Author: Jon W. Sparks

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News News Feature

From Memphis to ‘Deadwood’: William Sanderson Tells His Own Tale

William Sanderson starts the interview out with a caution: “Don’t let me lie about anything.”

There was no thought on my part that he’d ever do such a thing, but now that he brings it up, I start to worry. After all, he’s an actor, a professional fabulist. It is indisputable that he’s got a long list of film and television projects, more than 130 to be found on imdb.com, so we can be fairly certain about that.

And it’s no exaggeration to itemize his best-known roles: the unctuous E.B. Farnum in the Deadwood series as well as the recently released HBO movie, Larry in the 1980s sitcom Newhart, toymaker J.F. Sebastian in the original Blade Runner, and Sheriff Bud Dearborne in True Blood.

Furthermore, Sanderson has just published his autobiography, Yes, I’m That Guy: The Rough and Tumble Life of a Character Actor, and he deserves the benefit of the doubt that he’s told the truth all the way through, from his upbringing in Memphis to his career in film and television. It has that veneer of veracity given that he’s pretty hard on himself, detailing the “rough and tumble” parts of his life that bring him no esteem. “This book is more about defects than virtues,” he admits.

But in both autobiography and interview, Sanderson comes across as humble — grateful for a career that brought him recognition and good notices, and for his marriage to Sharon who has been strong, capable, and loving.

“The book is about me going from Memphis, Army, college, law school, to New York to do the acting apprenticeship,” he says. “And then 36 years — I might be bragging — just surviving L.A., and we live in Pennsylvania now.”

Sanderson was into sports in school and sometimes was in the larger circle around Elvis Presley. One of his good friends in school was Charles Burson, who would go on to be Tennessee Attorney General and Vice President Al Gore’s chief of staff. But Sanderson was too shy to consider theater although he was fascinated by it, inspired by George Touliatos and later Barry Fuller who would direct him in Marat/Sade.

So he had a taste of acting in Memphis, but he knew if he was going to make a living, he had to go to New York to get on the stage. His was a tale of tending bars, going to auditions, and gradually getting some parts. He says he was “something of a go-to guy if you’re looking for a misfit, outcast, or downtrodden type.”

Throughout all this was trouble. In junior high, he hot-wired cars and went on joyrides. As a bartender, he’d sample too much of his own product and start fights. Later on, he’d be a customer at bars and get into more fights. He lost girlfriends, risked his jobs, imperiled his health. He admits he was lucky to have survived.

But he also developed his acting chops, playing to his strengths and landing more film work. In his book, he talks about the work he booked and the celebrities he met. Some he befriended, some were jerks, and some relationships were, as they say, complicated (looking at you, Tommy Lee Jones).

Around 2004, Sanderson landed his role in Deadwood. His Farnum was carefully crafted by series showrunner David Milch and given a brilliant treatment by another writer on the set, Regina Corrado. The movie, which premiered last Friday on HBO, brought back most of the cast and crew to more or less wrap the storyline up.

And now Sanderson will tell you that Deadwood “is probably my last hurrah.” Maybe. He did just have a role in a recent episode of American Gods. But he’s quit drinking and has found contentment in Pennsylvania with his wife and her family. And he carries with him an abiding love of Memphis: “That’s where you form your dreams.”

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News News Blog

Swiss Design Firm to Take on “Brooks on the Bluff”

The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art introduced a world renowned design firm as the creative force behind “Brooks on the Bluff,” the future Downtown incarnation of the 103-year-old institution.

Herzog & de Meuron of Basel, Switzerland and New York, will collaborate with Memphis-based archimania, the architect of record. The design is expected to be unveiled early next year and the $105 million facility completed in four to five years.

Herzog & de Meuron has a formidable reputation, having won the Pritzker Architecture Prize for its renovation of London’s Tate Modern in 2000. It also did the striking Bird’s Nest Stadium at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Pérez Art Museum Miami, and several other notable projects.

