A week later, and the Memphis music community is still reeling from the cold-blooded murder of bassist Blake Rhea. As Bob Mehr reported in the Commercial Appeal last Thursday, the musician was at Louis Connelly’s Bar for Fun Times & Friendship on South Cleveland Street in the early morning hours of Wednesday, November 6th, when he was involved in an argument with another man. That led to the two stepping outside, where security cameras recorded the other man first possibly stabbing, then shooting Rhea point blank in his car before running off. Rhea was pronounced dead on the scene. Later that day, police “arrested and charged 51-year-old Edward Wurl with first degree murder in the shooting.” Wurl was also charged with being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.
Fox 13 News later reported that two witnesses in the bar claimed that “Wurl and Rhea had both been recently involved in a romantic relationship with the same woman. The witnesses then positively identified Wurl from a six person photo lineup.” WREG News Channel 3 reported that “court records show that Wurl was convicted of burglary and unlawful wounding in 1994.” WREG then quoted bar owner Louis Connolly as saying, “Stories like this are so common that we have become almost numb to them. We are thankful that the violence did not come into the bar. But that doesn’t make this any less heartbreaking, and our thoughts go out to the victim and the victim’s family.”
Since that fateful night, those who knew Blake best having been struggling to pick up the pieces, recalling his easygoing humor, his skill and sensitivity as a musician, and his role as a much-loved teacher at School of Rock Germantown. Having played in such pivotal bands as CYC, American Fiction, John Németh, Lord T & Eloise, The Gamble Brothers Band, Marcella Simien, and, most recently, Southern Avenue, his brilliance had been celebrated for years by fans and fellow musos alike.
Just how many lives Rhea touched will be apparent on Saturday, November 16th, from 4-8 p.m., when Railgarten will host “Blake Rhea’s Encore,” a celebration of his life, featuring performances by bands who were especially close to him, including Jombi, American Fiction, Salo Pallini, and (possibly) “Tierinii, Tikyra, and Ori from Southern Avenue.”
Speaking to the Flyer this Thursday, Southern Avenue’s drummer, Tikyra Jackson, was still trying to get past a feeling of unreality, having toured extensively with Rhea over the past year. “I’m still just taking it in,” she confided. “We spent all year together. It’s so weird, knowing that we’re gonna get back into the vehicle and it won’t be the same vibe.
“He had already toured a lot [in the past], and so he kind of was, like, staying home. He was a teacher. But he came back out on the road for us, because he liked us and he enjoyed what we were doing. So over this past year we were able to create something together. I was able to be a part of his life.”
Asked if there was a special bond, as there so often is, between the drummer and the bassist, Jackson replies, “Yeah. And it’s all on camera too. I have my camera set up by my drum. So when I’m watching this footage, it’s like, you can see that connection between us. And for this latest record that we’ve made, he recorded on half the record. Luther [Dickinson] was on bass on the other half. So yeah, Blake was a great part of what we played. We played the new record before we even went into the studio. We had some shows before the studio session, just to go into the studio more comfortable. So he was a part of the early process of getting from the stage of the writing to actually making it happen, making it happen live.”
In the studio, Jackson notes, Rhea’s contributions were memorable. “He was open to trying different things,” she said, noting that “his touch, his flavors in the music” were memorable. “One of the songs, ‘So Much Love,’ is very iconic to me because of the bassline that he came up with.”
Recalling all this, it was hard for Jackson to go on. “I don’t know, man, even talking to you now, I’m like, I feel like I’m experiencing new emotions and new realizations. But what a beautiful thing to capture his soul on the record, you know. And it’s not like it was 30 years ago. This was him living and breathing just yesterday, you know?”
Jody Stephens sings from the heart, stepping out front during Tuesday's concert. (Photo: Alex Greene)
When Jody Stephens and Chris Stamey put together a new version of Big Star two years ago, the quintet was a new group. And yet the band, which also includes Pat Sansone (Wilco), Jon Auer (Posies), and Mike Mills (R.E.M.), was hardly a bunch of rookies. Indeed, they all were unapologetic fans of that ’70s band that never quite made it, even as it lived on in their hearts and creative minds. And so, when they played WYXR’s Raised By Sound Festival in 2022, it was a revelation and a delight, but no great surprise that they pulled off the tribute to the band’s debut album, #1 Record, with aplomb.
And yet, being a “new” band, they had some rough patches at the time. Mills, battling a cold, was just shy of bringing his A game. The group as a whole still had to work out some details, as evidenced by their grinding to a halt during the bridge of “O My Soul,” only to begin the song again with brilliant results.
Now, two years later, it’s the 50th anniversary of Big Star’s second album, Radio City, and the same quintet is back in the saddle this fall for a series of 10 select dates in the U.S. and Europe. The kickoff show for the tour was at Crosstown Theater this Tuesday, and in the two years since this more stripped-down group formed (compared to the more sprawling bands assembled for the Big Star’s Third concerts a decade ago), they have become even more of a living, breathing unit. While the 2022 show was excellent, Tuesday’s show was jaw-dropping.
