Donald Trump’s visit to the Memphis area over the weekend, at the Landers Center in Southaven, may have served as many Democratic purposes as Republican ones.
The former president’s “American Freedom Tour” netted a few thousand butts in seats on Saturday to hear his familiar litany, at prices ranging from $45 to $3,995. As a payday, that’s not small change, and it followed by a day another well-attended bonanza for Trump in Nashville.
But Democrats in Memphis, a few miles north, got some profit from the occasion, as well. Among other things, they used the then-pending Trump visit on Saturday for an “anti-Trump GOTV Rally & Happy Hour” on Friday evening at the Poplar Avenue campaign headquarters of Democratic D.A. candidate Steve Mulroy.
After flashing some signs at the late-Friday drive-time traffic on Poplar, the group went inside and got together a counternarrative of sorts. The star of the occasion was 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen, who compared published ads for the Trump event to poorly done commercials he used to see on local TV for slapped-together country music shows.
Despite reports that the Trump affair was sold out, Cohen jested to his listeners that they could get “two for one” on the $9 seats. As for the $3,995 tickets, he said, “You get to go and shake hands with the president, and then they give you some stuff to clean your hands.”
Referring to the ex-president as a “narcissistic sociopath,” Cohen reflected on allegations of illegal activity by Trump recently made public by the ongoing congressional January 6th investigative committee. “He is openly and notoriously committing criminal acts against our government, like no other person in our political history has ever done,” Cohen said.
The congressman recounted how he feared for his life on the occasion of open insurrection in the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. He told of how, barricaded in his office, he picked up a prized possession for potential self-defense — a souvenir baseball bat given to him once by former Chicago White Sox baseball great Minnie Miñoso.
“Ironically enough,” Cohen said, “Minnie’s son, Charlie, tweeted me, as did many other people during the event, and he asked, ‘How’s everybody in the office?’ I said, ‘Everybody’s okay,’ and told Charlie, ‘I’m sitting here with your father’s bat.’ He texted me back, and he said, ‘If he was there, he’d be there with you — ready to use the bat.’”
Host for the Friday evening affair, at which several Democratic candidates in the August election took speaking turns, was D.A. candidate Mulroy, who in his own remarks was at pains to connect the persona of Donald Trump with that of his own election opponent, incumbent Republican D.A. Amy Weirich.
Simultaneously with the Democratic rally, a new TV commercial on Mulroy’s behalf was getting airtime. Just as Mulroy did verbally to his audience, the commercial, entitled “Peas in the Pod,” yoked the images of Trump and Weirich, cast against a video of the January 6th mob in action.
A voice-over said, “Trump is bringing his mob to Memphis. Trump and D.A. Amy Weirich both break the rules and are out of control.” The ad continued: “On D.A. Amy Weirich’s watch, crime has jumped almost every year,” and a graph or two was shown by way of documentation. The soundtrack continued: “Now Shelby County has the worst violent crime anywhere. The worst president, the worst district attorney. We can do better with former federal prosecutor Steve Mulroy.”
Mulroy and Weirich are not playing beanbag with each other. Last week, after Mulroy had announced the results of a poll, which he said showed him with a 12-percentage-point lead, Weirich responded, “It sounds like Professor Mulroy is having trouble raising money and is cooking up bogus poll numbers to try and get donations. When your entire platform is built around freeing criminals from jail, it’s hard to raise money beyond the radical out-of-town Defund the Police activists.”
The Manhattan skyline, far and wee in the distance (Photo: Bruce VanWyngarden)
Someday, my baby, when I am a man
And others have taught me the best that they can
They’ll sell me a suit, then cut off my hair,
And send me to work in tall buildings …
— John Hartford
I’m tempted to quote T-Pain: “I’m on a boat, mother … .” But I’ll spare you. I was on a boat on my vacation, though, a funky single-masted sloop owned by a sailing co-op my son belongs to in Rockaway Beach. We went out one evening with eight locals for a sunset sail in Jamaica Bay. The only sounds were gulls, congenial conversation, and the occasional snap of the mainsail. As the sun fell to the orange horizon, we took pictures. I noticed when I enlarged the photos that you could see the entire skyline of Manhattan below the setting sun, far and wee in the distance.
It brought to mind a story I’d read in The New York Times earlier in the week called “A Full Return to the Office? Does ‘Never’ Work for You?” The current return-to-office rate for office workers around the country is 43 percent, but in New York City, recent data puts the number of workers who have returned to the office five days a week at 8 percent. Most of the buildings in that impressive skyline are half-full at best.
At-home workers cite Covid fears, the cost of commuting, gasoline prices, childcare, and the inability to concentrate in a cubicle/desk situation as reasons to continue working remotely. Management fears that if their workers stay home their organizations will lose the benefits of cooperative brainstorming, a teamwork ethic, and, yes, a lack of direct oversight — not to mention that companies continue to have to pay for their office facilities whether they’re used or not.
But it’s clear the pandemic has unmasked a myth: that people need oversight to be productive. Different organizations are trying different ways forward. Some are experimenting with three-day-a-week office hours or flex scheduling around meetings, school schedules, etc. Others are downsizing office space to a few meeting areas and shared workstations.
It’s all in flux, but one thing seems certain: The office out-migration is going to greatly impact the nation’s cities, where commercial real estate has traditionally been a driver of business, employment, income, and tax revenues. Full Downtown office buildings mean full restaurants, full bars for after-work happy hours, full parking facilities, and bustling retail. Now, maybe not so much.
