This summer, Campbell Clinic Orthopaedics is set to expand its practice with the opening of three new locations in West Tennessee and Mississippi.
Campbell Clinic currently operates in Germantown, Collierville, Midtown Memphis, and Southaven, and will add to its roster by opening one new location over each month for the rest of the summer: East Memphis (585 S. Mendenhall, opening June 2022), Arlington (Airline Road, opening July 2022), and Olive Branch (Goodman Road, opening August 2022).
“In order to further our commitment to delivering world-class orthopedic and musculoskeletal care to those who need it most, we are growing our presence closer to where patients live and work,” said Dr. Frederick Azar, chief of staff of Campbell Clinic. “Our desire to provide the highest level of care to our patients means expanding our footprint both locally and regionally.”
“These three new locations bring us to a total of eight locations,” adds Campbell Clinic CEO Daniel Shumate, “all of which will be crucial to helping us continue to provide superior orthopaedic care in the very communities we serve.”
The three new locations, all staffed by Campbell Clinic providers, will be open Monday through Friday and offer walk-in, urgent orthopaedic care, x-ray, casting, and physical therapy services.
A controversy has arisen regarding the correct name that should have been used for the candidacy of Janeen Gordon on the May 3rd county Democratic primary ballot.
Gordon, who finished ahead in the primary, was listed on the final ballot as Janeen Fullilove Gordon, with the middle name being that of her mother, Janis Fullilove, who was retiring at the time from the position of Juvenile Court Clerk, which Gordon sought.
Stephanie Gatewood, third-place finisher in that race, is now formally challenging Gordon’s win on the basis that “Fullilove” was a misleading part of the ballot name, contending that it was never part of Gordon’s actual legal name.
Gordon herself has maintained that the name “Fullilove” has often been used to designate her, and that she at one time was called “L’il Fullilove.”
It was at the February 28th meeting of the Shelby County Election Commission that several audience members addressed an agenda item regarding the pending certification of the then-forthcoming ballot. It was on that occasion that activist Theryn Bond spoke up on behalf of candidate Gordon, whose campaign she managed, with the aim, she said, of making sure that the name “Fullilove” was included as part of the candidate’s ballot name.
Brent Taylor, now the Republican nominee for the state Senate but then still serving as chairman of the Election Commission, responded at the time that the candidate’s name would go on the ballot exactly as she had used it on her application for candidacy. Reminded of that this week, he said that he personally had not checked the accuracy of the name but assumed that someone on the commission staff had.
Taylor, who was reached while on a family trip out of state, stopped to forward an Excel copy of the candidate names received by the Election Commission at the February 28th meeting. On it, Gordon’s name is listed merely as “Janeen Gordon.”
The primary election ballots were certified by the Election Commission that night, on February 28th, and the ballot certified then contains the name “Janeen Fullilove-Gordon.”
Marcus Mitchell, the fourth-place finisher in the Juvenile Court Clerk’s race, has joined with Gatewood in her challenge. Reginald Milton, who finished as runner-up to Gordon, has said he would not join the challenge, nor would he seek to impede it.
A coal ash pond at TVA's Allen Fossil Plant. (Credit: Southern Environmental Law Center)
A Memphis City Council committee wants another formal review of Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) plan to dump coal ash here, citing concerns from residents and a murky process with little cooperation from the power provider.
Nearly 3.5 million cubic yards (nearly 707 million gallons or 2,169 acre feet) of coal ash were left behind when the Allen Fossil Plant stopped generating electricity in 2018. The ash is now stored in two massive ponds at the old coal-plant site, just south of McKellar Lake and Presidents Island. One pond on the west side of the campus was buried years ago and now looks like a large, grassy park. The other pond — the East Ash Pond — is murky, black, and lifeless but for some brawny strands of what appears to be sawgrass.
Under these ponds, and because of the coal ash in them, TVA found high levels of arsenic and other toxins in groundwater. Arsenic levels were more than 300 times higher than federal drinking water standards. The toxins were deemed a threat to the Memphis Sand Aquifer, the source of the city’s famously pure drinking water, and TVA made plans to remove the coal ash.