Tuesday evening’s presentation was held at the site of the future museum at Union and Front, which now is a fire station and parking garage.

Deborah Craddock, president of the museum’s board, told the attendees that, “Relocating the Brooks to the Fourth Bluff and along the banks of the Mississippi river is a move that offers an unprecedented opportunity for the art museum to serve as the primary cultural anchor in downtown core of Memphis along a revitalized riverfront.”

She said several planning and engagement sessions have been held since plans for the museum’s move were announced in 2017. “Our goals as an institution perfectly aligned with those indicated in community responses to create a radically welcomed and inclusive art museum for all people,” Craddock says.

The term “radically welcomed” is also being used by Brooks executive director Emily Neff, which indicates a determination to get higher numbers of people through the doors of the museum. Memphis mayor Jim Strickland told the Memphis Flyer that the Brooks sees about 80,000 people a year now, but with the new facility, “We will easily get hundreds of thousands of people a year coming into this great museum.” He says, “The Brooks museum is a good museum; this is going to make it a really great museum. We need a new building, and building it here on the river bluff and building it here downtown is going to be incredible.”

Neff says that one of the appealing aspects of Herzog & de Meuron was that it doesn’t have a signature style. What they do, she says, “is informed by the site and the context of the site and the uniqueness of Memphis and the pride we take in our city and what the architect can say about our city. We thought they were the perfect match. And it helps that they have major experience in the cultural sector and in art museums.” She says that the selection of archimania means there will be an intimate knowledge of Memphis by two firms that are focused on design excellence and collaboration.

Two of the members of the team from the Swiss firm have a local connection. Project manager Philip Schmerbeck went to Germantown High School and got his architecture degree at Mississippi State University. Another team member, Jack Brough, is a graduate of Ridgeway High School.

Ascan Mergenthaler, senior partner and partner in charge, told the gathering, “there’s something about the people of Memphis, a very special spirit about them and we’re very impressed with that. We’re convinced that this building and this place will become the hotspot of Memphis, really like a focal point were people come not only to see art but also to come and just hang out and to enjoy the place, meet people and just make it a truly civic building.”

Mergenthaler says the site intrigued the design firm. “The Bluff, this very interesting nature form formed by the river and with the downtown, and then we have this beautiful slope on the left and the right which is also fantastic. It’s a challenge, but its also an opportunity to create something very specific for this place, so we will come up with something which is really firmly rooted in this and grounded in this, and can only be here and nowhere else in the world.”

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Art Exhibit M

Artist’s Talk by Ebet Roberts Friday

CREDIT: Ebet Roberts

Ebet Roberts

Ebet Roberts had lived in Europe a good part of her young existence, but came to Memphis when she was 10, not even imagining there was a punk-powered cultural shift that would change her life.

The young student in the 1960s was possessed of a love for art and culture steeped in the cultural diversity of her travels. She attended Hutchison (class of ’63), loved painting and drawing, and took art classes on Saturdays. It was natural for her to enter what was then the Memphis Academy of Arts where she graduated in painting.

The study of photography would not become an option until the next year when Murray Riss established the photography department in 1968. Roberts studied with Riss anyway, developing her skill and interest. She explored photo collage and manipulated photos and lithography and worked on combining processes. She was also thinking about going to New York.

“I’ve always been drawn to New York,” she says. “It offered not only art but a lot of cultural diversity, which I really seem to thrive on. That’s what pulled me there.”

So, she went, wanting to paint and photograph. She certainly didn’t have the expectation she’d set the world on fire with her work, but fate will have its way. She was asked by a musician friend to come take pictures of his band, which was opening for Mink DeVille at CBGB’s. Roberts happened to be eager to take photographs of Willy DeVille and his wife, Toots, both particularly memorable characters in a late-1970s New York music scene where characters were everywhere.