It isn’t that the group has grown more precise; rather, they’ve now internalized the material to such a degree that they can loosen up with it. And that is entirely appropriate, given the nature of the album they’re saluting in this round of shows. When it was recorded, Radio City marked the reconfiguration of the band as a trio led by Alex Chilton. Chris Bell, who founded the group, had left in frustration to pursue a solo career. And the album, while intricately crafted and performed, thus reflected Chilton’s greater embrace of the raucous, the chaotic, and the wild. It was nothing like the shambolic masterpieces he would later create as a solo artist, but a bit unhinged nonetheless, and therein lies its charm.
There were still plenty of echoes of Bell’s sensibility in Tuesday’s concert. Indeed, the group kicked off the show with “Feel” and several other chestnuts from #1 Record, the album’s cover projected behind them. A few songs in, the background changed to Radio City, and Stamey quipped, “Something is trying to tell us to move on to the next album.”
And move they did, as they brought some of Big Star’s rowdiest material to life. “That’s just fun to play!” quipped Sansone after they’d ripped through “O My Soul,” this time with no confusion, full steam ahead. After an especially stomping version of “She’s a Mover,” where Stamey seemed to capture a bit of Chilton’s old cutting delivery as he sang, “She name was Marcia, Marcia the name, she look like a dove, now,” the singer exclaimed to the audience, “Can it get any better than that?”
Stamey lit up even more before they launched into “When My Baby’s Beside Me.” As he explained, “This was the first Big Star song I ever heard, and I had to pull my car to the side of the road to hear it. In the Winston-Salem area back then, we thought these songs were hits! They were playing on local radio!” Indeed, each player’s inner fan boy seemed to emerge before our eyes as they conjured up the sounds that had first captivated them as teens.
Pat Sansone, Jon Auer, Mike Mills, Jody Stephens, and Chris Stamey as the Big Star Quintet (Photo: Alex Greene)
The players’ enthusiasm for the material was contagious. And yet it wasn’t all raucous abandon. Several quieter numbers stole the show, including “Way Out West,” “India Song,” and “Thirteen,” where Stephens stepped out from behind the drums to sing. And, from the tender to the tumultuous, the voices of all five players created vocal harmonies of a richness and beauty rarely heard these days.
Not to be outdone, Sansone shone in a solo rendition of “I’m in Love with a Girl” that was so heartfelt, you might have thought he wrote it himself. Auer, too, sang with moving, vulnerable soul on the quiet sections of “Daisy Glaze.” Never did the lyrics “nullify my life” seem so desolate.
Mills, for his part, also shone, especially on a crisp, propulsive “September Gurls.” Before singing it, he thanked Jody for letting him take on the vocal duties, promising him that “the check is in the mail.”
Mills also sang as the band closed their encore with what Mills said was “a rare moment of earnestness from Alex,” the lovingly ambivalent “Thank You Friends.” The group, who made many comments about their admiration for each other, and the joy of working together, may have been singing it to the audience who shared their love for the city’s best loved “unsuccessful” group — or they may have been singing it to one another, now a tight-knit ensemble of El Goodos hell-bent on keeping their favorite music alive.
It’s official: as of its closing moments this past Sunday, Gonerfest 21 has been successfully completed. Now it can drink in the state of Tennessee, the joke goes, and now it has fully embarked on its third decade. And, truth be told, it really did feel like our favorite fest had experienced some kind of growth spurt this year, even if some of its participants chose to go alcohol-free.
See interviews and more from the four-day weekend in this exclusive compilation on the Memphis Flyer YouTube channel.
In fact, the common sentiment seems to be, more than ever, an overwhelmingly head-spinning “What just happened?” Perhaps that vibe was amplified because Sunday, traditionally given over to Gonerfest’s rootsier, less distorted side, was instead dedicated to very much the opposite this year, as Oneida proceeded to forge a new approach to rock music before our eyes.
Taking in all their work as a whole, Oneida excels at musical world-building, blending synth sounds with their chugging rock band foundation in an approach that’s both sonic and harmonic, noise-laden and sing-song. And they bashed out one textured tune after another. “I wanna hold your hand/Between my teeth/I won’t draw blood/Don’t wanna stain the sheets,” as one song went. But it was their finale, “Sheets of Easter,” that really took the audience to a different plane.
