroit, resolved to dig deeper. “At one point, I noticed the name, ‘Produced by Juan D. Shipp.’ And I remember thinking, ‘This is not a very common name. If this guy is still around, I bet I can find him.’”Michael Hurtt with D-Vine Spirituals founder Pastor Juan Shipp
Pastor Juan D. Shipp recalls their first encounter well. “When Mike first called, I was a little skeptical. Who is this guy calling me?” he says. Still, he agreed to meet for coffee, and the two quickly warmed to each other. “We talked for a while, and he told me he came across a D-Vine record and he loved the sound. The sound was what caught Mike’s attention.” Shipp, who had founded and run D-Vine Spirituals from 1972 to 1987, still prided himself on the quality of the records he’d made decades earlier.
Hurtt, for his part, wasted no time. “We met at CK’s Coffee Shop,” he recalls, “and I sat down with him and a tape recorder. I wanted to get the story. That’s what I always do. From my own madness. Firstly, you do this because you just have to know. And then, of course, if you’re a writer and you want other people to know about this, you’re already thinking, ‘How can I put this in a book? Or in liner notes? A magazine article?’ The important thing is to get the story, before you even have a plan.
“So then, Juan started telling me the story,” Hurtt continues, “and he told me from the beginning, within the first minute, about Clyde Leoppard.” With that, another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. If the key to the records’ magic was their sound, that sound’s origins could be traced back to a studio Leoppard started in the ’60s, where all the D-Vine Spirituals tracks were cut.
“I already knew who Clyde Leoppard was,” reflects Hurtt. “Because I was already a Sun Records fanatic, and Clyde’s band, the Snearly Ranch Boys, backed up a lot of Sun artists: Hayden Thompson, Jack Earls, Barbara Pittman, Warren Smith, you name it. So that really struck me. Because, number one, here’s a guy I’ve always been interested in; number two, he’s a hillbilly musician. Which made total sense to me, that Black gospel and country music would have this alignment. Even if it’s just that it’s the guy’s studio. The fact is, Clyde had always wanted to record Black gospel groups, and that was part of how it all started. He loved that music. So that deepened the story. It was a watershed moment because it also showed me how Memphis the story was. In a sense, I feel like Clyde and Pastor Shipp, their journey together, their partnership, is Memphis. That is the real and true spirit of Memphis, Tennessee. An older white hillbilly musician working with a younger Black preacher to make this incredible, uniting music.”
Elizabeth King, whose intimate vocals put D-Vine Spirituals on the map (Photo: Matt White)
Pure Black Vinyl Ultimately, the true beginning of D-Vine Spirituals was prompted by Shipp’s quest for a solid sound, and Leoppard’s Tempo Recording Studio fit the bill. Not surprisingly, it all started with a conversation among DJs. In the mid ’60s, a few years after he’d started preaching, Juan Shipp also became a gospel disc jockey at radio station KWAM. The Black jockeys in town were a close-knit bunch. “I was talking with Eugene Walton, who was also with KWAM, and [Theo] ‘Bless My Bones’ Wade and Ford Nelson, who were with WDIA. We all worked together as a unit, even though we were at different stations. And I told them, ‘The sound that most groups are getting here in Memphis isn’t that good. It’s just a shame. Somebody needs to do something!’ And Wade said, ‘Well, Juan, you need to find a studio that will give them a good sound.’”
Photo: Courtesy Bible & Tire Recording Co.
And thus Shipp began his quest for better recordings. “At that time, Style Wooten’s Designer label had a monopoly on the gospel groups here in Memphis,” he remembers. “All the records that came out of Style’s studio sounded like the guy was singing down in a well or something. I didn’t like that. So I finally found a studio, and that was Clyde Leoppard. Clyde had made an echo chamber over the top of his stairway, and oh, that had a good sound! I also heard how [acoustically] dead the studio was, and I loved that.”
Beyond the spaces for recording, Leoppard also knew the ins and outs of making records. “I had noticed that the local labels had brownish-looking vinyl, while the records from Motown and Stax were dark black. I found out that Style was using reprocessed stuff, getting it as cheap as he could. So I asked Clyde, ‘Where do you get your records pressed?’ He worked with a place called Precision, and they used pure vinyl. I said, ‘That’s what I want.’ Because I’m Black. I can’t come out with no cheap stuff. Other folks can do that and get away with it. I said, ‘I’ve got to have pure black.’ So when I did my first records with Elizabeth King & the Gospel Souls, I sent it through Precision. And the sound was fantastic.”