Willy told Roberts, “Come to Max’s [Max’s Kansas City club], bring your camera, take pictures, and then come back stage and take more.” Roberts agreed, got some photos, and in no time was getting attention. “This woman came over,” Roberts says, “and said ‘Hey, I work for Capital Records. We just signed Willy this week and these pictures are great. I have to see them.’ I literally stood there arguing saying, ‘I don’t do this for a living, this is just …'”

Her protestation went nowhere. Her photographs, on the other hand, took off.

Ebet Roberts

“They started hiring me for their licensing stuff and then hired me for their other artists,” Roberts says. “At the same time, the whole scene was happening, ’77 at Max’s and CBGB’s. I just wanted to document the whole thing. That’s how it escalated and then I started doing a lot of work with the Village Voice and a small music magazine called Trouser Press.”

And did she know that she was documenting a significant time in music and culture? “I had no idea, none whatsoever,” Roberts says. “It just felt like it had to be documented because it was such an amazing scene. But I really didn’t realize it was a game changer. I remember working with The Cure for, I think, for a week, when they made their first trip over. The shows were mostly deserted and I was just thinking the band was absolutely great but never in a million years imagining they were going to be huge.”

But in short order, Roberts was in the thick of it, recording the musical luminaries that everyone was talking about and listening to. Her photos were in Rolling Stone, MOJO, Spin, GQ, Playboy, The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, People, USA Today, The Village Voice. Her work is in the permanent collection of The Rock And Roll Hall of Fame, Seattle’s Experience Music Project, The Grammy Museum, and The Hard Rock Cafe.

Being around all that celebrity didn’t faze Roberts. “I was much more interested in the photography than anything,” she says. “I liked photographing musicians and artists because they’re interesting and I was comfortable around them.”

The biggest challenge was often that the more well-known the artist, the less time she had to be with them. “Taking photographs is a two-way process,” Roberts says. “I like getting to know somebody and let them know something about me so that they could trust me, that they could be open. But sometimes I’d just have five or ten minutes.”

But if that’s all the time she’s got for a shoot, she makes the most of it — just as she made the most of the unexpected opportunity that changed her life from that of a struggling artist waiting tables to a world-renowned photographer and chronicler of American culture.

Roberts will give an artist talk at Memphis College of Art during a Baccalaureate service on Friday, May 10th from 3:15 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. It’s open to the public, but seating is limited. “Antepenultimatum: The Spring BFA Reception” will be held following the lecture, with a slideshow of the artist’s work in Callicott Auditorium.

Ebet Roberts

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We Recommend We Recommend

Springloaded

Fifteen years ago, New Ballet Ensemble premiered its Springloaded program, an annual performance that typically blends classical and contemporary dance. The resulting creative fusion has provided some of the most striking and memorable moments of performance arts in the city.

This year’s program examines nothing less than a child’s rite of passage into adulthood with movement inspired by ballet, flamenco, African dance, and hip-hop.

One of the works is Samuel Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915,” based on the poem by James Agee and choreographed by General Hambrick. The piece, featuring soprano Joelle Lamarre, is something of a coming-of-age experience for the narrator, embracing the traditional while looking to the future.

New Ballet Ensemble

Another significant work is “Dances in the Canebrakes,” by Arkansas-born Florence Price, considered to be the first African-American woman symphonic composer. It’s rooted in the rhythms and melodies of the African American experience.

Longtime New Ballet artist Noelia Garcia Carmona is doing “Dones, Mujeres, Women,” a Spanish ballet in three movements, with music by Vicente Amigo, Manuel De Falla, and the Gypsy Kings, that describes the journey to womanhood and self.

The newest piece in the program is “Matter in Motion” by Elizabeth Corbett, something of a meta work that examines the process of choreography and dance.

Bringing it home is a performance of Isaac Hayes’ “Shaft” with choreography by Robin Sanders. The program also includes new works by company artists, Briana Brown, Aaron Atkins, and Travis Butler.