But the TVA failed to tell the council in 2020 just where they’d dump the coal ash. The site was revealed in 2021 as the South Shelby Landfill and the destination was criticized as it would bring trucks, noise, traffic, and air pollution to neighborhoods along the path. Many of those would be predominantly Black neighborhoods.
Since then, council members said Tuesday they’ve heard myriad concerns from constituents about the plan.
“The folks in South Memphis have urged us to ask TVA to do something that TVA seems unwilling to do,” said council member JB Smiley.
Smiley was an original sponsor of Tuesday’s resolution, which asks for TVA to conduct a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
The report would “provide residents of South Memphis site-specific information about the impacts of TVA’s decision to move coal ash and to provide a meaningful opportunity for the affected community to be heard on how these impacts will affect them.” The report would give the “most current, detailed, and informative information now that the final destination and transportation plan” for the coal ash has been made public.
Council member Chase Carlisle said while he feels someone is “looking just to beat on TVA,” he said he was “disappointed” in the dialog between TVA, Republic Services (the company that is set to haul the coal ash), and the council. Straightforward questions were not given straightforward answers, he said. Answers to follow-up questions went unanswered during the process.
“I was very disappointed in what I thought was going to be a very transparent, ongoing dialog about how we could look for alternative solutions to an issue that concerns a great many people,” Carlisle said. “Instead it was, ‘we’re not coming back and we’re just going to move forward.’”
TVA said its previous review of the situation should stand as “no new information has become available that would change the conditions or conclusions” of it.
“Over the last five years, we have engaged with and listened to the Memphis community about the Allen restoration project,” said TVA spokesman Scott Brooks. “We share the same objectives of prioritizing safety and environmental stewardship while completing the project in a timely manner.
“We are fulfilling our promise to protect the Memphis aquifer, safely remove the coal ash and store it in a highly-engineered, lined landfill, and restore the Allen site for the benefit of the community.”
Poor People's Campaign marchers on Mulberry Street. (Photo by Jackson Baker).
There damn sure are two Americas. There is the America that venerates someone they call, somewhat archaically, “President Trump,” and plan, as billboards on our thoroughfares are now telling us, to convene with him right here in the area on June 18. And there is another America that won’t be at that meeting, an America whose sentinels — 1,000 to 1,500 strong — marched on Monday afternoon from Robert Church Park to the National Civil Rights Museum, chanting and singing.
“We are ready/ united we go/ bringing the power/ here we go/ all together/ here we go…,” they sang. And their signs told their mission — “The Poor People’s Campaign” — and their sentiments — “Everybody’s Got a Right to Live” (alternatively, “Todo El Mundo Tiene Derechos A Vivir”), and even some of their impossible presumptions — “Vote Out the Republican-Appointed Judges” and “End Capitalism.”
Yes, the Poor People’s Campaign. A revival of the very movement that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was on his way to creating when he was assassinated, just short of the mountaintop, here in Memphis more than half a century ago. And this reconvening, too, has a convocation slated for June 18. That one will take place in Washington, D.C., and Monday’s Memphis rally was intended as the last climactic prelude to that event.
There was more singing when the cadres gathered at the National Civil Rights Museum, there was a trumpet solo of “A Change Will Come,” and the clergy of three faiths — Christian, Jewish, and Islamic — celebrated the occasion, even throwing in a side reference to the Bhagavad Gita, thereby evoking yet another religion of humankind.
And there was the Rev. William Barber, who described himself modestly as “co-chairman of the Poor People’s Campaign” and began his remarks with a disclaimer: “I’m honored to be here with you today. … Nobody here is more important than anybody else. Ain’t no first, ain’t no seconds. We are just one.” He continued: “So I’m gonna ask three people from Mississippi, three people from Kentucky, maybe from Arkansas, three people in Tennessee — preferably some of those between 20 and 45 or so — run on up here and come stay with me. Because that’s another thing in the Poor People’s Campaign — we don’t ever stand at the podium alone because this is not about any one person.” After the requested assemblage sorted itself out and stood in place behind him, he began to do his best to make that last assertion — “We are just one” — a reality.