Bobby Matador of Oneida (Photo: Tad Lauritzen Wright)
Kicking off with the phrase, “You’ve got to look into the LIGHT,” the song then consists of the band relentlessly, mercilessly repeating the last word, mantra-like, along with a single chord hammered out in eighth notes for approximately 19 minutes. “Light, light, light, light, light…” they sang, though the syllables began to morph after a while. Live stream viewers may have refreshed their connections, thinking the video was glitching. It wasn’t! Naïfs like me, unfamiliar with the song, were bewildered, amused, or offended, not knowing how or when it would end. Was it performance art? An MK-ULTRA-like experiment in which we, the audience, were lab rats? A sophomoric prank? Personally, I went through something not unlike the five stages of grief as I listened, from denial to anger, bargaining, depression, and, finally, acceptance.
It was truly one of the most surreal experiences I have had at any festival. As Zac Ives, co-owner of Goner Records, explains, the “song” is an old favorite by the band. “I don’t know how often they do it now, because it was on a record that they did 20 years ago, but it’s always insane. There’s not really much like it. Some listeners are horrified, and others are like, ‘Thank you for playing this amazing song.’ So yeah, it’s very divisive.”
Yet there weren’t many grumblers after it was done. Everyone, the band included, was too raw from the hypnotic onslaught. Finally, Eric Friedl, Goner’s founder, announced, “This concludes Gonerfest 21! After Oneida there is only light…go out into that light! Thanks to everyone who made this happen, the sound crew, the video crew. We made it through the rain, we made it through the not-rain.” And with that simple summation, the four-day roller coaster ride was over.
Looking back, then, one might well ask, “What just happened?” With too many bands to give every one of them a fair shake, one is left with only the most incendiary moments, burned into one’s brain.
The Pull Chains, a new collaboration between Greg Cartwright, Jesse Smith, Joseph Plunkett, and Eliza Hill, marked a refreshing return to harder rock territory for Cartwright, with echoes of the old Reigning Sound, but with all new material. And, as Cartwright notes, nearly every song was “a full four-way co-write from scratch, and they still seem to resonate with a single storyteller perspective. Such a joy to write songs with good people!”
Okmoniks (Photo: Anton Jackson)
Later that day, Okmoniks singer Helene Grotans was on a tear, perhaps trying to outdo the hurricane with which she shared a name, delighting the crowd with her Category 4 vocals and frenzied-yet-precise work on the Farfisa organ. “I usually play an Acetone,” she quipped, but nonetheless praised the beauty of the onstage instrument provided by Goner with an assist from Graham Winchester. Later, she raved about the Pull Chains, saying, “The Reigning Sound is my favorite band! Well, them and the Mummies!”
Revealing her classical training, Helene of Okmoniks demonstrated deft derrière technique on the Farfisa. (Photo: Alex Greene)
Regarding the opening night’s closer, local muso Jeremy Scott posted on social media that Derv Gordon and So What “killed it, just like they did seven years ago.” While the heavier, almost glam sound of So What contrasts with the old records by The Equals, they supplied solid backing for Gordon’s rich vocals, and, despite any audio issues Gordon encountered, had the crowd bouncing for the whole set.
Derv Gordon and So What (Photo: Alex Greene)
It’s Raining, It’s Streaming Friday was marked by near-constant rainfall, but that did not slow down Gonerfest 21. As Ives notes of the move from the outdoor to the indoor stage, “We were able to deal with the rain really well on Friday, because of the team that we have with us, and GM Jeremy over at Railgarten and his staff. It took a whole lot of work from a bunch of people to be able to make all that stuff happen and pull it all off. And the community that we’re able to bring in, everybody just almost wills this thing to work well, you know? I think we’re really lucky that that it works that way.”
Railgarten, with both an outdoor and an indoor stage, offered a uniquely adaptable venue for such contingencies. And fans could also stay at home, given the reliability of the live streamed video, co-directed by Brent Shrewsbury and Alik Mackintire and executed by a crew of camera operators and other techs.
Availing myself of that option, I found the clarity of the videography and the brilliant online mix to be excellent, especially when running it through big speakers. Surprisingly, Ives himself watched some of the livestream on Sunday.
“I couldn’t be there [due to a mild case of Covid], and I was sort of crestfallen that I couldn’t. But the fact that I could sit there and watch from my quarantined house meant everything. I sent an email to Brent and Alik afterwards saying, ‘You completely saved my day.’ And not only that, that stream is an unbelievable way to watch everything. It is just on a different level now. They’re directing and cutting that stuff real time on a multi-camera shoot. The sound is unbelievable. The video is unbelievable. The real time editing is great. And then all of the in-between stuff that they’ve added in production this year, with Chris McCoy and Ryan [Haley] doing these interviews [see them in this exclusive compilation on the Memphis Flyer YouTube channel], and then taking footage that we’ve collected from the archive over the years and putting that all in, it’s amazing. It was the first time I’ve ever sat at home and watched that way. And I was completely blown away by our team.”
In retrospect, the weather for Gonerfest 21 was perfect. There was just enough bad weather to make comrades of us all, thankful we were spared the worst of it. No doubt the storm’s impact on festival-goers’ own kith and kin in the Carolinas, Georgia, and elsewhere was being felt, but Memphians were largely subject to mere rain (and the odd dead limb crashing down here and there).