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Intermission Impossible Theater

The Falling and the Rising

CREDIT: Ziggy Mack

Ziggy Mack

Stephanie Doche (left) and Chelsea Miller

When America has gone to war, there typically has been a national sense of purpose and involvement. Even if the engagement was controversial, as with Vietnam, there was passion. Today’s drawn-out wars seem to inspire little more than a collective shrug. It surely is a combination of several factors. The nation is not exhorted to buy war bonds, or save metals, or send books to our warriors. The casualty count has been relatively low and our troops are superbly trained and capable, so there’s little national sense of urgency. The enemy is amorphous, and so is our patriotic rage. And there are a comparatively smaller number of troops involved — how many people do you know that are in a combat zone?

But our soldiers still die, get wounded, are permanently injured, go insane, commit suicide.

On occasion, there are efforts to break through the apathy and remind us of the profound seriousness, efforts, and sacrifices of those who wear the uniform. One such is a superb work being staged by Opera Memphis during its Mid-Town Opera Festival, which began last weekend and concludes this weekend.

The Falling and the Rising is a sublime opera that distills the complexity of our wars into vivid portraits of the women and men who continue to fight them. It is a beautiful work, deep but not heavy, a one-act that packs in a lot.

The libretto is by Memphian Jerre Dye, now a Chicagoan, but Memphis lays its claim to his remarkable talent as an actor, writer, and teacher. I daresay there aren’t many operas that have passages such as: “A parachute that’s poorly packed ain’t really worth a pile of shit.” And “I’m a grown-ass women.” Along with references to propofol and midazolam. But Dye’s verbal forays pack an indelible punch in telling the story of a soldier who is seriously injured when a roadside IED goes off. The military doctors induce a coma to help the chances of her recovery. The liminal dream space she inhabits brings her face to face with others who are serving or who have served, and the telling of their stories elevates the understanding of the soldier as well as the audience.

Zach Redler is the composer and deftly brings together various influences to beautifully express the story. The text is paramount, he says, as he speaks of what supports it: bluegrass, of black gospel music, Debussy’s Clair de Lune, and dollops of Sondheim. It is tonal with leitmotifs for the distinct characters that further sharpen their definition.

And the characters are beautifully rendered in the libretto and performed with remarkable power and grace by the singers. The Soldier is Chelsea Miller, former artist-in-residence at Opera Memphis, and possessed of an expressive soprano voice.

Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Doche is explosively eloquent as Toledo, the tough-as-nails “grown-ass woman” who reveals her past to the Army psychiatrist. As the parachute instructor Jumper, the popular tenor Philip Himebook brings a mix of kindness and swagger to the role. Darren Stokes, a bass-baritone, sings the part of the Colonel, grieving over the loss of his wife in action with exquisitely rendered restraint and feeling. The final character to appear in the Soldier’s dreams is the Homecoming Soldier sung by Marcus King with elements of rage, sardonic wit, humility, and reluctant acceptance, expressed at his hometown church where he keeps himself in check because his mother is there. But you can’t miss how he seethes, copes, and shares his wheelchair-bound fate as he embarks on this new life he never chose.

The Dye-Redler opera would have been complete with the original finale, but director Ned Canty, general manager of Opera Memphis, added a genius touch. He enlisted 24 veterans and active duty military men and women to be the chorus of the opera. When the five principal singers were bringing the performance to a close, it was already emotional, but then, as the two dozen chorus members walked slowly out joining in — some in dress uniform, some in POW T-shirts, some in fatigues — it became larger, deeper, something of a higher mystery and resolution. And an ideal conclusion to a brilliant performance.

The Falling and the Rising performs April 12th and 13th at 7:30 p.m. with members of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra playing. Tickets: www.operamemphis.org/tickets or call 257-3100.

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News News Feature

Empathy and The Falling and the Rising.

