Month: February 2024

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Book Features Books

Paperboy Trilogy

I worked with Vince Vawter at the old Memphis Press-Scimitar when it was in the now-demolished Memphis Publishing Co. building (what we veterans still call “the old building”) at 495 Union Avenue.

It looked like those old newsrooms in the movies of the 1930s and ’40s. And it was full of characters that rivaled any character actors in those old newspaper movies.

Vawter brings that old newsroom — and the Memphis of another era — to life as part of the background of his latest book, Manboy, which is part three of his Paperboy Trilogy.

Vawter’s 40-year career in newspapers includes publisher and president of the Evansville Courier & Press, managing editor of The Knoxville News Sentinel, and news editor of the Memphis Press-Scimitar.

Vawter, who lives in Louisville, Tennessee, will be at a book signing at 2 p.m. on February 10th at Novel.

I recently asked Vawter some questions about the book.

Vince Vawter at the Blount County Public Library (Photo: Betty Vawter)

Memphis Flyer: Were you ever a copy boy? I seem to remember you telling me you weren’t.

Vince Vawter: I was never a copy clerk. I started my newspaper career as a sportswriter at the Pine Bluff Commercial in Arkansas. My first job at The Press-Scimitar was on the copy desk. I thought that placing the protagonist, Victor Vollmer, as a copy clerk was a good way for him to enter the newspaper business, just like somebody else I know.

What was it about the old Memphis Publishing building that made it so special?

The Memphis Publishing Company building was once owned by the Ford Motor Company and was re-adapted for newspaper publishing. It had the openness and feel of a newsroom with its 20-foot ceilings and desks jammed together with pneumatic tubes running hither and yon. I liked to feel the concrete floors rumble when the giant presses would crank up to full speed. I wanted readers to experience the feel of a genuine newsroom in the heyday of newspapers and explain how a newspaper was actually produced on deadline. All the newspaper headlines in Manboy are verbatim from The Press-Scimitar and The Commercial Appeal.

How much of your lead character is like you?

Victor Vollmer is certainly based on my early life in all three books of the trilogy, especially the portions dealing with my stutter. … Some readers question the naivete of the protagonist, but you have to remember this was the ’60s and another world from what we have now.

I love all the history of Memphis that I can relate to because I grew up in the ’50s and ’60s.

Of the three books in the trilogy, this is the one that treats the city of Memphis as almost a character in itself. When Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, I rushed back to Memphis from Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

I spent that weekend in April 1968 just watching the city and listening. I remember those four days like it was yesterday. My most vivid memory is watching the Downtown march on that Monday after the assassination and then being swept up in it. I can still hear one of the parade marshals telling everyone “not to chew gum” while they were marching. The march was orderly and personally inspiring.

Will there be another one of these? Maybe the lead character becomes a newspaper reporter or an editor.

Paperboy introduces Vic when he is 11. In Copyboy, Vic is 17. He is 21 in Manboy. I envisioned the trilogy after the publication of Paperboy when literally hundreds of readers emailed me questions wanting to know what happened to the characters in the book. I decided to bring readers along on the complete journey. I doubt there will be another Paperboy book because a four-book set is known as a “tetralogy,” which seems a little off-putting and Jurassic.

What kind of feedback do you get from readers of these three books?

Readers say they appreciate that I shared the entire journey from adolescence to adulthood with them. This is rarely done in literature these days. Although most of my readers seem to be older than the “young adult” label, I did want the narrative to grow along with my readers.

The books were published over a 10-year period, just as the narrative encompasses 10 years of Vic’s life. Close readers, especially speech-language pathologists, say they admire how Vic’s attitudes about his stutter change over the 10-year period. After the success of Paperboy [Newbery Honor, quarter-million in sales, translated into 18 languages], I was a little taken aback that Penguin Random House chose not to continue with the story. The reason given was that the publisher did not like popular protagonists to grow older. That’s not life, I said, and my books are my life. My publisher said that it may not be life, but it’s publishing.

Any news on the musical made from Paperboy? Anything else happening? A movie maybe?

The musical’s creative team entered Paperboy and its 22 original songs in two musical theater competitions this spring in New York City. We hope that this will result in another production besides the one we had at the Manhattan School of Music last year. We continue to hear rumblings from movie types, but nothing to report so far. I think the trilogy itself and the boy’s 10-year journey would make a more complete movie narrative and satisfy more viewers, but we’ll just bide our time.