L’Afrique, C’est Chic Oneida wasn’t the only act to leave heads spinning. One of the festival’s most unpredictable moments was the triumphant return to Memphis of Niger’s finest Afro-beat groove band, Etran de L’Aïr. When Goner brought them here for the first time last summer, their show at Growlers was the talk of the town for weeks. This time around, they exceeded even those rave reviews.
Etran de L’Aïr (Photo: Anton Jackson)
While the two-guitar, bass, and drum lineup was conventional, the sounds that emerged as they layered cascades of electric notes over galloping rhythms were nigh otherworldly. Something about the weaving guitar arpeggios created a whole greater than the sum of the parts. After a while, the various overlapping overtones created a kind of aural illusion of other sounds, something several listeners commented on. “I thought I heard harmonicas,” exclaimed one friend, and I did too. Most importantly, the sweep of sound and rhythm proved irresistible to the crowd, who collectively threw their hands up after each tune and gave perhaps the weekend’s loudest roars of approval.
With Etran de L’Aïr not being your typical Goner band (is there such a thing?), Ives was relieved to see them win over the crowd. “After seeing them completely destroy that Growlers stage, I was super excited to see what would happen,” he says. “And then when everybody just completely embraced it and was completely into it, it rejuvenated my whole sense of why we do this thing and how great the audience is at Gonerfest. And I had a whole funny conversation with with a friend about that, about how he was not a ‘world music’ fan. Now, he’s open to it. This was the first world music band that he likes.”
Ladies’ Night Without any particular agenda in mind, many festival-goers independently singled out the amazing women in the various Gonerfest bands this year. It was a notable, if low-key, contrast to other festivals’ less diverse lineups. Many raved about Py Py‘s co-vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, Annie-Claude Deschênes, whose magnetic presence drew the crowd under her spell, especially when she had fans hold her mic cable aloft as she made her way from the stage to the bar and back.
Tube Alloys (Photo: Sean Davis)
There was also the charismatic charm of Okmoniks’ Helene, noted above. And one friend raved about “that woman playing the Guild SG [guitar]” in Tube Alloys, an L.A. band named after the U.K.’s secret World War II nuclear weapons development program. Given their mastery of fuzz/crunch, the name is appropriate, fueled by their co-ed lineup.
Meanwhile, Angel Face, Japan’s latest purveyors of classic punk sneer-and-shout riffs, were powered by the unrelenting attack of their female drummer, Reiko. With punk/D.I.Y./indie attitudes seemingly more inclusive than ever, strong women players would appear to be par for the course in today’s Gonerfest universe.
Angel Face (Photo: Sean Davis)
All this barely scratches the surface, of course. In answer to the query, “What just happened?” the best answer is likely, “You had to be there…” And, as Ives notes, right there at Railgarten is likely where Gonerfest will be for the foreseeable future. “We were slightly up in terms of ticket sales this year,” he says, “but there’s not really any room to grow. I think we’re basically at capacity for the space. But that feels like a good spot to be in. We were still able to offer day passes for all three nights. So it didn’t feel like we were leaving anybody out, but it also felt like we were maximizing the space and, you know, maximizing the good feelings from everybody there.”
The traditional Gonerfest “alley photo” was moved to Railgarten this year. (Photo: Sean Davis)
Treadwell students Jerry Williams, Jimmy Hart, and Jerry Lawler at what is now Treadwell Middle School. (Photo: Michael Donahue)
Jimmy Hart has worn many hats during his career, but he prefers one type of jacket. Something from Lansky Bros. in Memphis.
Hart wore jackets from the legendary men’s store over the years as a wrestling manager for Jerry Lawler, Hulk Hogan, and others.
But he wore his first Lansky jacket (along with Beatle boots) when his band, The Gentrys, performed on TV’s Ted Mack & The Original Amateur Hour.
Hart will wear a special Lansky Bros. jacket tonight, September 27th, when The Gentrys are inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts.
Hart talked about the origin of The Gentrys, whose song “Keep on Dancing” sold a million copies worldwide and rose to number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1965.
“It’s hard to kill a memory,” Hart says.
Born in Jackson, Mississippi, Hart grew up around music. His mother, Sadie Hart, who wrote under the name “Sadie Sallas,” penned “Enclosed, One Broken Heart,” for singer Eddy Arnold in the 1950s.
Col. Tom Parker, Elvis’ manager, also managed Arnold. Parker asked Hart’s mother if Arnold could record it.
Hart was a student at Treadwell High School when he got a call from Larry Raspberry, who told him he was putting a band together and was looking for some singers. “I went over and I auditioned and that’s it.”
The group, which was known at first as The Gents, originally included Raspberry on guitar, Bruce Bowles and Hart on vocals, Larry Wall on drums, Pat Neal on bass, and Bobby Fisher and Jimmy Johnson on keyboards and horns.