Not only was the pressing pristine, the care taken to capture the label’s first group on tape paid off with a haunting recording. Singer Elizabeth King’s talent is a force of nature, and she’d already recorded tracks for Designer before connecting with Shipp. But during that first session in 1971, the D-Vine Spirituals producer took full advantage of the intimate vocals made possible in the hushed walls of Tempo to craft something unique. Abandoning the shouted delivery of so much gospel, he exhorted King to sing as if she was “making love to the Lord.” Her gripping performance still sounds immediate and fresh today. Not surprisingly, the record sold well and helped put D-Vine Spirituals on the map.
From there, the label only grew in popularity, pulling in talent from far beyond the Mid-South and garnering widespread airplay, though Shipp says that it never really made a profit. “It’s hard to make money, especially in gospel,” he says. “I got the joy out of just doing something good for the groups. That was my reward. I’d say my legacy was that I always would try to get the best out of an individual. The Lord blessed me to be able to see it there, and it was my job to get it out. Sometimes I’d even make a group cry because I’d push them so hard. Sometimes you had to use the spiritual aspect to get it out. Let them realize who they are and who they’re singing for. They’re not singing for people, they’re singing for God. If you’re singing for him, then you’ll give him your best. And if you do that, people are going to like it. Because what comes from the heart, reaches the heart.”
Photo: Michael Hurtt
“Let’s Go Get Those Tapes” Hearing such details for the first time over coffee, some 15 years ago, Hurtt was in awe and more determined than ever to take things further. As Shipp points out, “Not only is Mike a collector, he’s a fantastic writer. He wrote a book [Mind Over Matter: The Myths and Mysteries of Detroit’s Fortune Records, written with Billy Miller], and that book is this thick! He ought to be ashamed of himself.” The Pastor lets out an appreciative chuckle: In the case of D-Vine Spirituals, Hurtt’s dogged pursuit of the story led to much more than a book.
Hurtt describes how things quickly accelerated. “At one point, I asked him where the label’s master tapes were, and he said, ‘Oh yeah, they’re safe in Clyde’s studio.’ I knew Clyde had passed away, but his family had them. It was only a few months later that I came back to Memphis and said, ‘Let’s go get those tapes.’ Juan called Clyde’s niece and she said, ‘Yeah, come on out.’”
In retrospect, it seems providential that the two acted when they did. “All the tapes were in this shed, the old studio [that Leoppard had built after Tempo], which was going back to nature. The roof was caving in and there was all this water damage. They said, ‘You guys got here just in time. Our house is about to be foreclosed on.’ If we had waited two more weeks, all the tapes would have been in a landfill.”
Yet after that heroic act, things ground to a halt while circumstances intervened in the players’ lives. One daunting factor was the sheer quantity of material produced by Shipp’s label. “My Subaru wagon was filled up with tapes,” says Hurtt. “It was massive. Then Scott Bomar was generous enough to say, ‘I’ve got this room in my studio I’m not even using. You can put everything in there.’” And there they sat — for years.
Enter Bruce Watson of Fat Possum and Big Legal Mess Records. Having learned of the tapes from Bomar and spoken with Hurtt, he was beginning to imagine the possibilities. “That gospel stuff from the ’60s and ’70s is just so amazing,” Watson says, “and I just don’t hear that in modern gospel music. I wanted to create a Memphis-based label that concentrated on recording gospel, and try and make it sound like it was recorded back then. And also reissue stuff. So I contacted Pastor Shipp at the beginning of 2019 and said, ‘Look, I would love to buy the rights to the D-Vine Spirituals catalog and kick-start this new label.’”
Retrieving the tapes from Bomar, he began going over the material, preparing for his new venture, Bible & Tire Recording Co. “We transferred 150 master tapes, and they were all in pretty good shape still. I didn’t need to bake any of them,” says Watson, referring to the heating method used to restore old tape stock.
“Bruce and I met, and he seemed like a very nice guy,” says Shipp. “That was in 2019. It was 2007 when I first talked to Mike! And then it took six or eight months for us to transfer the stuff to the computer. We worked on it for a long time before we did anything,” he muses.
Photo: Courtesy Bible & Tire Recording Co.
A Parallel Universe Gradually, the material has been seeing the light of day on various Bible & Tire releases, including a compilation of Elizabeth King’s tracks as well as selections from a subsidiary of D-Vine Spirituals, JCR Records. The label has also brought King and Elder Jack Ward, two of D-Vine’s greatest talents from the very beginning, back into Watson’s studio for contemporary albums of their own. And finally, this year has seen the release of Sacred Soul: The D-Vine Spirituals Records Story, Volumes 1 & 2, with four more volumes in the works.