Librettist-playwright-performer-director-teacher Jerre Dye’s current project — not his latest, since Dye’s always working well into the future — is being staged over the next couple of weekends at Opera Memphis’ seventh annual Midtown Opera Festival. The Falling and the Rising is a soldier’s story, both contemporary and timeless, and well suited for a modern operatic treatment. Opera Memphis general director Ned Canty, citing sacrifices large and small made by the military, says, “We need to feel them, if only for an hour or two, and that sort of empathy is what opera is best at creating.”

The story told by the opera is that of a soldier fighting overseas whose world is forever changed by an IED — improvised explosive device — that goes off while she’s on patrol. It results in a traumatic brain injury, and military doctors induce a coma to save her life. In this liminal dream space, she meets other soldiers and takes in their strength and toughness.

Jerre Dye

The genesis of the idea came from Staff Sergeant Benjamin Hilgert, a tenor in the Soldiers’ Chorus, the vocal component of the U.S. Army Field Band. He wanted to do an opera that embraced the military spirit, but it wasn’t until he connected with Dye that it began to take shape.

That meeting took place thanks to a notion Canty had a few years ago. Canty knew of Dye’s abilities and arranged for a commission of “Ghosts of Crosstown,” four short opera works with music from different composers. They were first performed in 2014 as part of the second annual Midtown Opera Festival and staged on the loading dock of the old Sears building as well as at Playhouse on the Square.

“Those short pieces acted like calling cards,” Dye says, “because they were mined from true stories.” One of those subsequent performances was at an Opera America conference that Hilgert had attended. “Ben saw the piece and said, ‘I want to talk to that guy,'” Dye says. “He asked me, ‘Would you be interested in writing a short piece for us?’ And I was like, ‘Of course I would.'”

The third member of the creative collaboration is composer Zach Redler, who Dye had worked with on one of the Crosstown pieces.

That 10- or 15-minute piece turned into a full-length chamber piece as interest developed and various organizations supported it with joint commissions. The U.S. Army Field Band was also involved in the commissioning along with Opera Memphis, Arizona Opera, San Diego Opera, Seattle Opera, and Texas Christian University.

Developing the story was a particularly affecting process for all involved. It evolved from interviews that Dye, Hilgert, and Redler did with dozens of soldiers and veterans at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and elsewhere.

The first interview on the first day was a soldier named Tyler, who was recovering from a traumatic brain injury. He’d been in a coma for a long time and “was eager to talk about what that experience was like,” Dye says. “And what it was like to come out, what recovery looks like, and he talked about it in some beautiful, subtle ways.”

That quickly convinced the collaborators to tell not about an injury but about what happens in a coma, what the brain is thinking about and what kind of information is being processed. And it allowed them to put several voices in the story.

But there was a particular revelation that came only when the interview was over. “I ran out of questions at the end of the interview,” Dye says, “and I ignorantly and clumsily said to Tyler, ‘So, what’s next for you?’ And there was a little bit of silence and he looked at me with the most amazing soulful eyes and said, ‘There’s nothing else. There is just this. There is just right here and right now.’ Yeah. After I wiped the tears from my eyes, I just went, ‘Okay, there’s my Zen message for the day. And that’s an aria.'”

The Falling and the Rising performs April 6th, 12th, and 13th at 7:30 p.m. with members of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra playing. Tickets: www.operamemphis.org/tickets or call 257-3100.

Categories
Music Music Blog

New Contract Approved for MSO Musicians

CREDIT: MSO

MSO

MSO conductor Robert Moody

The musicians of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra approved a three-year contract this week that includes modest increases in salary and adds some weeks to the schedule.

It’s a step in a gradual comeback from 2014, when the MSO announced it was in deep fiscal trouble and was forced to cut staff, expenses, and activities. Among the cost-cutting measures was a reduction in musicians’ pay by 38 percent and shortening the number of performances.

Peter Abell, president and CEO of the MSO, says, “We’re still an organization in recovery, and in this contract it does speak to that. We still have not returned the players to where they were in 2013, both in the length of season and the compensation to the players.”