But in a weird way, the work-from-home trend may favor a city like Memphis. For years, we’ve marveled at Nashville’s building boom, its Downtown seemingly permanently decorated with a half-dozen cranes attached to under-construction office towers. But if you’ve been to Downtown Nashville at night lately, you’ve seen a congested, noisy, tourist hell-hole. Housing prices are skyrocketing. A recent piece in the Nashville Post reported that “6 percent of homebuyers moving to Memphis in the first quarter were from Nashville, twice the rate of the same period in 2021. In April, the typical home in Nashville sold for $455,000, compared to $280,000 in Memphis.” Welcome to Bluff City, cowpokes.
Downtown Memphis is anything but overbuilt. We’ve still got the finest 1970s skyline in America. Plus a pyramid. Sterick Building, anyone? But maybe we got lucky. Nashville, New York, Austin, and all those other “it” cities are going to have to figure out what to do with all those shiny “big empties.” Not us. And let’s not forget that thousands of Memphians don’t have the privilege of working from home. Warehouses, factories, hospitals, retail cash registers, bars, grocery stores, delivery trucks, etc. don’t exist without people leaving their homes and clocking in. Without these essential workers, everything breaks down. The Memphis economy is filled with those kinds of jobs. Which, it turns out, is a good thing in the eventual post-pandemic world.
So, maybe the future is livability and affordability. Maybe the future is funkiness and soul and big trees and big water rather than tall, gleaming — empty — buildings. Maybe it’s finally our turn. Maybe we’ve been there all along, patiently waiting for the world to find us — out there on the horizon, far and wee in the distance.
Austin Butler’s performance as Elvis is electrifying.
The most insightful film I’ve ever seen about Elvis Presley is “The Singing Canary,” a five-minute experimental short by Memphis director Adam Remsen. It contains neither images of Elvis nor his music, only footage of astronauts and rocket launches. Remsen’s voice-over casts Elvis not as a singer or entertainer or idol, but as an explorer of new psychic spaces.
Yes, Elvis was supremely talented, superhumanly good looking, and unbelievably charismatic. But it was sheer luck that he came along at exactly the moment in history when a combination of rhythm and blues, amphetamines, and television could transform a penniless truck driver into the most famous person who had ever lived. “No one had ever been in his position before. He did the best he could,” said Remsen. “He was just living his life, making the best choices he could. As it happened, he was unprepared to make those choices, in one way or another.”
Who could have been prepared? The only people who had been as famous as Elvis circa 1957 were pharaohs. A decade later, The Beatles would express relief that, when they were thrown into the maelstrom of modern fame, at least they had one another. Elvis was alone, going through stuff no one in the entire 300,000-year history of Homo sapiens had ever gone through before. “He was the singing canary we sent into the gold mine. And when the singing stopped, we learned it was dangerous in there.”
The latest big screen attempt to tell The King’s story shares this view of Elvis as a martyr for the information age. Baz Luhrmann is one of a handful of directors with an instantly recognizable style. As technically exacting as he is bombastic, Luhrmann’s films are the closest thing we have to the lavish MGM musicals of Old Hollywood. Emotions are heightened, the cutting is frenetic, and realism is an afterthought. Music and montage are Luhrmann’s love language, and everything else is in service of maintaining the momentum. When he’s on his game, Luhrmann can sweep you up and transport you to another place like the tornado in The Wizard of Oz.
This film rises above the simple jukebox musical I feared we would get when I heard Luhrmann was taking on the story of The King. Credit for much of its success must go to Austin Butler, who has the unenviable task of trying to bring to life the most impersonated man in history. On the Louisiana Hayride and at the triumphant July 4, 1956, Russwood Park homecoming show, Butler is electrifying. He’s got the cheekbones, and he knows how to use them.
Austin Butler as Elvis Presley.
The racial politics of the era are never far from the surface. In Luhrmann’s vision, Elvis’ smoking-hot sexuality was what made him dangerous. But what scared The Establishment about this poor white kid singing Black music was not how he danced — it was that Elvis represented a crack in the South’s Jim Crow apartheid. He didn’t just laugh at the minstrel show; he identified with B.B. King, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Little Richard. Some of the white kids who followed him would go on to discover The Bar-Kays, Sam Cooke, and Aretha Franklin, and begin to think, “Hey, maybe these Black people are humans, just like me.”
But the protean summer of ’56, which has for so long formed the fetish of rock-and-roll, doesn’t interest Luhrmann as much as the Vegas era. It begins with an elaborate staging of the ’68 Comeback Special. Instead of focusing on the in-the-round jam session, which remains one of the greatest live musical performances ever put before a camera, Luhrmann finds meaning in Elvis’ selection of “If I Can Dream” as his closing number. Butler delivers the moment with maximum gravitas.
Col. Tom Parker (Tom Hanks) advises Elvis (Austin Butler).
Luhrmann’s most polarizing decision is to tell the story from Col. Tom Parker’s perspective — and not just because of Tom Hanks’ accent. Having the villain as the narrator is a very Shakespearean choice, intended to make Parker into Iago, a malignant influence confiding to us about the lies he’s whispering in the hero’s ear. Parker was the consummate confidence man and a natural-born carny barker. In the early days, he and Elvis were an unstoppable team. When Elvis was languishing in Vegas, it would have been better if he were alone. Parker gets the blame for Elvis sitting out the Civil Rights fights of the late ’60s and for missing opportunities to tour the world. He gets credit for the groundbreaking Aloha from Hawaii concert, the definitive document of Elvis’ late period. But Luhrmann declines to use the first satellite broadcast to a global audience of one billion as a climax, like Queen at Live Aid in Bohemian Rhapsody. As for Hanks’ performance as the shady Dutch immigrant, let’s just say that the veteran actor knows when to put the ham on the sandwich.