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We Saw You

WE SAW YOU: Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival

Tracy Abel, Jenny Crews, and Adonis Middlecoff of Chicken Salad Chick were at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)

People were allowed to play with their food at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival & Awards. Meaning, those attending the event moved around, laughed, and schmoozed while they sampled food from 16 food stations — and drank from 14 drink stations — at the event, which was held February 4th at The Kent.

It was the third year for the event since it changed formats in 2022, going from a sit-down dinner to a tasting format. “For years — I want to say 50 years — it was a banquet held in a hotel ballroom,” says Memphis Restaurant Association executive director Sally Fienup.

Phillip Ashley Rix at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Andrew Mason and Lauren Pfingstag at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Karina Bautista and Thomas Schaub at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Christopher Green at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Connor and Kelly Fox at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Hall Crawford and Jeffrey Goldberg at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Kyle Sklar and Tristan Farrow at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Aaron Binkowitz and Madison Erwin at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)

The association changed the format for several reasons, Fienup says. “Number one, was a general trend in events pre-2020 where tastings became popular for fundraising events. People enjoyed a more casual atmosphere for events and eating.”

Covid was another reason. “We still wanted to have an event post-Covid, but everything changed in terms of people not wanting to be confined to sitting down for long periods of time. People wanted flexibility to come and go. And just our access to pricing and even rentals changed post-Covid.”

And, finally, Fienup says, “I think the Memphis Restaurant Association community was ready for a change in the format of their events because we were and always were interested in attracting members to our community who may or may not have been familiar with us.”

A crowd of 460 attended this year’s event. “This one, by far, was our most successful in terms of number of attendees and number of participants,” Fienup says. “I would say the restaurant industry felt stronger over the past year than it had in the past, which I think contributed to the restaurants and beverage vendors participating.”

Peter Parrino and Todai Malone at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Earl Brown, Curtis Mitchell II, Pierre Pige at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Kyle Crisler and Bailey Rhodes at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Reuben Skahill and Shelby Lewis at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Emily Aguillera and Juan Juarez at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
John Robinson and Catherine Sights at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Chris Ware, Deni and Patrick Reilly at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Jake Schorr at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)

Each year the Memphis Restaurant Associate gives out awards. This year’s honorees were Memphis Restaurateur of the Year: Marco Puerto, owner of Cocina Mexicana; Associate Member of the Year: A. J. Jones with Old Dominick Distillery; and Lifetime Achievement Award: the late Jennifer Biggs, who was food editor for The Daily Memphian.

Mike Miller is president of the Memphis Restaurant Association

Mike and Tonya Miller at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Carson Blackfan and Maggie Gibbons at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Joshua and Melody Smith at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Kat Bollheimer and Stone Pannell at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Alisha Cunningham, Norbert Mede, Lashanna Span at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Landon Stone and Adalya Armstrong at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Ryan Marsh at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Donnie and Alexis Malone at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Jeff, Harry, and Kelcie Zepatos at the Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Clint Van Court, Katie Jones, Clark Schifani, Kelly Brock at Memphis Restaurant Association Food Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)
We Saw You
Categories
Music Music Blog

Rhodes Hosts a Talk with Jason Isbell

Jason Isbell (Photo courtesy Rhodes College)

Dr. Charles L. Hughes, music historian and director of the Lynne & Henry Turley Memphis Center at Rhodes College, vividly recalls when he first interviewed Jason Isbell. “It was during his first solo tour. This is when I was living in Madison, Wisconsin, going to grad school, and I was doing some some work for the alternative weekly newspaper there. That was back in 2007, right at the beginning. He was really thoughtful and articulate then and I’ve talked to him a few times over the years. He’s so good at articulating his own work and how he fits into to the rest of the world around him.”

That wasn’t just a one-off opportunity. Indeed, Hughes has followed Isbell’s solo work closely ever since, and last year he wrote the liner notes for the deluxe ten-year anniversary reissue of Isbell’s album Southeastern. Hughes, who’s best known for his thorough and thoughtful history Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South, dives deeply into the music he loves and Isbell’s work is no exception.

At 6 p.m. on Wednesday, February 7th, Hughes will be speaking with Isbell at Rhodes College’s McNeill Concert Hall. (The event is free, but registration is required). As the program materials put it, “Isbell also has become a crucial voice for change within the music industry and, beyond addressing the challenges of the past and present in his music, champions the voices of BIPOC and queer musicians in Americana and country music, participating in campaigns for LGBTQ+ equality, reproductive rights, voter registration, and racial justice.” That is a lot of territory to cover, so I spoke with Dr. Hughes recently to get a better idea of where his chat with Isbell might roam.