The pay increases are about one percent a year for each year of the contract, the first year of which is the current 2018-2019 season. Before the crisis, the orchestra performed 39 weeks, which was cut back to 23 weeks. This season it has come back to 33 weeks, and by the third season in the contract, it will be 35 weeks.

Musician representative Robert Patterson says the contract shows an effort to rectify the situation. “We will not be back to where we were, but continue to make progress,” he says. “Over the past 30 years the Orchestra has fallen behind in salary. We and our management are in agreement that that is the case, and so the question is just how do you address it? We want to be working together and not against each other, so we’re moving forward.”

Abell says a side letter to go along with the contract was signed that expressed a commitment to work together. “We think the greatest asset of the orchestra are the players that make up the orchestra,” he says. “We exist because of the orchestra, and we can’t really say that we’re compensating the players at a level where we could expect it to be their primary professional commitment, and that’s a vision of ours. So we have a lot of work to do for that.”

Patterson says, “The only way to achieve stability is with the creation of an endowment and it has to be soon. We’re currently surviving because we have some very generous donors who are basically covering our deficits, so we need to get out of that — and we will get out of that. We wouldn’t have this contract if there wasn’t a plan to get out of that.”

According to Abell, there was no capital, endowment or reserve fund when the crisis hit five years ago. He says there are three factors that have made it possible for the MSO to survive. “First was the players, who have given up $1.2 million in compensation since 2014 without a work stoppage, without a threat of a work stoppage. That’s the number-one gift in this whole thing. Number two was the Helen and Jabie Hardin Charitable Trust, which made a $1 million gift in 2015 to help rebuild the orchestra, and that really set the right tone moving forward.” The third factor was the effort led by Gayle Rose, the leader of the board for five seasons, to build back an endowment. Abell says there’s a goal of at least $12 million for the endowment plus about $3 million in working capital to stabilize the budget.

Patterson says that the last couple of years have been helped by the MSO’s development staff raising money, ticket sales going up, and the stability of leadership with Robert Moody coming in as music director and Abell as CEO.

“People understand that this contract is the only way forward,” Patterson says. “But even by the end of this contract, the highest pay scale will still be under $30,000 for an annual salary. And it is the stated goal of the MSO that being a musician should be one’s primary, professional obligation but that’s simply not possible on the current salary.”

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Book Features Books

Bob Levey’s Larry Felder, Candidate

For more than 40 years, Bob Levey wrote for The Washington Post as a reporter and columnist, a robust career at one of the country’s top newspapers (including being in the middle of the glory days of Woodward and Bernstein).

When he took a buyout in 2004 at age 58, he made forays into running nonprofits and teaching. From 2006 to 2009, he held the Hardin Chair of Excellence at the University of Memphis in the Journalism Department, so he knows this town fairly well, having talked to civic clubs about journalism and what was going on at U of M.

But still, there was that itch: Levey wanted to write a novel. “Writers write,” he says. “And this book was in me, looking for a way to get out.”

Bob Levey

Doing what smart authors do, he wrote about what he knew. “My career in journalism possessed me to write it,” he says. “I’d been thinking about the news business, about politics. I do my best work in the shower, and there I was in the shower and I said why don’t you write a book? And I said, Okay. And by the time I got down to my toenails, I had fleshed out what I wanted to say.”

Larry Felder, Candidate‘s plot follows award-winning journalist Larry Felder who, at 56, has achieved much in the field. But he also wants to be in Congress. He abandons his secure career and jumps into his district’s race where, because of his fame and reputation, he enjoys a comfortable lead over his closest primary opponent. Naturally, complications ensue.

The book is something of a civics lesson in the electoral process as well as a celebration of classic print journalism, the kind with aggressive investigative reporting and snark in the newsroom. The sort of newspapering that, sadly, exists more in history than in the present.

“I love local news,” he says. “In many ways, local news is more accurate if you want to know what’s really going on in the world.” But the decline of the local press is painful for Levey.