The Bible & Tire compilations include extensive liner notes by Hurtt, but they barely convey the shock and wonder he feels at seeing this saga come to fruition. “What’s amazing about this stuff,” he notes, “is that the ’70s was really a golden era for gospel music, but not in the sense that it sounded like ’70s music. It always had one foot in the quartets. That quartet sound is what I’m attracted to, at least. And their whole approach was not to dismiss modernism, but to still embrace tradition. A certain kind of harmony and approach was beautifully preserved, but not mired in the past.” He points to certain progressive elements in the production, from wah-wah guitar to the raw, stomping funk of some tracks.
“Not every city has that underground gospel scene that we’re lucky enough to have in Memphis,” Hurtt says. “If you didn’t have your ear to the ground, you wouldn’t even know it exists. There’s this whole parallel universe, and it’s pretty much the coolest thing that is going on. But nobody knows about it. It’s not like this music’s not moving ahead, but its roots are deep. And that was what Pastor Shipp always told me he was trying to achieve with D-Vine. Keeping the roots of it — the harmony and quartet sound — while adding some modern touches. That’s the magic of D-Vine Spirituals. It’s of two times, essentially. And therefore out of time.”
I’m addicted to tomato aspic, chicken salad, pear with cottage cheese, shrimp mousse, and lots of homemade mayonnaise. That’s a.k.a. the Calvary Episcopal Church Waffle Shop’s “Salad Plate.”
I’m happy to announce that the Waffle Shop, a 93-year-tradition, will return March 3rd and will run through April 8th with its Lenten menu, including the Salad Plate, the delicious “Boston Cream Pie,” and “Fish Pudding,” which is actually tasty and isn’t anything like the name implies.
Connie Marshall, of the Waffle Shop, says there have been some adjustments this year. “We have cut back on a few things,” she says. But the aforementioned items, as well as corned beef and cabbage, turnip greens, and other favorites will still be available. “With a few exceptions, it’s pretty much everything.”
And the Waffle Shop will basically go back to the way it was operated before the pandemic, Marshall says. Instead of strictly take-out meals, which Waffle Shop offered in 2021, people will once again be able to eat in the Mural Room at the church at 102 North Second Street. “You go to the table, fill out your paper menu, and pay on your way out,” says Marshall.
You can still order to-go food, but all the advance to-go ordering over the phone has been done away with, Marshall says. “It’s, basically, back to the old way.”
Lunch will be served between 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, as well as an evening meal from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m. on Wednesdays. The Waffle Shop’s tenure coincides with the Lenten Preaching Series, which is held at the church between 12:05 to 12:40 p.m. on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, and from 6:15 to 7:15 p.m. on Wednesdays. Sixteen speakers will be featured.
COVID protocols will be announced closer to Waffle Shop’s starting date, Marshall says.
Dr. Arie and Anneliese Szatkowski and Michael Donahue at Heart Ball
It was evident people were excited to be back at a gala.
Women were dressed to the nines in elegant gowns and some of the men were in tuxedos. It was probably the first time some of these people had gotten the chance to really go out and dress up since the pandemic began in 2020.
I’m referring to the Heart Ball, the American Heart Association fundraiser. The event, which was held February 19th at The Peabody, drew about 375 guests.
Janet Davis, Standers Gillespie, and Demetrica Jones make heart symbols at Heart Ball. (Credit: Michael Donahue)
There was a silent auction held in the Forest and Venetian rooms that was followed by dinner in the Memphis Ballroom.
“We took a year off, so this was the first year back,” says Libby Ridenhour, American Heart Association communications director.
She says people were excited to be pulling out all the stops in their wardrobe and getting back to dining and dancing. “I think Heart Ball was the first chance to get people out of the house to celebrate the mission and what we’ve done in the past year, as well as kicking off the mission for next year.”
Instead of honoring a survivor family, as has been done at previous Heart Balls, Ridenhour says, “We wanted the focus to be on the city of Memphis. We wanted everyone to rally around the city of Memphis and see the community work we’ve done there. Even though we took a year off, the mission didn’t stop.”
The theme of the gala was “The heart and soul of Memphis. Nothing can stop Memphis. Even Covid.”
The association gave its first-ever Living Heart Award this year, Ridenhour says. John Daniel, a heart transplant recipient, and his wife, Leslie, were the recipients. The Daniels also announced they were giving a $100,000 donation to the American Heart Association.
Ridenhour says the Living Heart award we be presented annually “to an individual, couple, or family who have been personally impacted by heart disease or stroke and who despite personal loss or setback have overcome the challenges to become a champion for heart health and for creating a healthier community through their investment of time, leadership, and resources.