They played at sock hops and other gigs for “spending money” at local spots. “Bruce Bowles kind of looked like John Lennon. We had that Beatles effect back then.”
Things began taking off after they met TV/radio personality George Klein at the old Berretta’s BBQ Drive In. Klein, who was host of the local TV show Talent Party, told them record producer Chips Moman was opening a brand-new studio, American Recording Studio, in Memphis. “He said, ‘Look. If you guys want to, Chips will, absolutely free, let you go to the studio and cut a little song. And I’ll put you on Talent Party.’”
Hart and his band mates cut a cover of the Rolling Stones song, “Time is On My Side.” “The next thing you know, everything took off. It was crazy.”
They entered and came in first place in the Mid-South Fair Youth Talent Contest. As the winner, the band got to audition for Ted Mack’s national TV show in Miami, Florida. “We get on the show and he introduces us, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Memphis, Tennessee’s answer to the Beatles.”
Hart and his band performed “Do You Love Me.” Their Lansky Bros. outfit included jackets with a “little bitty” checkered print and velour lapels and pockets. “We had the little Beatle boots and tight black pants and the turtle neck sweaters.”
And, he says, “Mr. Lansky gave us such a great deal since we were a struggling little group from Treadwell.”
They ended up winning round one of the show, which meant they could compete in round two.
The group returned to Miami and performed on the show. “Guess what? We won again.”
That meant they were eligible to perform on the third show. But in the meantime, the group cut “Keep on Dancing,” which became a “smash hit” after getting airplay on radio stations across the country.
That disqualified them from competing on the third Ted Mack show because they were now professionals. But the band still got to appear on the show.
They didn’t write “Keep on Dancing,” Hart says. It was another band’s song. But, Hart says, “They did it real slow. We just took it and speeded it up.”
Life suddenly changed for Hart and his fellow band members. “We’re in high school with a big hit record.”
They put out three albums on the MGM Records label. Their songs included “Spread It on Thick” and “Everyday I Have To Cry.” And, later on, The Gentrys recorded two chart toppers — “Why Should I Cry” and “Cinnamon Girl” — at Sun Records. “Cinnamon Girl” was written by Neil Young, who will also be at the Memphis Music Hall of Fame ceremony.
“We did tours with The Beach Boys, Chicago, and Steppenwolf, The Grass Roots, and Jerry Lee Lewis.”
They toured with Dick Clark’s “Caravan of Stars” and appeared on TV’s American Bandstand, Hullabaloo, Shindig, and Where the Action Is.
The band was in the 1967 beach movie It’s aBikini World, which starred Deborah Walley and Tommy Kirk.
Hart got into wrestling when Lawler called him and asked him to help him with a “wrestling album” with vocals by Lawler. Hart then spent six years as Lawler’s manager.
His big break, he says, was when former WWE CEO Vince McMahon called him. Hart, who says DJ Ron Olson gave him the nickname “Mouth of the South,” began managing WWE wrestlers and, along with Cyndi Lauper and David Wolff, began writing entrance themes for wrestlers.
Former Memphian and photographer Pat Rainer will introduce The Gentrys at the Memphis Music Hall of Fame ceremony. “Pat Rainer was president of our fan club back then.”
Rainer, who put the fan club together, made sure the members came to their shows and voted for them, Hart says. “Pat Rainer was our secret weapon.”
Describing his Lansky’s jacket for the Memphis Music Hall of Fame ceremony, Hart says, “Lansky made that for me special.”
The jacket is “kind of a grayish blackish color, but it’s got little skulls on it. The inside of the jacket has pictures of my past in there. Me and The Gentrys. Me and Hulk Hogan. Me and Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler. All kinds of different pictures.”
Jerry Williams, founder/owner of Trans Maximus Studios and TMI Records, was the business manager and organizer of another teen band, The Guilloteens, during the time Hart’s band was performing. The Gentrys were “doing rock-and-roll at that time in a very unique way,” Williams says. “Their sound and their playability and their approach was just different.”
Also, he says, “They were all good-looking kids. You knew they were a band. They were built to be a band.”
In addition to being talented, The Gentrys also acted like professionals. “When they got on stage, they were dressed like a band. And it was always neat and they put on a fabulous show.”
A lot led up to The Gentrys receiving the Memphis Music Hall of Fame. “We were just in high school having fun going to class. And all of a sudden we’re playing sock hops around Memphis and then on the road with Dick Clark.”
And now Hart will be on stage in his Lansky Bros. jacket as The Gentrys are inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame. “We’ve been so blessed.”
Neil Young in Oslo, Norway, 2009. (Photo: Per Ole Hagen)
The 2024 Memphis Music Hall of Fame (MMHOF) Induction Ceremony this Friday, September 27th, was already going to be lit. With the likes of garage boppers The Gentrys, soul men supreme James Carr and Wilson Pickett, and hip-hop producer/rapper Jazze Pha being saluted, the music was guaranteed to be stellar.