“It’s a disaster,” he says. “Some big newspapers are being rescued by the likes of Jeff Bezos and Carlos Slim, the Mexican financier. But local news coverage is disappearing because it doesn’t fit with some overarching marketing plan or with where they think their circulation base is going to be, and that’s terrible because nobody’s going to pick up the slack for that, unless it’s a couple of 400-pound bloggers sitting in a bathtub somewhere, and that’s not good enough.”

Of course there’s the World Wide Web, making information available instantly throughout most of the world. But Levey’s not sanguine about it. “The internet cannot do what good local newspaper coverage can do,” he says. “It hasn’t been monetized or it hasn’t been set up to try to do that.”

Levey went to work at the Washington Post as a general assignment reporter in the Metro section in 1967. Legendary editor Ben Bradlee hired him and to this day, Levey salutes him for what he taught and for standing by his reporters. And if you want a sense of what Bradlee was like, Levey suggests the 1976 film All the President’s Men. It famously stars Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Woodward and Bernstein, but the late Jason Robards took the role of Bradlee and, Levey says, nailed it.

“I’ve never seen an actor inhabit a character the way he did in that film,” Levey says. “I knew Bradlee for decades, and Robards got him cold — the voice, the intonations, the body language, the way he curls his mouth, the way he puts his right foot up on the edge of the desk in the newsroom when he’s talking to you. It’s just perfect.”

The film’s producers recreated the newsroom in California, and they wanted it authentic, right down to the trash. “So for weeks, we put our garbage into big cardboard barrels that were shipped to California and strewn around the mock newsroom. The closest I’m ever going to get into Hollywood stardom is seeing some of my Styrofoam coffee cups in the movie. Authentic trash is my middle name.”

Levey will sign copies of his novel Larry Felder, Candidate and discuss his time at The Post, Watergate, writing, and the current state of journalism on March 22nd from 4 to 6 p.m. in Spain Auditorium in Buckman Hall on the campus of Christian Brothers University, 650 East Parkway South. The event is free and open to the public.

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Book Features Books

Bill Morris’ Legendary Life

Newcomers to the area might find themselves riding along the Bill Morris Parkway and wondering, “Who’s he?” Old-timers will likely know him well. But even among those who are aware of the former Shelby County Sheriff and Shelby County Mayor, there are few who know the whole story.

Now, at age 86, he’s published an autobiography that tells of a remarkable life that put him in the middle of history more than once. He and his wife, Ann, were friends with Elvis Presley for one thing (she knew the budding singer at Humes High School). And in 1968, Sheriff Morris took James Earl Ray into custody for the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Although the title is somewhat immodest — Bill Morris: A Legendary Life — it remains true that he did much to shape lives and institutions in Shelby County. He grew up in stark poverty in Mississippi with, he says, a severe inferiority complex, did a stint in the Army, and studied journalism at then-Memphis State University.

But he was a natural salesman and would go on to join the Jaycees, whose 800 members had some political clout. They backed him in a run for sheriff (“I had to learn how to spell sheriff,” he cracks), and he won in 1964, one of the youngest in Tennessee history and one who hadn’t been in law enforcement.

But he felt it was a virtue not to have baggage. That would be tested in short order. A month in, he gave an assignment to one of his officers who said, “I need to think about that. I need to go talk to Mr. Paul.” That was Paul Barret, an influential businessman and county leader. Morris replied, “That’s fine. Why don’t you go ahead and do that today? Because you don’t have a job here anymore. Maybe he can get you another one somewhere else.”

In 1964, African American officers couldn’t arrest white suspects, nor could they even ride with white officers. Women in the department weren’t paid the same amount of salary for the same jobs men held. Morris got those policies changed and would go on to initiate many community projects. “We became a community-based cooperative,” he says, “on behalf of all the citizens — black and white — in Shelby County.”