Libby says, “We announced we are going to change the name of the award to the John and Leslie Daniel Living Heart Award.”
All of which was a reason to shake a leg on the dance floor. Party Planet provided the music for guests to do just that. Peter and Judy Felsenthal and Bob and Tracy Moore chaired the event. Andrew Douglas and Joy Redmond from WMC Action News 5 were the emcees.
Bob and Tracy Moore and Judy and Peter Felsenthal chaired Heart Ball. (Credit: Michael Donahue)Cerita Butler and Sylvester Tate (Credit: Michael Donahue)Margie and Mike Neal at Heart Ball (Credit: Michael Donahue)Madison and Andrew Felsenthal at Heart Ball (Credit: Michael Donahue)Sridhar and Poornima Sunkara and Barbara and Vernon Stanford at Heart Ball (Credit: Michael Donahue)Mike Alabaster, Kristi Goldsmith, and Libby Ridenhour at Heart Ball (Credit: Michael Donahue)Kristi Goldsmith and John Goldsmith (Credit: Michael Donahue)Kesha Whitaker and Rod DeBerry at Heart Ball (Credit: Michael Donahue)Kathy and Roger Sapp at Heart Ball (Credit: Michael Donahue)Drs. Dharmesh and Purvisha Patel at Heart Ball (Credit: Michael Donahue)Seth Henigan and Anna Bubnick at Heart Ball (Credit: Michael Donahue)
YOUTH VILLAGES SOUP SUNDAY
Emma Kate Trimm, Caleb Crangle, Ryan Trimm, Sarah Trimm, Thomas Trimm, and Trace Vescovo at Youth Villages Soup Sunday (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Youth Villages Soup Sunday was also back this year — in a new location — but with the same variety of savory concoctions as well as cakes and ice cream. It was the first event held at The Kent, a new 27,000 square-foot event center at 61 Keel Avenue at Front Street in the historic Snuff District. The Kent is a historic redevelopment by Wolf River Harbor Holdings of a warehouse property dating to the late 1800s.
As usual, the event was held on a Sunday, but because of pandemic protocols, only 300 tickets were sold.
Youth Villages CEO Patrick Lawler and his wife, Ellen, at Youth Villages Soup Sunday (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Lamar Chance, Youth Villages senior public relations coordinator, says about 20 vendors took part in Soup Sunday. “I think the event was very successful,” Chance says. “We sold out ahead of time. People were excited to get back in person after missing last year. We had one last year, but it was virtual.”
The organization had planned to hold the 2022 Youth Villages Soup Sunday at the FedExForum, where it has been held in the past, Chance says. “We were going to go with the same setup we had previously, but once Omicron cases got going around holiday time, we had to make a pivot.”
Lewis Fort, Alex Boggs, and Wight Boggs at Youth Villages Soup Sunday (Credit: Michael Donahue)Angel and Michael Patrick at Youth Villages Soup Sunday (Credit: Michael Donahue)Jordan and Latonya Pendleton at Youth Villages Soup Sunday (Credit: Michael Donahue)Sam Rosenberg at Youth Villages Soup Sunday (Credit: Michael Donahue)Alec Marshman and Harris Short at Youth Villages Soup Sunday (Credit: Michael Donahue)Michael Butler Jr., Denzel Alexander, and Maddy Butler at Youth Villages Soup Sunday (Credit: Michael Donahue)Connor Bomar, Kevin Martin, Renee Bomar, and Gavin Maners at Youth Villages Soup Sunday (Credit: Michael Donahue)Connor Bomar did some FaceTiming at Youth Villages Soup Sunday (Credit: Michael Donahue)Rylan and Brandi Burns at Youth Villages Soup Sunday (Credit: Michael Donahue)
KENON WALKER TELLS THE TRUTH
Peabody Duckmaster Kenon Walker on the job. (Credit: Alice McLallen Kerley)
So, who’s fibbing?
Peabody Duckmaster Kenon Walker will be one of three contestants who will claim to be the hotel’s “Duckmaster” on the season premier of “To Tell the Truth” at 9 p.m. February 22nd on WPTY (ABC-24). The show was filmed last May in Los Angeles.
Tune in and watch Walker tell the truth.
Peabody Duckmaster Kenon Walker (Credit: The Peabody)Peabody Duckmaster Kenon Walker (Credit: The Peabody)
WE SAW YOU AROUND TOWN
Lia Morris and Alec Dawson and Lavender Dawson at Antique Warehouse Mall (Credit: Michael Donahue)Emma Fox and John Fox at Antique Warehouse Mall (Credit: Michael Donahue)We Saw You
