Tonight, the Brooks Museum of Art is screening a phenomenal documentary about one of Memphis music’s most influential figures. And, unless you’re a true music geek, you probably don’t know very much about the man.
Sam Phillips may have all of the name recognition, but he wasn’t the only eccentric genius working behind the scenes at Sun Studio at the dawn of the rock-and-roll era. Robert Gordon’s entertaining documentary, Shakespeare Was a Big George Jones Fan gives long overdue props to Phillips’ lesser-known Sun Studio partner, “Cowboy” Jack Clement, whose reputation looms somewhat larger in Nashville than it does in the Bluff City.
Clement, a zany English Literature major given to florid flights of verbal fancy, is responsible for launching the careers of certifiable icons such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Charley Pride. He contributed mightily to the artistic development of industry giants George Jones, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson.
Throughout his long, productive career, Cowboy Jack obsessively filmed everything going on around him. Gordon, who authored It Came From Memphis, as well as an exhaustive biography of Muddy Waters, has described Clement’s disorderly film archive as a “goldmine.”
Anyone interested in meeting Cowboy Jack, taking in Gordon’s film, and watching some truly astonishing footage of a wild-eyed Johnny Cash having a cigarette on A.P. Carter’s grave is advised to attend.
The Schedule: 6 pm – Cash Bar;
7 pm – Film;
8:30 pm – Music by Cowboy Jack.
$5 for members, $8 for nonmembers. For more information, call 544-6208