From 1978 to 1994, Morris served four terms as Shelby County Mayor, traveling to sell Memphis as a tourism destination and a business opportunity. He tried a run for governor in 1994, losing in the Democratic primary to Phil Bredesen.

When Ann was 61, she had a massive stroke and Morris devoted his life the next 19 years to her care until she died in 2016.

The book, written with Darrell B. Uselton, is available on Amazon. The authors will hold a book signing at Novel bookstore on Thursday, March 28th from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. For more info: billmorrisbook.com.

Categories
Art Art Feature

“Take Note” at MCA

It was bittersweet last Friday at the Memphis College of Art. There was the sort of exuberance that attends opening receptions for exhibitions, but there was also melancholy as suggested by the show’s title: “Take Note: The Final Faculty Biennial Exhibition.”

A robust presentation of artwork by current faculty and professors emeriti is on display through March 17th. Faculty exhibitions put on display the pieces by those who teach, or, as professor emeritus Tom Lee puts it, to show the students that they really can do it.

But MCA is closing its doors next year and there won’t be any more faculty shows. Laura Hine, the college’s president, says wistfully that maybe someone will organize the school’s long-running Horn Island show, Holiday Bazaar, and faculty exhibitions in the post-MCA future. “You can’t stop artists,” she says.

Heather F. Wetzel with her 2012 work ‘Mapping|Mending|Missing Memory’

“When I started working here I’d walk through the doors and think ‘My God, this is so joyful.’ Everything is tinged by the closure now, but for me tonight, I’ve talked with three artists who went to school here and are now teachers. I take heart that these people are going out and teaching another generation of kids. That’s the happy part for me.”

Dolph Smith started attending what was then the Memphis Academy of Art on Adams Street in 1957. He went on to teach there and retired in the 1990s, but still manages to be there in one capacity or another, as artist and inspiration. But on this night, he steps away, saying, “I’m going to burst out sobbing.”

His work at this final faculty show is Tennarkippi Penthouse, a 2005 sculpture. It shares space on the landing between floors in MCA’s main exhibition area with Lee’s 2019 witty and sly installation Fin de Skirt, which connects with a “bouquet” on another wall. Lee’s emeriti status was awarded at last May’s commencement. Looking back at previous faculty shows, he says, “It’s all the same thing that I’ve been doing since time began in one way or another. It just looks a lot different than what I was doing 30 years ago. But it’s pretty much the same. That’s not a real good answer, is it?”

with their works: Tennarkippi Penthouse, 2005 and Fin de Skirt, 2019

He’s in the mood to say goodbye. “The bouquet that’s kind of dead and falling apart is pretty obvious and pretty funny, too,” he says of one part of his installation. “The other is the skirt that covers everything. This place has always had a lot more female energy in it and so does the artwork because, a) they’re smarter, and b) because they actually feel life when it’s happening and we try to ignore it, so it’s an image of that. Plus a lot of other kind of hidden things that refer to specific people, most of whom I admire and who I’ve learned a lot from while I was here, and a few kind of digs that nobody’s ever gonna get. Plus I just like the word ‘skirt.'”

Jean Holmgren’s digital illustrations are, she says, a bit of a sea change. “I fought digital tooth and nail when computers came out, saying ‘that’s not real art!’ and I still have problems with that most of the time,” she says. “But I’m loving my iPad Pro — it’s so fast and easy and forgiving, and it’s never done. You can always go back and tweak.” One of her works at the exhibition is a 2019 homage to IKEA instructions, an assembly of an impossible machine with impossible directions, titled Some Assembly Required.

Heather F. Wetzel, the head of MCA’s photo area, started teaching at the college in the fall of 2017. Weeks later, it was announced that the institution would close. “It was sad and disappointing to find that out,” she says. But also: “It’s a wonderful place, and I’ve gotten a taste of it.” Even through her sadness at what will be her abbreviated time at MCA, she still says, “I’m happy and honored to be part of this.”