But at a ceremony of such historical importance, it’s not just about the performances. Simply having the honorees together in the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts is significant, especially if they are expressing their mutual admiration. And it’s in that spirit that Friday night will suddenly be a lot more stellar, as Neil Young has announced that he’ll be there to induct a legendary player he’s worked with for decades: Dewey “Spooner” Lindon Oldham Jr.
Singer, keyboardist, and songwriter Oldham performed with Young at this weekend’s Farm Aid, but his association with the Canadian folk rock innovator goes back much further than that. He played on Young’s celebrated 1992 album Harvest Moon, appeared in the concert film Neil Young: Heart of Gold, and joined Crosby Stills Nash & Young on their 2006 Freedom of Speech tour. He’s also played in two of Young’s occasional touring bands, The Stray Gators and the Prairie Wind Band.
Oldham’s track record, of course, goes way beyond that. Known for his command of the organ and the Wurlitzer electric piano, he recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, at FAME Studios as part of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section in his early years, playing on such legendary tracks as Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman”, Wilson Pickett’s “Mustang Sally,” and Aretha Franklin’s “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You).” Later Oldham followed Dan Penn to Memphis, working at American Sound Studios as well as in Muscle Shoals, and co-writing hits by the Box Tops, James and Bobby Purify, and Percy Sledge with Penn.
In all, The Memphis Music Hall of Fame will be inducting and honoring nine inductees this year, who will thus expand the Hall of Fame roster to over 100 world-changing Memphis music icons. In addition to Oldham, this year’s inductees include Carr, Pickett, Jazze Pha, and The Gentrys, as well as operatic soprano Kallen Esperian, background singers Rhodes/Chalmers/Rhodes, Memphis Tourism CEO Kevin Kane, and Jack Soden, CEO of Graceland for more than 40 years.
The 2024 Memphis Music Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will be held Friday, September 27th, at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts at 7 p.m. Tickets are available at Ticketmaster (ticketmaster.com) and the Cannon Center box office.
Matthew Sweet is the perfect choice to headline the Memphis PowerPop Festival, happening at the Overton Park Shell at 5 p.m. this Saturday, August 31st. Being younger than the likes of the Who, the Raspberries, or Big Star, he’s nevertheless an actively performing link to the originators of the genre — first as a fan. The direct result of the first wave of “power pop” filtering down to younger denizens of the 1970s via radio and funky little record shops, he can well remember the thrill of discovering key LPs back when power pop gems were rare.
Sweet, of course, came to define power pop for a whole new generation after his third album, Girlfriend, blew up in 1991, not coincidentally featuring band members — Richard Lloyd, Robert Quine — who’d appeared on the very records he bought in high school. From the ’90s on, he’s been a reliably rocking and intriguing artist, and continues to mine the power pop vein today, with one album dropping during Covid and another on the way. A common thread through all of his music, as a both fan and an artist, is his love of melody, often paired with rock’s grit. And that, in a nutshell is what power pop is. Naturally, the topic of melody was where my recent conversation with him soon headed.
Memphis Flyer:As it turns out, you and I were growing up in eastern Nebraska at the same time [much discussion of this ensues]. I imagine you were a frequent patron of Dirt Cheap Records in Lincoln?
Matthew Sweet: Most of the records that found their way to me were from my older brother, or from someone recommending them to me at Dirt Cheap. People at Dirt Cheap knew all about everything. So you’d get to know a guy at a record store and he sort of knew what you liked. I remember going in Dirt Cheap one day and seeing one of the 45s that ended up on Singles Going Steady, by the Buzzcocks. That record was one that I really loved, because they were really melodic, but also very new wave.
I think of it as a British Invasion, that kind of new wave, punk, and everything, and it’s interesting, because my concern at the time was, How can I be like an American person, from a new generation or whatever, and do that kind of thing? And that’s why it was so, so critical for me to find [records by] the dBs or Big Star, because they became my American role models. Like on #1 Record, the voices were so pristine and beautiful sounding. The guitars were so incredible. It was everything I loved really melodic stuff that really hit me emotionally. Melody was always really important to me. It’s kind of what I heard first, even before lyrics. Even when the lyrics were important, it was the melodies that I really felt like I had, you know, inside me or something.
There was a lot of surprise in discovering the music then. And now I realize what a special time it was. I love the internet, and I love being able to find out instantly about anything I’m interested in, but back then, records were very special, at least to me and people I knew at the time. A record was this thing that was really personal.
It seems like those melodic records also led you to the South, in a way. The dB’s and Mitch Easter coming out of the North Carolina scene, and Big Star being from Memphis. Were you already into those bands when you moved to Athens, Georgia?