Elvis (Austin Bulter) and Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge).
The standouts in the sprawling supporting cast include Helen Thomson’s sad turn as the alcoholic Gladys and Olivia DeJonge’s uncanny Priscilla. The Power of the Dog’s Kodi Smit-McPhee gets a standout cameo as Jimmie Rodgers Snow, one of the first people to understand the depth of Elvis’ power. During the early film’s frequent digressions into the Beale Street music scene, Yola Quartey and Shonka Dukureh each get show-stopping moments as Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Big Mama Thornton.
Ultimately, your reaction to Elvis is going to depend on whether or not you can vibrate on Luhrmann’s frequency. I was a fan of the director’s early work, like Romeo + Juliet, but found The Great Gatsby off-putting and snoozed through Australia. Elvis is a return to the explosive Luhrmann of Moulin Rouge. He freely twists the songs, sometimes in ways that are insightful, and sometimes in ways that betray a lack of trust in the material, like using anachronistic hip-hop beats whenever we return to Beale. The film is massively overstuffed with striking images, but that kind of sounds like complaining because you have too many scoops of delicious ice cream. It’s understandable if you find the constant barrage of visual information disorienting or the constant dance on the edge of camp cloying. But when Elvis is on stage, and Luhrmann is on fire, you understand why The King will live forever.
“I’m back with another review and this time Dixie Queen I’m on your ass, big fellow,” promises a TikTok from @honey_drip_. And she delivers. Visiting Dixie Queen? HoneyDrip says bring cash because “these bitches, sometimes, the machine be down, and be sure to bring your bulletproof vest because, bitch, this is Memphis. Okay?” “Raggedy-ass sign.” Check. “Raggedy-ass intercom.” Check. “Raggedy-ass customer service.” Check. HoneyDrip said a Dixie Queen employee once repeated her order, which included a “murkshake” (milkshake) and a burger with “purkles” (pickles), spoken in beautiful Memphis-ese. She didn’t correct her because, “I don’t play with people who make my food.” Good tip. The signs may be busted and you probably won’t have it your way, says HoneyDrip, “but, bitch, you know where you at when you came here.” The video had more than 111,500 likes as of press time and had been shared nearly 7,500 times.
Scott Hellen, Luis Briones, Spencer Hays, Tyson Stack, and Kelvin Ferguson (Photo: Michael Donahue)
You might want to bring a white tablecloth when you visit High Point Pizza on Thursday nights.
That’s when you can get the “Thursday Night Entree Feature,” which includes “everything from stuffed pork chops to filet to snapper,” says owner Spencer Hays, 52.
This began about two years ago. “On Tuesdays we started doing homemade mozzarella sticks. On Wednesdays, we do hot wings. I was just trying to come up with something for Thursdays. Weekdays are usually a little slower.
“I was thinking about doing handmade pasta dishes like spaghetti, fettuccine. That quickly turned into doing a pasta special. Then I realized I had such talent in my kitchen, it didn’t have to be just pasta.”
Hays “took the reins off the talent” and said, “Whatever you want to do. Let’s just make it happen.”
His crew, including chefs Luis Briones and Kelvin Ferguson, manager Scott Hellen, and front man Tyson Stack, rose to the occasion. “I’ve had the same core group of guys for over five years. And they have different backgrounds. Some of them worked in the finer restaurants in the city. And I just said, ‘Go for it.’ And they started coming up with the most beautiful things.
“It gets redundant just making pizza and the same thing all the time.”
One of 40 entrees is served each Thursday beginning at 5 p.m. Sides include “turnip greens or garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, or shrimp risotto. The knowledge of my crew in the back is extensive. It’s their time to get creative, and they relish it,” Hays says.
His idea worked. “Pretty much every day is busy now. So now, we’re sitting here enjoying what we’re doing and just trying to keep up. [The restaurant] turned 15 years old in May.”
A native Memphian, Hays was co-owner of Movie & Pizza Co. in Harbor Town. He frequented the coffee shop that used to be in High Point Pizza’s space. One day he noticed a “For Lease” sign.
Opening a restaurant in the High Point Terrace shopping center was a no-brainer. “It’s kind of a hidden gem in that neighborhood. The customers, the people that live there, are amazing. They’re huge supporters of what we do. They walk with their strollers, their dogs, their wagons.”
Hays added tables outside. “I give kids little pieces of raw dough to play with. That gives them something to do.”
Becoming a restaurateur wasn’t his first career choice. “I was going to be a psychologist. I lasted about two years. And then the money ran out and I had to start working.”
His first restaurant job when he was 15 was “basically, taking the trash out of the Burger King. The most glamorous job you could ever have.”
He went on to bartend and wait tables at Bennigan’s. He also worked in management at the old Pig-N-Whistle on Winchester and as a cook at Garibaldi’s Pizza. “That’s where I first put a pizza together.”
As for his pizzas, Hays, who also works in the kitchen, says, “I just use the best ingredients possible.
“It’s the quality of the product and cooking it. We have a brick oven we use.” The pizzas are “nice and crisp on the bottom. The toppings are great.”