Memphis Flyer: Jason Isbell is especially adept at telling stories that express deep issues in our culture or even in our moral universe, yet he’s determined to steer away from the usual cliches and say something fresh in his songs. I imagine that his conversations have that same quality.

Dr. Charles Hughes: I think that’s really true. And I think part of that is his skill as a songwriter and how he draws a lot from literature and other things. And he’s always been very open about how much he tries to think of his work in that frame as well. It’s also about how he thinks about the world and where the world is. He’s become one of the most consistent voices both in his music and in the work he does, particularly in this kind of musical space. I think he’s someone who really offers a great model of how to be a musician in the world, and quite frankly, how to be a white guy doing music in this moment. And he’s very good about trying to avoid hero worship, but it’s very justifiable to look at him as a role model for how to try to interact with the world when you have the privilege that he has. And you hear that in the music, too. It’s great to hear him talk about his songs because of the thought and also the work that goes into his process, and he’s so good at talking about that. It’s so important, I think, for people to hear that because it’s easy to forget just how hard the work is. And he’s really committed to making that process transparent.

Dr. Charles L. Hughes (Photo courtesy Rhodes College)

Do you have specific songs of his in mind that you hope to discuss?

It’s hard to kind of narrow down, but that’s a really great question. One of the songs that, to me, really marks this crucial moment for him in terms of how he thinks about the world is the song “White Man’s World,” where he’s very much trying to kind of consider his own place within a history and the present moment, and trying to confront it and reckon with it.

On the new album, there’s a song called, called “King of Oklahoma,” which is very much in his kind of story song tradition, drawing very much on a single character, but he’s also talking about work, he’s talking about poverty, he’s talking about crime, he’s talking about addiction. He’s talking about all of these things. Yet it’s very place-based, and he’s always thinking about those things. So that’s another one.

But man, I mean, there are so many! I’ve always wanted to talk with him about a song he wrote way back for the Drive-By Truckers called “The Day John Henry Died,” which is this amazing song about work and life and history. And of course, I’m a historian, so a song like “TVA” — just on a personal level, I connect with it so much.

My granddaddy told me, when he was just seven or so
His daddy lost work and they didn’t have a row to hoe
Got a little to eat for nine boys and three girls
They all lived in a tent, bunch of sharecroppers versus the world

So his mama sat down, wrote a letter to FDR
And a couple days later some county men came in a car
They rode out in the field, told his daddy to put down the plow
He helped build the dam that gave power to most of the South.
– from “TVA” by Jason Isbell

Isbell is known for these trenchant, penetrating views across the cultural divide, and expressing that broad historical view, and yet some have noted that last year’s biographical film, Running With Our Eyes Closed, focuses so much on his marriage and seems quite removed from this more ‘cultural commentator’ role he takes on. What do you think of the tension between those two poles?

I don’t think it’s a tension. I think it’s true to who he is as an artist, but also because he is always centered on his work, especially since he got sober. That’s what Southeastern is all about. I keep bringing it back to work, but he’s always been centered on the idea that love takes work, and being a better person, in relationships to other people or whatever, takes work. Making better worlds takes work. Work is an important part of life. So I’ve always found those sides of him, in a sense, to be quite linked.

And also, one of the things that you hear on his stuff that might seem less overtly political, is the overarching spirit of not just empathy, but a real attempt to kind of understand what makes people do what they do and how people have to survive. For example, songs that are talking about personal struggles or one’s relationship to death. He writes a lot about the relationship of the living and the dead. And I hear the same kind of reckonings and the same kind of meditations through all that work.

And I think the other thing too, to be quite honest, is that it’s really a trap for any musician who offers those kinds of songs that are cultural commentaries to then be thought of as that person. And I think that one of the things that has been really valuable about him is that even in moments when he doesn’t make a political record or doesn’t foreground that stuff, he’s still speaking out. He’s still bringing people on tour with him to talk about how to make space for Black voices and LGBTQ voices in country and Americana music. And he’s showing up at rallies, he’s doing these other things. And I think that is a kind of a useful skill because it reminds us what he thinks, even if he’s not telling us with every record.

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News News Blog News Feature

“Guns to Gardens” Event Will Transform Surrendered Firearms Into Tools, Art

Credit: Guns to Gardens Louisville

Surrendered guns will begin to be transformed into garden tools on February 24th at Evergreen Presbyterian Church. During the church’s “Guns to Gardens” event, surrendered guns will be immediately cut up with a chop saw. Later, they’ll be turned into garden tools and art objects by artisans with the Metal Museum. 