I had all these records in high school. I got into the dBs, and they were the gateway for me to find Big Star. As far as I was concerned, Alex Chilton was, you know, John Lennon, or something. He reminded me so much of Lennon, and does now even, because what I admired about John Lennon was the breadth of emotional things in his songs. He could write very beautiful, tender music that showed he really had a heart, and he could do more edgy stuff that was sort of sassy. And that was also such an Alex thing. From the soft and beautiful to the crazy and weird and electric. And I just loved those records as I was preparing to leave Nebraska, when I got out of high school. I guess that would have been May of ’83. I just told my parents, like, ‘I have to go to college in Athens, Georgia.’
The scene there was still really kind of going, and there was just kind of a magic. Growing up in Nebraska was so different from that Southern Gothic kind of feeling [in Athens]. It was a place that had a much longer history than we had in Lincoln or Omaha, you know. So it really felt kind of heavy and mysterious and kind of magical to me, as an 18 or 19 year old. Yeah, it was amazing.
And now you’re calling me from Athens, where you really got your career going when R.E.M. and that scene was taking off, and where your current full band tour is taking you now, just before playing Memphis. And you’re living in Nebraska again. A lot of full-circle moments are happening these days! How does it feel to hear the new release, WXRT Live in Grant Park, Chicago, IL, July 4, 1993, documenting a live show you and your band played at the height of the Altered Beast era?
It feels so long ago, I wanted it to be called Matthew Sweet, Live in Chicago, 1893. I thought it was funny, but no one would implement it. But that was a really memorable show. The Jayhawks were there, and I love Gary [Louris]. And Chicago was always a great place for me, so I had a lot of support there, not just fans, but from radio. It was one of the places where everything sort of went right, you know? So it’s always been a little bit of a second home area around Chicago. I wasn’t, you know, living in Nebraska at the time, but it still felt closer to home. You know, it was just sort of cool, the big Midwestern city. But maybe the real reason I loved that show was that the next morning, there was a newspaper headline in Chicago that read: The Pope, the Bulls, and Matthew Sweet. My mother came from a giant Catholic family, and she was pretty religious and so, you know, there could be nothing more thrilling for her than me being mentioned in the same breath as the Pope.
And here you are, 1993 is in the far distant past, and you’re still touring with a full band.
And playing this power pop fest! I’ve never heard of such a thing, except maybe in Spain, right? Power pop is a thing there, and we toured there a lot, and did really well. But to think we are in America, at a power pop festival! I heard it may get moved out of the bandshell to an indoor venue, due to weather, but we really want to play the Shell. It’s one of the last bandshells, I think. There’s only a couple left. And, I mean, you know, we’ve all seen those photos of Elvis standing in the middle of that stage…
The Memphis PowerPop Festival, part of the Orion Free Concert Series, takes place at the Overton Park Shell this Saturday, August 31st at 5 p.m., and features Matthew Sweet with openers Abe Partridge and The Sonny Wilsons. An after-party featuring Your Academy, 40 Watt Moon, and Lately David starts at 9 p.m. at B-Side.
Isaac Hayes (Photo: Courtesy Stax Museum of American Soul Music)
The musical choices of Donald Trump’s handlers run the gamut these days, as the aging felon grasps at any cultural reference that will make him seem “hip.”
And the music is often counterintuitive — who could have foreseen that the venomously anti-LGBTQ candidate would pump up his rallies to the tune of “Y.M.C.A.” by the Village People? Or that the campaign would provide it’s own elegy with the wildly unlikely “My Heart Will Go On,” Celine Dion’s tearjerker from…Titanic? As the AP’s Maria Sherman reported recently, Dion’s social media team immediately responded that “In no way is this use authorized, and Celine Dion does not endorse this or any similar use,” then added, “…And really, THAT song?”
Sherman goes on to detail a whole stack of such artists who, like Dion, were blindsided by the use of their music at rallies for Trump as early as 2020, including Bruce Springsteen, Rihanna, Phil Collins, Pharrell, John Fogerty, Neil Young, Eddy Grant, Panic! at the Disco, R.E.M., Guns N’ Roses, and the Rolling Stones.
You can also add some Stax to the stack.
On March 5th, the X account for Isaac Hayes Enterprises posted, “The estate and family of Isaac Hayes DID NOT approve the use of ‘Hold on I’m coming’ written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter by Donald Trump tonight at his Super Tuesday rally. We and our partners at @primarywave will be taking steps to stop the unauthorized use of this song.”
It seems they were ignored. This month they upped the ante when, on August 10th, Isaac Hayes III, son of the Stax artist, posted:
Today, on the anniversary of my father @isaachayes death we have repeatedly asked Donald Trump, the RNC and his representatives not to use “Hold on I’m Coming” written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter during campaign rallies but yet again, in Montana they used it.