They make about a dozen different pizzas, but the simple cheese pizza and the pepperoni are the biggest sellers. They also do a barbecue pizza with house-made barbecue.
The menu features other items, including the popular muffuletta on homemade bread and a Cuban sandwich, in addition to lasagna, spaghetti and meatballs, and mozzarella sticks. “We have a decent big menu, but I’m of the opinion that too many menu items lessens the quality overall. So I try to keep it pretty simple.”
As for franchising High Point Pizza, Hays says, “I looked at maybe doing another location. Never say never. But right now, I’m content with what I have.”
High Point Pizza is at 477 High Point Terrace; (901) 452-3339.
Man, high school can be hard. Unless you are in that environment, you might forget about it or look back on it with a distorted sense of nostalgia. As a high school teacher of 20 years — and now a mother of a high schooler — I know this firsthand. My school distributed yearbooks last week, and the senior quote of a student with whom I am very close was, “I was supposed to be having the time of my life,” by Sylvia Plath. That really sums it up for some kids. Unless you were super popular, you likely have a story of feeling lonely or misunderstood when you were in high school.
I saw a trailer for a new Netflix show a couple of weeks ago that was so incredibly refreshing. Heartstopper, based on the graphic novels by Alice Oseman, takes you into a world of 10th and 11th graders at both an all-boys and all-girls school in England. Openly gay Charlie Spring is seated next to popular rugby player Nicholas Nelson in form, the English equivalent of homeroom. A new, unlikely friendship blossoms between them as the story begins. It accurately portrays the fears, uncertainties, and self-discoveries that high school students routinely experience. Ultimately, we experience the fear, excitement, confusion, sadness, and happiness that is high school. This is the most relevant show for a high school teacher that I have ever seen. Let me explain why.
We can have all the diversity and inclusion training, and training on how to properly handle bullying that exists, but learning about it and seeing it put into action are two completely different things. In Heartstopper, the art teacher, Mr. Ajayi, expertly portrayed by British actor Fisayo Akinade, offers his classroom as a safe space for Charlie to come at lunchtime. They discuss how he was bullied so badly the previous year when Charlie was publicly outed. Mr. Ajayi, a gay man himself, discusses how terrible school was for him, saying at one point he just had to “suffer.”
Writer and LGBTQ+ activist Alexander Leon said, “Queer people don’t grow up as ourselves, we grow up playing a version of ourselves that sacrifices authenticity to minimise humiliation and prejudice. The massive task of our adult lives is to unpick which parts we’ve created to protect us.” Navigating high school is hard enough. Pretending to be someone you are not out of fear of bullying, not being accepted, or even being kicked out of school in the cases of some religious or private schools, solely based on who you are, is a tremendous weight that many LGBTQ+ students carry.
I have had several students talk to me about the impact Heartstopper has had on them. One former student of mine (they/them) discussed how it made them feel seen and validated to have a positive bisexual character in a show. They said that they never felt more understood. Positive representation of all marginalized groups in film and television is extremely important for this very reason.
Self-identity is a tricky beast, even when sexuality is not involved. I watch kids try to figure out who they are on a daily basis. I remember having those feelings as a teen, wondering where I fit in. Knowing that someone out there understands and accepts you, and having a safe place to go, can make all the difference in the world, especially in the time of book bans and so-called “Don’t Say Gay” and “bathroom” bills restricting the way gay, queer, and trans identities can be expressed in school, the exact place where young people are learning who they are and how to show that true self to the world.
Heartstopper is a stunningly beautiful representation of what it is like for kids in high school these days. I am thrilled that a show like this exists for queer kids to see themselves represented in such a beautiful and positive light. As a teacher, it has pushed me to go a step further in being there for those kids who may be viewed as outcasts or feel like they don’t belong. It has pushed me to educate others about what many of our students face each day. Take the time to watch the show. It is positive, uplifting, and unlike any series I have ever seen. You will laugh, cry, and remember how you felt when you first fell in love. Most importantly, you might reevaluate how you handle situations with students in your classroom.
Melanie W. Morton is a high school Spanish teacher originally from Memphis.
The cast of Ragtime shines. (Photo: Carla McDonald)
The final production of Theatre Memphis’ 100th season is Ragtime, a Tony-winning musical with themes relevant to contemporary audiences, though the show is set at the turn of the 20th century. All aspects of this production shine, from the meticulously cultivated details of the set and costumes to the ensemble and individual performances of the cast.
Ragtime, based on the novel of the same name by E.L. Doctorow, is an emotional journey through topics of racism, classism, and sexism. Though the subject material is somber, the musical is rife with humor and hope. The multifaceted story is told through the eyes of a variety of characters with varying backgrounds living in the United States sometime just before the onset of World War I. It follows characters ranging from Tateh, a Jewish widower immigrating to America with his young daughter, to Booker T. Washington to Evelyn Nesbit, a vaudeville performer and 20th-century sex symbol.
I was afforded the opportunity to speak with the assistant director of Ragtime, Claire D. Kolheim, over the phone. Kolheim is a former resident company member of Playhouse on the Square, and in 2011 she played the role of Sarah in Ragtime. As part of the directorial team, Kolheim pointed out to me that no detail was left to chance. I mentioned that I appreciated the effect of having the orchestra present on the balcony of the set. “Having the orchestra exposed was an intentional move on the production team’s part,” Kolheim says. This decision was cleverly worked out in order to create the poignant moment where a coffin is fully lowered into the orchestra pit.
Despite the heavy themes of injustice explored in Ragtime, hope for the future generation permeates the show. Ragtime returns again and again to an idea that every parent will recognize: We must build a better tomorrow for our children. Emphatically sung by Coalhouse, played by Justin Allen Tate, “Make Them Hear You” highlights the importance of sharing true stories of injustice. When I ask Kolheim her thoughts on the motif of hope in the show, she replies with a poignant thought. “My friend, he always says that ‘We are our ancestors’ dreams realized.’ And, as Black people, you think about the injustices of slavery and the injustices of segregation and the lynchings and the mobbings and the hosing down, and you never think in that moment there’s going to be a glimmer of hope for tomorrow, but when you realize how far we have come as a people, there is hope for tomorrow. We may never see it in our lifetime, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not possible. … That’s something that’s inherent in the show.”
Another central thread running throughout the musical is sexism. This is mostly realized through the character called simply “Mother.” As Kolheim describes her, “She’s in her own prison. She’s in a society where a woman is seen and not heard. … She’s stuck in a patriarchal society that undermines her intelligence.” Mother is a dynamic character, who at the beginning of the show is content with her place both in her community and in her own household. We see that contentment change throughout the course of the musical, and again, Kolheim highlights the importance of details in this play. “Throughout the show, her hair and her attire start loosening up.” So the audience is able to see Mother quite literally loosening the restraints that have been systematically placed on her.
With performances ranging from witty and humorous to powerful and emotionally raw, the cast of Ragtime delivers a solid show that will leave audiences with something to think about long after the final bow is taken. During intermission, one bartender remarked to me, “That last one always gets me. I cry every time.” The “last one” she was referring to was the number, “Till We Reach That Day.” As I myself had teared up during the song, I knew what she meant.
This show is just as relevant in 2022 as it would have been 100 years ago. Thankfully, the ending is one of uplifting promise. As Kolheim puts it, “Together, we are stronger than we are apart, and I think that that is what the playwrights were hoping that any production of Ragtime would help us see.”
Ragtime runs through Sunday, June 26th, at the Lohrey Theatre (Theatre Memphis).
“This city’s filled with reasons to kill, but everyone wants to play the blues.” So lamented the Lost Sounds over 20 years ago on their Black-Wave album, and that sentiment, that palpable frustration, was easy to relate to at the time. For youth on the edge of alternative culture, the blues could feel soul-crushing, especially in Memphis, especially on Beale Street. Somehow, it felt like the sound of complacency. I was certainly too snobbish to play Beale Street back at the end of the last century, and I was not alone.
One group, though, worked Beale Street to their advantage in those days. Luther and Cody Dickinson formed the North Mississippi Allstars with Chris Chew and played Beale Street clubs almost from the beginning, relentlessly refining their blues-based rock and funk there, night after night. Over the decades, with a few other like-minded souls, the two brothers have stayed the course, and their ceaseless experimentation has left in its wake a revelation: The blues are extremely mutant-friendly.
Indeed, the blues may be more open to cross-pollination, hybridization, and evolution than any other genre, and that’s never been more apparent than today. After decades of bubbling under the surface, from the Delta to the Hill Country to the gritty, grinding streets of Memphis, the blues have soaked up something from the sands. And now, once again, the creature is stirring.
A New Era “The blues is dead!” quips Bruce Watson, co-founder of Fat Possum Records, the label that first made its mark with hitherto under-recognized artists like R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, among others. Then he laughs out loud. “I’m kidding. That’s been our catchphrase for 30 years. Actually, the blues may kind of die down, but there always seems to be somebody who starts the flame again. If you look at The Black Keys’ record from last year [Delta Kream], they were reaching back into the old Fat Possum catalog for most of that. That’s pretty great. It introduces a whole different audience to the blues. These days, it definitely feels like something’s happening.”
That sentiment is shared by many with their fingers on the pulse of the music. “There is a new appreciation for what the blues is and what the blues is all about,” says Judith Black, president and CEO of the Blues Foundation.
Rapper Al Kapone, who we’ll return to later, also knows a thing or two about the blues, and agrees with Black. “A new era of the blues has begun, and it’s needed,” he says. “It’s a great thing to witness. We’re right at the beginning stages of something going on. It’s really cool to see.”
And Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, whose 662 won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album earlier this year, says, “There’s definitely a new vibe. A crop of young people are coming out of the woodwork, more young people of color. So there’s a big resurgence of the blues at the moment.”
Cedric Burnside (Photo Courtesy: Reed Watson)
Nostalgic and Futuristic — at the Same Time Just what specifically is changing is harder to define. One sign came with last year’s release of I Be Trying, by Cedric Burnside, grandson of the great R.L. Burnside. Originally a drummer, he came of age on the road with R.L. and close family friend Kenny Brown, during a time when R.L. enjoyed a revival of sorts, on Fat Possum and elsewhere. Now, being steeped in the North Mississippi Hill Country blues that his grandfather typified, Burnside has appropriately been named a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts, a sort of guardian of the Hill Country tradition.
The irony is that, despite such historical bona fides, Burnside has forged a style all his own. With a clean, percussive guitar style, likely derived from his years behind the drums, he lays down riffs and snatches of melody that lean heavily on the blues but also evoke echoes of soul and gospel. As with classic Hill Country blues, there’s still a hypnotic quality, but with less distortion (an innovation in itself in R.L.’s day) and a greater sense of playfulness. With the quality and care put into this very intimate-sounding recording, it’s no wonder he took home the Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album this year, and yet Burnside defies tradition as well. As producer Boo Mitchell says, “It’s nostalgic and futuristic at the same time. It captures all the spookiness of the old deep blues, and it still sounds current. Some of those tracks could be in a Wu-Tang sample.”
Paradoxically, such innovation sits comfortably within the Hill Country tradition. At Kenny Brown’s North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic, taking place this week, June 24th-25th, and now in its 16th year, tradition and innovation sit side by side. Many of the region’s great musical families are represented by performers like Robert Kimbrough Sr., Kent Burnside, Duwayne Burnside, and Garry Burnside, not to mention Shardé Thomas and R.L. Boyce, who both started out in the great Othar Turner’s fife and drum corps, but the tradition of innovation will also have its hour, with longtime blues genre-benders like the North Mississippi Allstars and Alvin Youngblood Hart.
Though Cedric Burnside will not perform there this year, his unique sound may be a direct result of the tradition’s innovative side. As David Evans, a former ethnomusicology instructor at the University of Memphis and highly regarded authority on local blues, notes, “People have identified Cedric, either rightly or wrongly, with this Hill Country sound or style. And he’s supposed to be upholding that, and that might be a little restrictive. He seems like a guy who likes to explore.”
Or, as Burnside himself puts it, “Different, to me, has always been a great thing. I always wanted to be different.”
Too Young to Remember, Old Enough to Know If Cedric Burnside, now 43, seems to have reinvented the blues based on years of playing with his elders, followed by a lifetime of painstaking craftsmanship in search of something different, others are doing the same simply by virtue of their youth. Clarksdale’s Christone “Kingfish” Ingram is the perfect example, and the twin Grammys won by Ingram and Burnside this year are, in a sense, two sides of the same shiny new blues coin.
Twenty years younger than Burnside, Ingram has brought a new energy to the blues of the Mississippi Delta by virtue of having grown up with all the world’s music at his fingertips, even as he matured into a die-hard devotee of the blues. “When I was growing up, my mom played everything, from ’60s soul to Bon Jovi to Patti LaBelle,” he says. “I was always hearing different styles of music. And pretty much all of that inspired me to infuse that into the blues and make my own little genre, for lack of a better term.”
At the time, simply embracing the blues felt like a radical act. “When I went to school, other young kids were more into rap and everything like that. The blues was almost taboo. But now, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve seen more kids in my generation gravitating toward it.” Ingram himself led the charge, diving wholeheartedly into educational programs sponsored by the Delta Blues Museum in his hometown.
“My instructors were actual bluesmen, Bill ‘Howl-n-Mad’ Perry and Richard ‘Daddy Rich’ Crisman. They were my teachers and my mentors of the blues, from the time when I played bass through when I got into guitar. And when they found out I had a little voice, they even pushed me to sing. There were even times when we would do readings. It was a full-on educational class, for sure. And it still goes on today.”
It’s an outcome that historians and supporters of the blues, such as those behind the Delta Blues Museum, can only dream of — until their efforts actually culminate in a phenomenal artist like Kingfish Ingram. And much of that can be put down to Ingram’s unique personality, his uncanny feel for the traditions that came before. “I’m too young to remember,” he sings on one track, “but I’m old enough to know.”
While the overall sound of 662 (name-checking Clarksdale’s area code) has an up-tempo drive and bounce that ranges from the hard rock power chords of “Not Gonna Lie” to the mellow soul stylings of “Another Life Goes By” or even alternative balladry like “Rock & Roll,” his voice grounds it all with a weathered worldliness. And somehow that voice comes through his guitar as well. As Boo Mitchell says, “He’s literally one of the most talented and prolific guitar players of our time. He plays with the feel of an 80-year-old man. How can you have that much soul? You’re only 20-somethin’! Kingfish is incredible. His voice, too.”
Not all blues fans feel that way, however. The blues genre in particular has always been plagued with fans who love only that which does not evolve: the purists. “It’s been something I struggled with because trying to get accepted by the purists has always been something I wracked my head over,” reflects Ingram. “In some ways, I’m just getting over it. But I look at it like this: One of the ways I’ve gotten young people into the blues is by mixing other genres into it. But here’s where the tricky part comes in: You don’t want to mix too much, to where it becomes something else. But as far as keeping it pure, I think the more you hear the blues or things that are blues-inspired, it’ll always be pure. When Albert King did his funkiness, you could hear the blues in his funkiness. For me, it’s all pure. Whatever comes from the heart is pure.”
Memphissippi Sounds (Photo: Peter Lee)
The Soundtrack of Our Lives If Ingram felt like an outsider among the Black peers of his youth, who gravitated more toward rap, that distinction is coming to mean less and less as the new blues arise out of the landscape today. It’s something that Judith Black noticed soon after taking the helm at the Blues Foundation. “A new duo called Memphissippi Sounds performed at the Blues Music Awards, and right before the ceremony I saw them practice and had an opportunity to meet them. And they don’t necessarily look like your typical blues artist. They look like hip-hop artists. And their sound is kind of a combination of hip-hop and soul and blues. More blues than anything — they’re definitely blues. And I think artists like them are starting to attract a younger crowd, listeners who would not typically choose to listen to blues. So it’s emerging.”