The Rev. William Barber at the National Civil Rights Museum. (Photo by Jackson Baker)
Make no mistake: Rev. Barber, not Al Sharpton of the Tawana Brawley caper and MSNBC, is the ranking social missionary these days among the black clergy, the successor-in-waiting to Jesse Jackson and, for that matter, to Dr. Martin Luther King. This bear-like man with basso profundo tones and a cadence that indeed seems to come straight from God. It is possible to extract from his hour-long message several shafts of golden rhetoric, and so we shall, but with this caveat: You had to be there, you always have to be there with Rev. Barber, the whole of whose message is always greater than the sum of its parts. He speaks with a hypnotic mantra that has to be experienced direct to be fully appreciated.
Nevertheless, for the record, here are some of the promised extracts:
Barber spoke to the “sacredness” of the venue this way: “The Bible says we gotta be careful because some people love the tombs of the prophets. But they don’t necessarily love the prophets and there are some folks that have come to the prophets’ tombs while they’re dead but would not dare come while they were still living.”
He made clear what he regarded as the source of his inspiration: “It was clear that we needed a mass assembly. This came after two national tours, visiting over 40 states being invited by the people. This was not a moment that some folk in D.C. decided they want to have and they start telling the people what to do. [It’s] the people from the bottom up.” And this was no mere ceremony: “You don’t need any more commemorations. We need re-engagement. We don’t need to keep talking about crucifixions, we need to start out as a resurrection.”
He dispelled what he saw as obstructive illusions to this resurrection: “If we were gonna be accurate, the truth of the matter is, Dr. King was hated. Dr. King was put out of the Baptist denomination. Threw him out! Preachers, civil rights leaders, and every major civil rights organization wrote resolutions against him when he connected poverty and racism and militarism, everyone. Even SCLC was split up. They were split [because] the poor folks campaign wanted to organize the wretched of the earth.”
Dr. King’s last sermon, the one written but never given, was entitled “America May Go to Hell,” he proclaimed.
Again: “Nothing would be more tragic than for us to turn back now. This is not about nostalgia. It’s not about just remembering the past.”
Neither Memphis as a community nor the state of Tennessee were spared: “It’s been 54 years since the sanitation workers strike and right here in Memphis they still don’t have union rights. … People in this city stopped a pipeline company that would damage the black community. There are attempts by that company to find other ways to bring toxic waste, and to get the legislature to write laws that would keep black communities from blocking the pipeline. We don’t need nostalgia. We need a movement now because nothing would be more tragic than to turn back now!”
Further: “You have a governor in this state who will go to black events and talk about Dr. King and how he loves Dr. King stuff [while] trashing everything Dr. King stood for. Talking about we need to get back to normal after Covid! You know what the hell normal was? Forty-six percent of all the people in Tennessee poor and low wealth. It’s 1. 3 million residents. It’s 56 percent of all the children in this state. 1 million black people, 2 million white people, 740,000 uninsured, 8,300 people homeless, 1.3 million people making under 15 dollars an hour, 51 percent of the workforce in Tennessee today work for less than a living wage. We don’t need no more notice. We need a resurrection!
“Before Covid hit, poor people were dying at a rate of 700 a day, a quarter million a year. And during Covid, poor people died at a rate two to five times higher than other folks. The virus didn’t discriminate, but we did: 8 million more people fell into poverty while billionaires have made over $2 trillion. We don’t need that. We need a resurrection!”
What was called for? “A living wage, guaranteed health care, guaranteed housing, just basic, fundamental human rights. … We’ve got less voting rights today than we had ever since 1960. … We’ve made a billionaire every 33 hours, every 33 hours a million people have fallen into poverty.”
Not that his concerns were restricted to the economic sphere: Barber condemned ” a form of theological malpractice in modern day terrorism. They claim that a agenda for God is hating gay people, being against abortion, being for guns, being for praying the schools and for a particular party whose name starts with R.”