The next day, the X account representing Isaac Hayes Enterprises posted the following:
We the family of @isaachayes Isaac Hayes Enterprises, represented by Walker & Associates, are suing @realDonaldTrump and his campaign for 134 counts copyright infringement for the unauthorized use of the song “Hold On I’m Coming” at campaign rallies from 2022-2024. pic.twitter.com/uwbJbB32Ya
This August 20th, on what would have been the 82nd birthday of “Black Moses,” the Memphis Flyer is happy to report that even from beyond, Hayes continues to be a baaaad mother…but I’m talking ’bout Isaac! Meanwhile, what of the song’s co-writer, David Porter, now CEO of Made in Memphis Entertainment? Sherman’s article also hints at what Porter thinks of Trump, noting that in 2022, after learning that Trump used “Hold On, I’m Coming” at an NRA rally, he tweeted “Hell to the NO!”
A joyous Cooper Young Fest audience (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
The musical acts at the annual Cooper-Young Festival always hit a little differently from your typical music festival. Maybe it’s because they’re performing in a swirl of other features, like the artisans, fine artists, and food vendors that congregate up and down Cooper Street and adjacent areas, or maybe it’s the neighborhood vibe that reigns supreme at the event, but there’s a certain intimacy to the experience. And that’s in spite of the huge numbers of people that congregate there, often upwards of 120,000 in a given year.
The 2019 Cooper Young Festival (Photo: Jim Weber)
This year, it’s officially the Guaranty Bank Cooper Young Festival, to be celebrated on Saturday, September 14th, and the musical schedule offers arguably the festival’s best lineup yet. The most fervent music lovers will want to arrive even before that lineup begins, when the Bellevue Middle School band, with its 32-piece drum line, kicks off the day by marching down Cooper Street at 9 a.m.
After that, consult this schedule to determine which stage to head for first. The Guaranty Bank Stage in front of the Young Avenue Deli will come to life at 11 a.m., and the Memphis Grizzles Stage, at the intersection of Young Avenue and Meda Street, snaps into action at 12:30 p.m.
Stage
Time
Artist
Genre
Guaranty
11:15
Rachel Maxann & Her Emotional Support Band
Folk/Soul
Guaranty
12:15
Oakwalker
Folk
Guaranty
1:15
Tennessee Screamers
Folk, Country
Guaranty
2:15
Jombi
Psychedelic Rock
Guaranty
3:15
Salo Pallini
Progressive Latin Jazz Rock
Guaranty
4:15
Cameron Bethany
R&B
Guaranty
5:15
Carla Thomas
Soul
Grizzlies
12:30
Turnstyles
Garage/Surf Rock
Grizzlies
1:30
General Labor
Electronic
Grizzlies
2:30
Late Night Cardigan
Power Pop/Rock
Grizzlies
3:30
Black Cream
Rock/Soul
Grizzlies
4:30
Steve Selvidge Band
Rock
The sheer eclecticism of the lineup is astonishing, and a testament to all that Memphis has to offer. Of course, the standout performer is the legendary Carla Thomas, whose frank and trenchant commentary in this year’s stunning HBO documentary, Stax: Soulsville USA, has won her many new fans. Naturally, she’ll be backed by the 926 Stax Music Academy Alumni Band, comprised of the best and brightest musicians trained at the academy on McLemore Avenue, as she presents “B-A-B-Y,” “Gee Whiz (Look at His Eyes),” “Tramp,” and other hits that made her the Queen of Memphis Soul. Not to be missed!
J. Spaceman and John Coxon of Spiritualized (Photo: courtesy of the artists)
The annual Raised By Sound Fest that WYXR stages in cahoots with Mempho Presents every December has become a destination for national tours that might not typically visit Memphis. Last year, Cat Power made Memphis one of their first stops when they began touring their Dylan tribute album, The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert. In 2022, when Jody Stephens’ reconstituted Big Star planned only a few shows in honor of #1 Record, the Raised By Sound Fest was a pivotal performance for them.
This December 7th, WYXR will have outdone itself once again, as it presents an incredible cinematic/photographic sound experience for Raised By Sound Fest: a live score to the William Eggleston film, Stranded in Canton, performed by J. Spaceman and John Coxon of Spiritualized.
Eggleston, of course, is known primarily for his still photography, but in 1973-74, he began experimenting with the then-new Sony Porta-Pak video recorder, more portable than any film or video camera preceding it, and, due to its sensitivity to the infrared spectrum, able to film in very low-light conditions. That not only allowed Eggleston to take the Porta-Pak into his regular nightlife haunts in Memphis, Mississippi, and New Orleans, it gave an eerie glow to the subjects he encountered. That they were often Eggleston’s friends, drinking buddies, and fellow artists only added to the easy naturalism of their behavior on-camera, complemented by the great photographer’s unflinching eye in the face of their uninhibited antics.
“Whiffs of Southern Gothic are not new to Mr. