With the Memphis Music Foundation recently adding staff and
expanding its programming in the form of the Memphis Music Resource
Center and an alliance of local music-related businesses coming
together in the form of Music Memphis (see Music Feature, page
26), the long-maligned Memphis & Shelby County Music
Commission would seem to be in danger of further slipping off the
city’s musical radar.
But the lone governmental arm of the local music community made its
own bit of news last week with the arrival of its latest executive
director, Johnnie Walker.
Walker, a longtime music-industry executive, is a Mississippi native
who got her break in Memphis radio before being hired by Russell
Simmons in 1990 to work for his Def Jam label. Walker worked
her way up to senior vice president of promotions for the Def Jam Music
Group but left the company earlier this decade to become head of urban
promotion for DreamWorks Records. Walker is also the founder of
the National Association of Black Female Executives in Music and
Entertainment.
Walker was hired to lead the music commission this past summer and
made her debut last week at a monthly commission meeting that was
reportedly sparsely attended (by commissioners). Whether Walker’s
tenure will revive an organization that has lost relevancy in recent
years or be more of the same remains to be seen.
This will be a good weekend for local folk music fans.
Louisiana-born, Nashville-based folk singer Kate Campbell, who
brings a decidedly “grit-lit” sensibility to her work, makes a
semiregular appearance at the Center for Southern Folklore this
weekend. Campbell, whose latest album, Save the Day, is a
collection of songs inspired by literary works and historical icons
from To Kill a Mockingbird to Henry Ford, plays the center
Saturday, November 22nd, at 8 p.m. Tickets range from $15 to $25.
The next night, the Memphis Acoustic Music Association
returns for its first concert in six months when it hosts British
guitarist and folk singer Martin Simpson at the Pink Palace
Mansion Theatre. Simpson is touring the U.S. for the first time in
five years and will be stopping at the Pink Place for a 7 p.m. show
Sunday, November 23rd. Tickets are $20 and are available at
Otherlands Coffee Bar and Davis-Kidd Booksellers.
Speaking of Otherlands, the Midtown venue will be hosting a
fund-raiser concert for the Memphis-based Folk Alliance Friday,
November 21st, with The Dan Montgomery Three, Deering &
Down, and Marissa Lynae.
Congratulations are in order to a couple of Memphians who will be
recipients of the Blues Foundation‘s Keeping the Blues
Alive award. The awards will be given as part of the International
Blues Challenge weekend in February, but winners were announced this
month and included local documentarian Willy Bearden in the
“Film, Television, and Video” category and Betsie Brown in the
“Publicist” category.
Brown works with roots acts of all stripes via her Blind
Raccoon company and has a couple of clients making news right now.
Memphis musician Kim Richardson recently won the
singer-songwriter contest at the Ozark Folk Festival in Eureka
Springs, Arkansas. Richardson has a new album out, True
North, and will next perform locally alongside Susan
Marshall and Reba Russell at Otherlands on December 6th.
Additionally, area blues stalwarts Billy Gibson and Super
Chikan recently traveled to Spitzbergen, Norway, to perform at the
Dark Season Blues Festival.
Local rockers Lucero have been quiet since signing to
major-label Universal earlier this year and celebrating with their
second-annual Lucero Family Picnic. With guitarist Brian Venable
celebrating the birth of his first son, frontman Ben Nichols has
taken the opportunity to record his solo debut, The Last Pale
Light in the West.
A seven-track “mini LP,” The Last Pale Light in the West was
recorded with occasional Lucero sidemen Rick Steff and Todd
Beene and features songs inspired by the Cormac McCarthy novel
Blood Meridian. The album will be released in January on the
band’s own Liberty & Lament label. But you can get it early
— meaning now — via the band’s website,
LuceroMusic.com, either in
hard-copy form or as an instant MP3 download. Nichols has also recorded
a cover of Johnny Cash’s “Delia’s Gone” for All Aboard: A Tribute
to Johnny Cash, now available on Anchorless Records.