There was more of the same, full of repetition and rolling thunder and dashes of humor (as when he invoked “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Negro”). And, after a final, extended crescendo, the Rev. Barber would close: “It is time to turn to your neighbor and say, ‘Neighbor, you know it’s time for me to go to the meeting … it’s time to get a hold of this nation. Are you ready?”
The minions he had addressed had already said, in their arrival chant, that they were.
Rachel Maxann of Memphis, sings heartfelt original songs at her Music Export Memphis showcase late Thursday night. (Credit: Karen Pulfer Focht)
Covid has taken a brutal toll on this week’s Folk Alliance International conference, a five-day festival where musicians and performers from around the world connect with critics, record producers, club owners, and festival bookers to make deals, and most importantly, play music.
But this, the 34th year, the conference looked very different.
Memphis was well-represented by violinist-singer Alice Hasen; guitarist and “elder” Andy Cohen, who mentored younger performers; singer, blues blaster, larger-than-life Rachel Maxann, who is currently on tour with Valerie June; “semi-average Joe” Johnson, who far exceeded his self-imposed moniker; and the immortal Muddy Waters sideman and regional musician “Steady Rollin’ Bob Margolin” among others.
There were about 25 percent fewer performers and guests than in previous years. Instead of the usual 1,000 performers from around the world with more than another thousand music lovers and industry people, this year there were less than 1,500 combined. Normally, the Westin Hotel in downtown Kansas City is alive with dozens of musicians and bands playing in lobbies, hallways and any other open space at all times and crowds of music lovers. There has been little of that bustle this year.
Well-known performers like Livingston Taylor, Tom Paxton, John McCutcheon, and others who are usually fixtures at the conference, attending to teach the young performers a thing or two, were missing in action.
Andy Cohen with Earwig Music Company plays guitar. (Credit: Karen Pulfer Focht)
Instead, the roster was awash with hundreds of unfamiliar names, young musicians trying to make a name for themselves in a competitive market. Many of the A-list performers, even the B-list acts, were no-shows because the conference was moved from its usual comfy time slot in February to May over Covid concerns. Aaron Fowler, an official with Local 1000 of the Traveling Musicians Union, said a reason for the lack of musicians was simple — they are out touring.
“After almost two years without being able to play because of Covid, everyone is taking advantage of [the covid slowdown] and going out to tour,” he said. “The conference was always held in February because that is a slow time of the year for touring. Hopefully, things will be back to normal next year when the conference returns in February.”
The conference consisted of daytime teaching events, covering subjects like the issue of race in folk music, recognizing performers with disabilities, and how to create songs for TikTok. There was a heavy emphasis on virtual concerts and how to take advantage of new technology which has changed the music industry.
There were four hours of live concerts every afternoon where dozens of artists perform in eight music halls in the hotel. The music continued at 10:30 p.m., when hundreds of performers put on intimate shows in dozens of hotel rooms, shorn of furniture, before audiences as small as one person. These shows went on into the wee hours of 3 or 4 a.m.
The word “folk” is also misleading. Consider it an umbrella term that covers country, blues, rock, traditional music from many nations and ethnic music. Sometimes, a combination of styles.
At a keynote performance on Friday afternoon, Madeleine Peyroux stunned the audience with excerpts from her internationally renowned stage show that combines jazz, folk, and blues music and the work of artists like Billie Holliday, Bessie Smith, and even Groucho Marx.
In a single sentence, she crystalized the importance of live concerts, “The living tradition of gathering — being together, produces a sound that can only be heard and felt when we gather in real-time and space,” she said, in one of the finest descriptions of the importance of live music.
Seeing performers play in a crowded room with bad lighting to a handful of people may sound less than ideal, but the music transcended the reality of the space and became a physical thing.
Bob Margolin, who sacrificed a large chunk of his performance time tuning his guitar and talking about his days with Muddy Waters, was a musical force that uplifted the small audience as he played some “straight and natural blues” with the help of bassist Freebo.
Memphis fiddler Alice Hasen performs her showcase at the Folk Alliance International conference being held in Kansas City, Missouri, the weekend of May 20, 2022. (Credit: Karen Pulfer Focht)
The Music Export Memphis room was busy all weekend as a handful of artists delivered one incredible set after another. Most surprising was violinist Alice Hasen, who sang some songs, including a striking plea to save the “Memphis Sands” from pollution in a song of the same name.
Her virtuoso violin performances were augmented by a looping device which allowed her to layer the melody over and over.
Memphis Singer Rachel Maxann delighted fans earlier with original songs and a powerful interpretation of Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone,” right down to the requisite 26 repetitions of the phrase “I know.” She popped out of nowhere during Hasan’s show to sing along with “Dream of Rain,” Hasen’s song about the destruction of the environment.
Many Memphis residents will remember that Folk Alliance held its annual gathering in the city from 2007 to 2012 until it was lured away to Kansas City. The hardest part about picking a show is knowing that for every performance chosen you miss several hundred others. Veteran attendees are always asking each other for advice on which shows not to miss, trading names and info flyers. Acts give away hundreds of CDs to conference attendees in the hopes to secure bookings at future shows.
There were so many concerts going on it is difficult to choose the best, but some of the show-stopping performers to watch for include the husband and wife duo from Nashville by way of New Zealand and Peru, South For Winter; Buffalo Rose, the enthusiastic sextet of rocking folkies from Pittsburgh led by twin lead vocals from two talented women; James McCarthy, an American Irishman living in Hawaii where he delights playing Irish music; and Abby Posner, a gay woman who writes and performs incredible songs that defy genre. And hundreds of others.
The Folk Alliance defied the odds this year to stay open despite the ravages of Covid and the calendar and hosted more newcomer performers than ever. It will be interesting to see how the event will unfold in a mere 10 months from now when, hopefully, Covid will be just an unpleasant memory.
Memphis received a boost with the latest round of new jobs data for metropolitan areas nationwide.
According to a report by the Greater Memphis Chamber’s Center for Economic Competitiveness, April saw the Greater Memphis region reach a record-high level of 661,400 jobs. The numbers continue an upward trend from March of this year, when the region recovered all the jobs that were lost during the Covid-19 pandemic.
National job growth continued to rise slowly in April at 0.3 percent. Greater Memphis’ job growth continued on par with the national average in April 2022 seasonally adjusted nonfarm payroll estimates. And between March and April 2022, local seasonally adjusted estimates rose by 2,300 jobs (0.35 percent).
(Credit: Greater Memphis Chamber/Source: St. Louis Federal Reserve, numbers are preliminary and seasonally adjusted)
Select peer metro areas have also seen a full recovery to March 2020 employment figures. And per the April 2022 report, Greater Memphis’ growth percent relative to March 2020 (+1.05 percent) surpasses that of Birmingham Metro (+0.15 percent), Louisville Metro (+0.31 percent), and Oklahoma City Metro (+0.67 percent).
(Credit: Greater Memphis Chamber/Source: St. Louis Federal Reserve, numbers are preliminary and seasonally adjusted)
Locally, the construction sector has seen the largest growth, of 7.59 percent over March 2020. Hospitality and leisure industries are still playing catch up, but have improved to just -1.97 percent short of March 2020 levels, with much of the summer season still to come. Per the report, education and health have been inert, with an average of 5 percent less employment than March 2020.
Valerie June is currently on the road in support of her 2021 album The Moon and the Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers, and is selling out venues like the legendary Filmore in San Francisco. MVM caught up with her prodigious video output earlier this year, and now she has a great new video of her and the band covering a classic from the alternative era. “Fade Into You” was a big hit for Mazzy Starr, who emerged from the L.A. Paisley Underground scene in the early 1990s. Valerie June breathes new life into Hope Sandoval’s ethereal vocal lines. Val’s appearance in Louisville, Kentucky, tomorrow night (Tuesday, May 24) looks like your last chance to catch her before a late spring swing through the Pacific Northwest and a summer tour of Europe. Meanwhile, here’s a little beauty for your Monday.
This week’s congressional hearing on UFOs was a “total joke,” according to U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Knoxville), frustrated by the quality of witnesses, not the topic itself.
Tuesday’s House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on UFOs, or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) in military parlance, was the first on the topic in 50 years. The hearing came after Congress ordered an intelligence report on UFOs last year. That report included 144 official sightings of UAP and explained only one, which the report said was a deflating balloon.
Two main witnesses before the Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee were Ronald Moultrie, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, and Scott Bray, Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence. The two head up the government’s new UAP task force. But Burchett wanted better.
“We should have heard from people who could talk about things they’d personally seen, but instead the witnesses were government officials with limited knowledge who couldn’t give real answers to serious questions,” Burchett tweeted Tuesday.
The UFO hearing this morning was a total joke. We should have heard from people who could talk about things they'd personally seen, but instead the witnesses were government officials with limited knowledge who couldn't give real answers to serious questions. pic.twitter.com/hddRYupW3u
— Rep. Tim Burchett (@RepTimBurchett) May 17, 2022
Committee chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said of the 144 official UAP reports, 18 of them “appeared to demonstrate advanced technology.” They reportedly were stationary in the wind, moved against the wind, moved abruptly, or moved at high speeds “without a discernible means of propulsion.” He asked if any U.S. adversaries were known to have technology to match these descriptions. Bray said no.
“There are a number of events in which we do not have an explanation,” Bray said. “A small handful that had flight characteristics or signature management [camouflage] that we can’t explain with the data we have.”
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisconsin) asked if the two were aware of an incident that occurred over Montana’s Malmstrom Air Force Base, home to strategic nuclear forces, he said. In that incident, Gallagher said 10 nuclear missiles were shut down and a “glowing red orb” was seen over the base.
Bray told him the task force had no data on the incident. Gallagher pressed, asking if he was aware of the incident and asking if data on it existed anywhere. Bray said he’d heard the stories but had not seen official data on it. Also, the UAP task force has not looked at the incident.
“I would say it’s a pretty high profile incident,” Gallagher said, taken slightly aback by the claim. “I don’t claim to be an expert on this. But that’s out there in the ether. You’re the guys investigating it. I mean, who else is doing it?”
Bray said if the incident was “officially” brought to his attention, the task force would review it. To which, Gallagher said, “I’m bringing it to your attention. This is pretty official.” Moultrie promised the congressman that “we’ll go back and take a look at it,” though he said the task force does not have the resources to follow every story or lead.
Tuesday’s public session closed and the committee met for another session on UAP behind closed doors. The next steps for the task force will be to strengthen relations with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and other government agencies to create a better system for reporting UAP activity and collect better data.
Before and after Tuesday’s hearing, Burchett spoke candidly about UAP to several news outlets. He told Knoxville’s WATN news station that UAP are either “a diversion to get our attention away from something else, an anomaly on our radar, or it’s something from outer space.” He told TMZ that he did not believe Russia had UAP tech saying, if they did, “they would own us right now.” He said he thought Roswell was a cover up, that former President Donald Trump might release files related to UAP, and that “UFOs were in the Bible,” citing Ezekiel’s flying wheel.
In December, he told TMZ that he does not trust the Pentagon on the UAP topic. He said they’d likely ask Congress for more money and continue to keep the truth quiet. After Tuesday’s hearing, Burchett said, “the cover-up continues.”
Burchett’s statements on UAP are not his first foray into the paranormal. As Knox County Mayor in 2012, he proclaimed November 16th to be “Knox County Bigfoot Day” and met with the cast of Finding Bigfoot.
Kira the endangered Amur leopard (Credit: Twycross Zoo)
Eagle-eyed visitors to the Memphis Zoo might “spot” a new addition to Cat Country. Kira, a female Amur leopard, has been relocated from Twycross Zoo in the U.K., where she was born in 2016, to the Memphis Zoo.
The move represents a partnership between the Memphis Zoo and Twycross Zoo as part of an international breeding program to help preserve the Amur leopard species. Zoo officials made the announcement as part of celebrations for Endangered Species Day, the third Friday in May.
Amur leopards are listed as “Critically Endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with fewer than 100 left in the wild. Today, the last remaining wild populations of Amur leopards reside in China and Russia. Habitat loss, prey scarcity, poaching, and illegal trade are some of the threats facing the species in the wild.
“Kira’s arrival is a double win for the Memphis community,” said Memphis Zoo curator Dan Dembiec. “Not only are Amur leopards a gorgeous and dynamic species to see at the zoo, but this is also a real-life conservation story. With this species on the brink of extinction in the wild, zoos across the globe are collaboratively managing a breeding program that will ensure this species endures with the potential to reintroduce back to the wild.”
“This transfer of animals between the United States and the U.K. reinforces the commitment that both countries have in breeding this critically endangered cat,” said Michael Frushour, Amur Leopard Species Survival Plan program leader for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. “By working together on a global scale, and sharing each other’s leopard population genetics, the species has a much better chance of survival. Continued and appropriate breeding of this critically endangered species will ultimately contribute to the Global Species Management Program for Amur leopards developing initiatives to hopefully one day reintroduce this leopard into protected areas in Russia and China.”
“Our community is proud to support the zoo in all their endeavors and this achievement should be celebrated. Culture, conservation, and education are important qualities in the City of Memphis, and we are excited to share this remarkable pairing with the community,” said Mayor Jim Strickland.
“We’re delighted to work in partnership with Memphis Zoo to help protect and preserve the Amur leopard species, one of the most endangered big cats in the world,” said Dr. Sharon Redrobe OBE, CEO at Twycross Zoo.
It bodes well for Black & Wyatt Records that their catalog has already been anthologized. And hearing the label’s finest moments gathered together in one place casts their releases in a new, impressive light, as Always Memphis Rock & Roll, a new collection of the label’s best and brightest tracks, reveals.
Part of the revelation in hearing this new compilation, out now on both Black & Wyatt and Dresden’s Head Perfume Records, is realizing that the label can no longer be considered a “newcomer.” It’s an established voice of Memphis that’s recognized globally. Five years have passed since the Memphis Flyer’s Chris McCoy first profiled the two Memphis doctors who launched the label out of a sheer love of gritty rock-and-roll. And yet the historical sweep of the compilation goes far beyond that half-decade, as Head Perfume’s website proudly announces tracks spanning “1956-2019!”
And that’s technically true, with the lead cut being none other than Black & Wyatt’s archival release of two takes of “Steady Girl” by the Heathens, a teen band who recorded at Sam Phillips’ Memphis Recording Service in 1956 but didn’t make it onto wax at the time. Fittingly, Side B opens with Mario Monterosso’s reimagining of “Steady Girl,” also recorded in the very studio that Sam Phillips designed, 63 years later.
Those bookends are a good indication that Black & Wyatt’s heart is in the right place, a place of bacon grease and mud clods and the buzz of old amps. Indeed, hearing these cuts jump from one artist to another, one hears certain common denominators: great guitar sounds, with many varieties of crunch delivered, track by track; punchy songwriting that’s willing to dwell on the dramatic edge, from Turnstyles’ “Cut You Off” or Jack Oblivian & the Sheiks’ “Fast Friends” to Fingers Like Saturn’s “Candy’s Dead” or Tyler Keith’s “Born Again Virgin”; and a glorious preponderance of driving drums and bass. One notable exception? Ironically, a demo recorded by Jack Oblivian & the Dream Killers way back in 2000, the tough-yet-wistful “Loose Diamonds,” which sports only the sparest of snare-hits.
Better yet, for those working on their own Black & Wyatt collection at home, each track opens a potential rabbit hole, as it sends you to the albums from which these tracks are sourced. Such was the case on hearing Toy Trucks’ “Schoolbus,” which led me to marvel at that group’s Rockets Bells and Poetry LP, a power pop diamond in the rough. With Always Memphis Rock & Roll, one can discover such gems all over again.
Always Memphis Rock & Roll will be featured tonight, Friday, May 20, in Memphis Listening Lab’s SoundRoom. Albums will be available; music starts at 6:30 p.m.