To Black, whose childhood was steeped in older blues thanks to her father, a collector and independent scholar, such emerging connections make perfect sense. “I think there’s a new appreciation for the history that comes with the blues. In this time of racial reckoning, the blues puts that history in perspective. It was the soundtrack of the Civil Rights Movement, the soundtrack of our lives as we’ve moved from the late 1800s all the way up to now. I’ve looked at the lyrics of artists from, say, the early 1900s, and some of us talk about young hip-hop artists and their lyrics nowadays, but once you listen to those early lyrics, they make most rap lyrics look like nursery rhymes!”
Al Kapone (Photo: Jenny Max)
Black’s words unwittingly echo the thoughts of one of Memphis’ most iconic rappers, Al Kapone. Appearing at the Beale Street Music Festival this spring, Kapone sealed his legendary status once more as he led a crowd of thousands in the chorus of “Whoop That Trick,” the song he penned for Craig Brewer’s film, Hustle & Flow, now chanted regularly at every hometown Memphis Grizzlies game. But mixed in with Kapone’s classics was a new batch of tunes, the culmination of an epiphany that struck the rapper only recently.
“Being a rapper from Memphis, I realized no one from the rap community has embraced something that’s so uniquely Memphis as the blues. When it hit me, I was like, ‘This can’t be!’ It just hit me, I’ve gotta really, fully embrace it and represent the blues. And I wanted to do that in the Memphis rap style. Because the Memphis rap sound is unique in itself. So I figured if I could marry the two, I’d be coming up with something that’s doubly unique.”
Marrying the two genres has been the focus of Kapone’s most recent singles, and at the Beale Street Music Festival, it hit home in a powerful way. As doom-laden beats pounded on in classic Memphis fashion, a new layer of sound also appeared: the dark, heavy wail of an electric guitar, pushed to its limits, ricocheting off the walls of the nearby Mid-South Coliseum and across the cityscape. It was an aesthetic shot across the bow.
“I was like, ‘How can this not have been done, this far into the musical era we’re in? There’s no way!’ I felt it was my duty and my honor to marry those genres together in a way that only a Memphis OG rapper could. And I’m very happy to wave the flag.” For Kapone, independently echoing Black’s remarks, it provides a direct connection to history. “I listen to a lot of the older blues records, and when I listen to the words, I’m like, ‘Lyrically, this is just as raw as hip-hop!’ The lyrics are as raw as the street. They talk about gambling, somebody getting their gun, somebody messing with their whatever. [laughs] You can get a glimpse of street life way back then, listening to those songs. I feel their era connecting with our era, with the same kinds of stories.”
Now the rapper has just released the culmination of this epiphany, an EP titled Blues Rap Music, which gathers a handful of singles he’s recently done that capture this approach. One track, “Dead and Gone,” even features a renowned Memphis guitarist who first rose to fame when Al Kapone was just getting started in the hip-hop game: Eric Gales. And his very involvement serves as an object lesson that the generic boundaries between blues and hip-hop are not hard and fast.
“In the ’90s,” Kapone recalls, “a lot of people in the blues world had no idea that Eric rapped on a lot of Three 6 Mafia mix tapes. He went by the name of Lil E. And he had a cool personality and identity. So I knew him from then. The underground Memphis rap world, the mixtape world, had no idea he was a guitar player, and people in the blues guitar world had no idea he was a rapper!”
Now it’s come full circle, as the two musical cultures that have put Memphis on the map converge. The blues, as Judith Black likes to say, is continually emerging. And lately, the blues has got a whole new bag. As Bruce Watson says, “The blues is dead!” Long live the blues.
Queer Prom closes out Pride. (Photo: Courtesy OutMemphis)
After two years of not being able to host large social gatherings, OUTMemphis is ready to celebrate with what else but a prom. “We want to celebrate that we made it through the last two years,” says Molly Quinn, OUTMemphis’ executive director. “The pandemic isn’t over, but we are in a new era and a new time of safety. And we are celebrating that we survived and honoring all the loss and grief and trauma that we’ve all been through together.”
Since the onset of Covid, OUTMemphis has prioritized its emergency services. “Our Cooper-Young location has been closed during the pandemic for walk-ins and social programming,” Quinn says. “We’ve spent all of our resources and time on our essential services for queer people, in particular our housing program for queer youth experiencing homelessness and our financial assistance program for adults and our food program.”
At the beginning of this summer, though, OUTMemphis was finally able to open its doors once again for walk-in hours and social programs in its newly renovated building, complete with fresh paint, new furniture and appliances, and a back patio. “We encourage people to come by and check out our website for programs and walk-in hours.”
With so much to celebrate and honor, especially as Pride Month comes to a close, OUTMemphis opted for a prom-themed party. “We wanted something that people would have fun with, of course,” Quinn says, “but LGBTQ+ folks have a lot of foundational memories that we didn’t get to have in a special way, in the way our straight peers do. So many people didn’t get to go to prom as themselves, whether that’s their gender identity or the person they took with them or simply the clothes they might wear.”
As such, this inaugural Queer Prom promises to be a safe space to make new memories. “We want people to wear whatever Queer Prom means to them. … If you want to wear a ball gown or a track suit, if it feels celebratory and it feels queer, that’s what we want people to wear. We want people to wear anything that feels good to them.”
And no prom would be complete without decorations. “There’s gonna be a lot of disco balls and a ridiculously amazing balloon arch, handmade by OUTMemphis staff,” Quinn says. Guests will also get to dance on an LED dance floor and pose in a 360-degree photobooth. “DJ Space Age will be spinning tunes. Our playlist will be prom hits through the decades. The event is 21 and older, and we’ve really been encouraging people to come of all ages. Memphis has a really special senior community who will be coming, too.” Plus, drinks from Wiseacre Brewery and refreshments will be available to purchase.
Tickets for Queer Prom have been selling fast and are likely to sell out. “We may have a handful of tickets at the door,” Quinn says. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit queerprom.org, where details for an after-party by Mid-South Pride will also be announced.
Dame Mufasa dressed in his Afro-futuristic best at the Juneteenth Gala. (Credit: Michael Donahue)
I’ve covered some parties in my time, but TONE’s Juneteenth Gala with its “Black Future,” Afrofuturism theme on June 18th at Beale Street Landing, is one of the most incredibly inventive events I’ve ever been to. I’ve never been to anything like it.
A program describes the event as an Afrofuturistic “celebration of our freedom.”
Take Dame Mufasa, assistant director of TONE, which, according to the press release, is “a Memphis-based arts and culture nonprofit that aims to elevate the full spectrum of Black communities in Memphis.”
Describing his attire, Mufasa, who also is a rap artist, says, “It was more like a cyber Afrofuturist biker.”
He wore a silver arm piece on his right forearm and bicep. “A friend of mine made it for me. It’s made out of sheet metal and plastic.”
Mufasa also donned a black Givenchy suit. “We just altered it with the arm.”
He wore “leather gloves with studs,” “futuristic glasses with LED frames” that lit up, and eight necklaces.
And on his feet, Mufasa sported a pair of black-and-white leather O’Neal motocross racing boots, which he got for the gala. Asked if he could wear them again, he says, “I hope so.”
Dame Mufasa at Juneteenth Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Since it was one of those warm Memphis nights, I asked Mufasa if he got hot wearing all that. “I thought it would be warmer, but I had no shirt under it. I had a cool breeze coming through.”
To Mufasa, “Afrofuturism is a vision of freedom and empowerment in the future. And that was done through what people chose to wear at the party.”
Mufasa says his attire symbolized the year 3005. “You can go with something like me, or a cybertech type vibe,” but “the future is freedom. As long as you lean into what makes you feel more free as a black person, that is Afrofuturism.”
Lawrence Matthews, Amber Ahmad (in front), and Nubia Yasin at Juneteenth Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Havi M Green at Juneteenth Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Havi M Green at Juneteenth Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Milton Howery III, Deaunte Thompson, Pat Mitchell Worley, Princeton James at Juneteenth Gala. (Credit: Michael Donahue)Talibah Safia and Maarifa Arnett at Juneteenth Gala. (Credit: Michael Donahue)
As for how he felt about the gala, Mufasa says, “It was beautiful, man. The energy was really, really special. And everybody looked great.”
TONE marketing manager Kai Celeste Ross says about 120 people attended the gala. “We sold 100 tickets and kind of went over,” says Ross who also is a visual artist/photographer.
The event included a red carpet/cocktail hour, a seated dinner with food by caterer Eli Townsend, and performance by violinist V.C.R. Also, artist Derek Fordjour, who is on the TONE board, spoke, Talibah Safiya recited the prayer, Afrofuturistic author Sheree Renee Thomas did a reading, and Victoria Jones “closed it out.”
Sheree Renee Thomas and Danian Darrell Jerry at Juneteenth Gala. (Credit: Michael Donahue)Eli Townsend at Juneteenth Gala. (Credit: Michael Donahue)Silas Vassar III (Credit: Michael Donahue)Taylor Williams at Juneteenth Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Amanzi Arnett at Juneteenth Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Rachel Knox and Anasa Troutman at Juneteenth Gala. (Credit: Michael Donahue)
But that wasn’t all. An afterparty was held aboard the Mississippi Queen riverboat with DJ Space Age providing the music.
As for her outfit, Ross, who was busy with party preparations, says, “My outfit was very last minute. I think I got my outfit by 1:00 that day. I wore an oversized blazer like a man’s coat with thigh-high boots. I really dressed it up with a lot of gold accessories and things like that. Like I let my hair and accessories kind of do the work for me.”
Juneteenth celebrating continued the next day with the Juneteenth Family Reunion Festival on 10 acres along Lamar Avenue at the site of the Orange Mound Tower, formerly the old United Equipment Building. Duke Deuce was the headliner.
“We had about 1,400 people who registered, so it may have been larger than that,” Ross says.
This was the second Juneteenth Family Reunion Festival. The first one was held last year. “We came up with that idea during quarantine. We couldn’t do the gala and everybody hadn’t seen each other in so long, like a year. So, in 2021 we came up with that idea to do a family reunion.”
The festival and the picnic are planned to be annual events, Ross says.
Tavian Peterson, Tiara Peterson, Shealyn Williams at Juneteenth Family Reunion Festival. (Credit: Michael Donahue)Shea Harris, Rokosi, Charlye Murrell at Juneteenth Family Reunion (Credit: Michael Donahue)Khadesia Howell, Lauren Burnette, Brandon Thomas at Juneteenth Family Reunion Festival. (Credit: Michael Donahue)Kamien Bell at Juneteenth Family Reunion Festival. (Credit: Michael Donahue)Moni Holman and Naft at Juneteenth Family Reunion. (Credit: Michael Donahue)Tiffani Stewart and Ralph Calhoun at Juneteenth Family Reunion Festival. (Credit: Michael Donahue)Brian Nolan, Olajide Ibitoye, John Eshunk at Juneteenth Family Reunion. (Credit: Michael Donahue) We Saw You