“Like so many in our community, our church is concerned about the extreme level of gun violence in Memphis and the lives that are being devastated every day,” said Evergreen pastor Reverend Patrick Harley. “We are offering this event as an affirmation of our commitment to peacemaking by working to reduce gun violence in Memphis and Shelby County.

“People who, for whatever reason, have guns they no longer want will be able to safely and anonymously surrender those firearms to be dismantled and later transformed into garden tools. This is foundational to our faith — taking weapons designed to destroy and transforming them into tools that bring life.”

During the drive-through event, gun owners must bring their guns unloaded and stored securely in the trunk or rear of their vehicles. While those owners remain in their cars, their guns will be dismantled with a chop saw.       

No background checks will be conducted and no personal information will be collected. Unlike a “buy back” event, gun ownership is not transferred. Gun owners will be offered Kroger gift cards ($50 for handguns, $100 for rifles and shotguns, and $150 for semiautomatic and automatic guns, while supplies last) as a way to thank people for disposing of unwanted guns. Spiritual and mental health support will also be available on-site.

The project is part of the national “Guns to Gardens” movement, which works to reduce gun violence by reducing the number of guns in homes and communities. Similar events have taken place across the country, resulting in the dismantling of thousands of guns.

The gun parts collected at the event will be given to the Metal Museum, which will host a special event on March 23rd to display the transformed guns. Artisans will demonstrate techniques used in creating the objects. 

“Gun owners may want to surrender guns for a range of reasons,” the church said in a news release. “The gun owner may have children or grandchildren in the home; a gun owner may have reached an age where they no longer feel that they can safely handle weapons; a gun may have been returned to family by the police after it was used in a suicide or accident; there may be conflict in a family or there may a family member with a serious illness. 

“Guns to Gardens provides a way to dispose of unwanted guns without returning them to the gun marketplace, where they could be used for future harm.”

Details

What: Evergreen Presbyterian Church Guns to Gardens Safe Surrender Event

When: Saturday, February 24th, noon to 4 p.m.  

Where: Presbyterian Place, 449 Patterson Street, Memphis, Tennessee 38111

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News News Blog News Feature

State of the State: A Closer Look at Education Issues

Gov. Bill Lee delivers his State of the State address Monday evening. Credit: State of Tennessee

Gov. Bill Lee renewed his call for private school vouchers for any student across Tennessee on Monday, and he also set aside $144 million in his proposed state budget to pay for the new program for up to 20,000 students in its first year.

For traditional public schools, the Republican governor asked the legislature to raise the annual base pay for teachers from $42,000 to $44,500, in keeping with his pledge last year to get the profession’s minimum salary to $50,000 by the 2027-28 school year. (Raising the base pay has a domino effect and increases the pay of more experienced teachers, too.)

Lee also wants to invest $200 million to grow state parks and natural areas while simultaneously cutting corporate taxes amid a downturn in state revenues. But he maintained that Tennessee has “a very strong economy” to pay for all the changes.

The governor outlined his list of wants Monday evening during his 2024 address before the General Assembly, which will take up Lee’s voucher proposal and the budget in the months ahead.

He opened his remarks by calling Tennessee a “model for economic prosperity” and reminding lawmakers that state revenues are still 40 percent higher than three years ago.

However, after years of being flush with cash, the state faces a $610 million budget shortfall this year, and many lawmakers are leery of approving a universal school voucher program that Lee wants to be available to any K-12 student in 2025-26. Currently, Tennessee offers vouchers to about 3,000 low-income families in three urban counties, but his Education Freedom Scholarship Act would open them up to families in all 95 counties, eventually with no family income restrictions.

“2024 is the year to make school choice a reality for every Tennessee family,” he said, drawing a standing ovation from many legislators — but not everyone in the GOP-controlled legislature — as well as frequent jeers from some spectators in the gallery.

“There are thousands of parents in this state who know their student would thrive in a different setting, but the financial barrier is simply too high,” Lee continued. “It’s time that we change that. It’s time that parents get to decide — and not the government — where their child goes to school and what they learn.”

Lee, a Williamson County businessman who graduated from public schools in Franklin, near Nashville, touted more than $1.8 billion in new investments in public education since he became governor in 2019.

“We can give parents choice and support public schools at the same time,” he said. “You’ll hear me say that over and over again. These two ideas are not in conflict.”

The governor also released his $52.6 billion state government spending plan to begin July 1. The total was down from Tennessee’s $62.5 billion budget for the current fiscal year because of flattening revenues and expiring federal funds appropriated during the pandemic.

He proposed $8 million to hire 114 more school-based behavioral health specialists amid record reports of students experiencing stress, depression, anxiety, and other mental health challenges exacerbated by the pandemic.

Other recurring funding recommendations include $30 million to pay for summer learning programs; $3.2 million to expand access to advanced placement courses for high school students; and $2.5 million to pay for a universal reading screener as part of the state’s literacy initiative, all to offset federal funding that is drying up.

Lee is asking for $15 million in one time funding to help charter schools with facility costs.

The governor also announced that his administration will bring the legislature a bill designed to help parents oversee their child’s social media activity.

“It will require social media companies to get parental consent for minors to create their own accounts in Tennessee,” Lee said.

Such legislation would widen the state’s push against social media giants.

Last fall, Tennessee joined a coalition of states suing Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, which is accused of violating consumer protection laws and deceptively marketing its platforms to adolescents to the detriment of their mental health.

And some Tennessee school districts have joined a growing list of school systems nationwide that are suing major social media companies like TikTok and YouTube over a crisis in student mental health.

But in the wake of last year’s shooting at a private Nashville school — where three children, three staff members, and the shooter died — the governor offered no new initiatives aimed at improving school safety or decreasing gun violence, other than funding to hire 60 more state troopers.

Last year, after the March 27 tragedy, the legislature approved $140 million in grants to place an armed law enforcement officer in every Tennessee public school. But the legislature rebuffed the governor’s call for a law to help keep guns out of the hands of people deemed at risk of hurting themselves or others.

Remarks about Lee’s universal voucher plan, announced in November, drew quick responses from the leaders of the state’s two largest teacher organizations.

“The concept of universal vouchers would be costly to the state, and we urge the Tennessee General Assembly to move slowly,” said JC Bowman, executive director of the Professional Educators of Tennessee.

“In particular, we have concerns over the lack of income-eligibility requirements and accountability,” he continued. “Our state must avoid any program viewed as a tax subsidy for existing private school families or a tax bailout for struggling private schools.”

Tanya T. Coats, president of the Tennessee Education Association, said Lee’s plan shows that vouchers have never been about helping economically disadvantaged families, as the governor first characterized it in 2019.

“The goal has always been to privatize public education and use public dollars to fund private school education, which goes against our Tennessee values,” Coats said.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

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News News Blog News Feature

State of the State: Lee Pushes $1.6B Corporate Tax Cuts, Rebates, $141M for School Vouchers

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee enters the House chambers and greets Lt. Gov. Randy McNally for Lee’s sixth State of the State address. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Entering the second year of a second four-year term, Gov. Bill Lee is singing the same chorus he did when he started five years ago: A heavy dose of private-school vouchers is the solution for Tennessee.

In the annual State of the State speech, Lee presented a $52.6 billion spending plan the day after he committed to send Tennessee National Guardsmen to Texas to provide backup to federal personnel on patrol there. 

Lee entered office in January 2019 with a plan to offer students public money to attend private schools, as well as to bolster charter schools, which are privately held but officially considered part of public school systems. The state also has boosted K-12 spending by about $3 billion in five years, $1.8 billion from the state level.

After a contentious vote that led to an FBI investigation, in addition to a protracted lawsuit, his education savings account plan took effect two years ago.

As he starts his sixth year in office amid flattening state revenue and a looming business tax break caused by “significant legal risk,” Lee is pushing a $141 million voucher plan for up to 20,000 students to go to private schools, this time without as many requirements to qualify financially. The details for his bill haven’t quite tumbled out completely, but he continued the sales pitch Monday night in the State of the State address.

Less than half of the crowd stood and cheered as Lee introduced his proposal, and people jeered from the balconies, even as the governor said he wants to avoid the “status quo.”

“There are thousands of parents in this state who know their student would thrive in a different setting, but the financial barrier is simply too high,” Lee said during his annual address Monday. “It’s time that we change that. It’s time that parents get to decide — and not the government — where their child goes to school and what they learn … 2024 is the year to make school choice a reality for every Tennessee family.”

In his pitch, the governor also maintains the argument that the state has put an “unprecedented focus” on public schools and he noted Monday the two ideas “are not in conflict.”

The state’s revenues are 46 percent higher than they were four years ago, increasing to $19 billion from about $11 billion. The state is weaning itself off the flow of federal funding that came down during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yet Lee is pushing for a franchise tax rebate of $1.2 billion and $400 million reductions for the next few years after 80 companies balked at paying the property portion of the state’s franchise tax.

Even though some financial experts have said the state could fight big business efforts to reduce the tax, the Lee Administration and Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s office recommended the refunds and reduction because of “significant legal risk.” Officials say no lawsuit is pending.

Democrats criticized the governor’s proposals, saying Tennesseans are being told they should support a “scam” to defund public schools and give large corporations another tax break. No sales tax holiday is scheduled for the coming fiscal year that starts July 1 after the state gave a three-month break from the grocery sales tax last fall.

They point out Lee contends Tennessee is among the nation’s leaders in low taxes and several other financial categories, yet the state is seeing rural hospitals close and money diverted that could go to public schools.

“We ain’t leading nothing when we’re leaving so many people behind.”

Sen. London Lamar (D-Memphis)

“We ain’t leading nothing when we’re leaving so many people behind,” said Senate Minority Caucus Chairman London Lamar of Memphis.

Lamar said the franchise tax break will cost the state $8.3 billion over a decade while the private-school voucher plan will take $800 million in its second year when it could become available to every student. She noted companies will be getting a “fat check” while hourly workers will receive no tax breaks.

Democrats point toward increases in gun violence amid softer gun laws and personal bankruptcies that forced working families to struggle while wealthy business owners receive treatment with kid gloves.

Besides his private-school voucher move, Gov. Lee is proposing legislation to stop the theft of musicians’ voices through AI, calling it the Elvis Act.

He also plans to introduce legislation dealing with the protection of young people from social media. The measure would enable parents to oversee their children’s use of the Internet by requiring new social media accounts.

In addition, Lee said he plans to make hundreds of rule changes and cut permitting regulations to streamline government but gave no details.

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and Twitter.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Sullivan in Talks for City CAO Job

Maura Black Sullivan, courtesy Ms. Sullivan

The Memphis Flyer has confirmed that Mayor Paul Young and a veteran public official now serving in Nashville are in continuing conversations about her possible employment here. This would be Maura Black Sullivan, a native Memphian who now holds the position of chief operating officer of Nashville Public Schools.

Sullivan, who previously served as deputy COO for former Memphis Mayor AC Wharton and later COO for former Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke, confirmed that conversations with Young are ongoing for the position of his chief administrative officer.

On Tuesday of this week, the city council will deal with more unfinished business — including a controversial health care allowance for council members of two terms’ service or more, and a decision on yet another mayoral appointment — this one of public works director Robert Knecht.

A vote on Knecht, whom Mayor Paul Young submitted for renomination week before last, was deferred after council chairman JB Smiley publicly criticized Knecht for “attitude” issues and asked for the deferral.

Several of Young’s cabinet choices were viewed negatively by Smiley and other council members — notably police chief C.J. Davis, whose reappointment the council narrowly rejected via a 7-6 vote. (She was later given an interim apoointment by Young, pending a later reexamination by the council.)

An issue with several council members as well has been unease at the Mayor’s inability so far to complete his team with credentialed new appointees in other positions. He has not yet named permanent appointees for the key positions of chief operating officer and chief financial officer, for example.

That circumstance could change soon. Sullivan is frank to say that she has not been in a job search, enjoys her present circumstances in Nashville and has made no decision to leave them, but acknowledges that a possible return to Memphis would be attractive as well.”  

Sullivan is the daughter of the late Dave Black, a featured radio broadcaster of many years in Memphis, and the late Kay Pittman Black, who was a well-known journalist and government employee here.

She is married to another former Memphian, Jeff Sullivan. The couple have a son, Jack, who is a student at Rhodes College.

Update: Since publishing this article online, Mayor Young clarified to the Flyer: “I can confirm that we had early talks with Maura Sullivan about a different position with the Young administration, not the COO/CAO position. We have a strong leader currently acting in the COO role who has my full faith and confidence.”

The mayor’s spokesperson/CCO, Penelope Huston, added: “The role we initially discussed was a high level position on the Mayor’s cabinet. And while talks about that position haven’t continued, we do have an ongoing dialogue with her and many others who we consider allies in the work of creating a stronger Memphis.”

Categories
Music Music Blog

Memphis Wins Big at 66th Annual Grammys

(L-R) Mason Williams, Michael Graves, Cheryl Pawelski, Deanie Parker, Michele Smith & Robert Gordon, winners of the "Best Historical Album" award at the 66th GRAMMY Awards.(Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

As the 66th Annual Grammy Awards unfolded over the weekend, many names associated with Memphis and the Mid-South were among the winners, including musicians, songwriters, producers, engineers, and writers.

If award-winning music creators are already a well-established Bluff City tradition, the music writing being done here is quickly becoming another of the city’s music industry exports. In 2021, the Commercial Appeal‘s Bob Mehr won the Best Album Notes award for the writings he penned for Dead Man’s Pop, a collection of music by The Replacements, and scored another win last year for his notes in the deluxe edition of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, co-produced by Cheryl Pawelski of Omnivore Recordings.

This year, it was Robert Gordon’s and Deanie Parker’s turn to take home the Best Album Notes prize — for yet another Pawelski project, Written in their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos, Craft Recordings’ seven-CD collection offering a glimpse into the the rare songwriting demos of Stax Records in its heyday. Profiled in the Memphis Flyer last summer, the collection is an intimate portrait of the men and women who wrote the songs of the pioneering soul label. The same box set, produced by Gordon, Parker, Pawelski, Michele Smith, and Mason Williams, also won the award for Best Historical Album.

It’s a subject that’s been thoroughly researched by Gordon, who also won a Grammy in 2011 for notes accompanying Big Star’s Keep An Eye on the Sky box set before penning the book Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion in 2013. But if Gordon knows Stax, co-writer Parker outdid him with her eyewitness accounts, having worked at Stax through most of its existence and even serving as a songwriter there herself.

Over the past 20 years, Parker has also championed the creation of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, the Stax Music Academy, and the Soulsville Foundation, as celebrated in this 2023 Memphis Flyer story. Thus her Grammy win was an important tribute to one of the label’s key behind-the-scenes players, and as the co-producers of the set gathered onstage to receive the award, they naturally deferred to Parker to speak on their behalf.

Album note writers Deanie Parker and Robert Gordon on the jumbotron, accepting their Grammy Award. (Credit: Pat Rainer).

“Stax founders Jim Stewart and his sister Estelle Axton gave the Stax songwriters a racially integrated paradise where they were encouraged to discover and develop their authentic talents by Al Bell,” Parker said while accepting the award. “This set highlights some of Stax’s and America’s most talented rhythm and blues songwriters: Eddie Floyd, William Bell, Steve Cropper, Homer Bates, Mack Rice, Bettye Crutcher, Bobby Manuel, and Henderson Thigpen.” After thanking the Recording Academy and her fellow co-producers, she also gave a nod to local artist Kerri Mahoney for designing the look and layout of the box set, before concluding with a warm acknowledgment of “the remarkable visionary and producer, Cheryl Pawelski.”

Another non-performing contributor to Grammy wins was Matt Ross-Spang, who engineered on Weathervanes, the Best Americana Album winner by Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, and who co-produced and mixed Echoes Of The South, the Best Roots Gospel Album winner by the Blind Boys Of Alabama, at his Southern Grooves studio in the Crosstown Concourse.

Beyond the scribes, historical producers, and knob-twiddlers, musical artists from Memphis also made a strong showing at this year’s ceremony. While Memphis has always loved native daughter Julien Baker, it seems all the world loves boygenius, her band with fellow singer-songwriters Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. Their 2023 album The Record garnered six nominations, and ended up winning Best Alternative Music Album, with the group also scoring Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song wins for the single “Not Strong Enough” — featured in this week’s Music Video Monday.

boygenius (Photo courtesy Chuffmedia)

When boygenius, decked out in matching white suits, accepted their second award, Baker wore her heart on her sleeve. “All I ever wanted to do in my life was be in a band,” she said, visibly shaken with emotion. “I feel like music is the language I used to find my family since I was a kid. I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who ever watched me play.”

Bobby Rush, based in Mississippi but with longstanding ties to Memphis (and awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities by Rhodes College), also saw his latest work celebrated, with his 2023 album All My Love For You winning Best Traditional Blues Album. He too was eloquent in his gratitude. “I treasure this, and honor Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Tyrone Davis, Johnnie Taylor, all the guys coming before me that I looked up to…thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Finally, while not winning as a performing artist, the legendary DJ Paul was a towering presence onstage as Killer Mike accepted awards for, Best Rap Album, Best Rap Performance, and Best Rap Song. He co-wrote his track, “SCIENTISTS & ENGINEERS,” with DJ Paul (aka Paul Beauregard), Andre Benjamin, James Blake, Tim Moore, and Dion Wilson. In winning the latter category, Killer Mike and his collaborators edged out another Memphis talent, producer Tay Keith, who was among the songwriters for the Grammy-nominated track “Rich Flex” by Drake and 21 Savage.

Right out of the gate, Killer Mike acknowledged his colleague from Memphis as they stood together at the podium. “I’m from the Southeast,” he said. “Like DJ Paul, I’m a Black man in America. And as a kid, I had a dream to become a part of music, and that nine-year-old is excitedly dancing inside of me right now… I want that thank everyone who dares to believe that art can change the world.”

DJ Paul, of course, has long been an integral player in the Oscar-winning Three 6 Mafia, and is an active solo artist and producer to this day, as profiled by the Memphis Flyer here. His old crew included the late Gangsta Boo, who was honored during the In Memoriam segment of the ceremony. Wayne Kramer of Detroit’s MC5, whose appearance on Joecephus & the George Jonestown Massacre’s Call Me Animal album was likely his last released recording before his death on February 2nd, was also remembered in the segment.

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Grizzlies Drop Fifth Consecutive Game in Wire-to-Wire Loss to Celtics

G.G. Jackson takes the ball to the basket against the Boston Celtics. Credit: NBAE/Getty Images

Sunday afternoon the Memphis Grizzlies faced off against the Boston Celtics, and predictably it did not go well for them. With a final score of 131-91, the Grizzlies never led for any part of the game.

Boston outplayed Memphis in every quantifiable metric. In the Grizzlies’ defense, they fielded just eight players against the Celtics, only one of whom can be considered an NBA-caliber player, in their 30th starting lineup of the season.

Memphis getting 40-pieced by Boston on Jesus’s day is par for the course this year. It doesn’t make it any more enjoyable to watch, but it should surprise no one who has paid attention to the Grizzlies this season.

But if you ever wondered what it would look like if the Memphis Hustle faced off against the current best NBA team, yesterday’s game was it.

And if you didn’t recognize many of the faces in Grizzlies uniforms, it’s because four of them are recent acquisitions: Scotty Pippen Jr was signed to a two-way contract on January 16, Matthew Hurt was signed to a 10-day contract on January 29, and Tosan Evbuomwan and Trey Jemison were signed to 10-day contracts on January 30.

Marcus Smart is celebrated in his first return to Boston. Credit: NBAE/Getty Images

It is fitting that the best moment of this trip to T.D. Garden happened when former Celtic Marcus Smart was honored by the franchise on his first return to Boston. Smart was acquired by the Grizzlies last summer after having spent nine seasons with the Celtics, including a trip to the NBA Finals in 2022.

By The Numbers:

In addition to leading the game from wire-to-wire and beating the Grizzlies by 40, Boston beat Memphis in paint points (56 to 38), second-chance points (18 to 9), fast break points (21-7), and they converted 20 Grizzlies turnovers into 26 points.

The Celtics outshot the Grizzlies from the free-throw line (88.9% to 83.3%) and the three-point line (37.3% to 28.9%) and outrebounded them 57 to 46.

Scotty Pippen Jr finished the night with a team-high 19 points, 6 rebounds, and 4 assists while shooting 6 of 11 overall and 2 of 2 from three-point range.

G.G. Jackson put up 18 points, 7 rebounds, 1 assist, and 2 steals while shooting an abysmal 2 of 10 from beyond the arc and 8 of 24 overall.

David Roddy closed out with 14 points and 8 rebounds.

Jacob Gilyard added 13 points, 2 rebounds, 6 assists, and 2 steals.

Luke Kennard finished with 11 points, 2 rebounds, and 2 assists.

Who Got Next?

The Grizzlies have one more stop on this two-game road trip. On Tuesday night they will at the World’s Most Famous Arena to face off against the New York Knicks. Tip-off is at 6:30 PM CST.

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Film Features Film/TV

Music Video Monday: “Not Strong Enough” by boygenius (Plus Other Grammy Winners)

Memphis was well-represented at last night’s Grammy Awards. The album of long lost Stax demos, Written In Their Soul, won for Best Liner Notes, an award which was accepted by Stax’s PR person turned champion Deanie Parker and Memphis writer/director Robert Gordon.

Bobby Rush, now entering his ninth decade, won Best Traditional Blues Album for All Of My Love For You.

Supergroup boygenius—Pheobe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and former Memphis punk rocker Julien Baker—won three Grammys, including Best Alternative Album for The Record. “Not Strong Enough” won both Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance. Watch Baker get emotional while accepting the group’s third award of the evening.

The music video for “Not Strong Enough” was shot by the band themselves while hanging out in Southern California, and edited by Jackson Bridgers. The video shows off the group’s low-key appeal, which charmed the nation on the summer’s blockbuster tour which climaxed with a sold-out Halloween show at the Hollywood Bowl. The visuals may be unassuming, but the music is powerful.

You don’t have to win a Grammy to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday. All you have to do is email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.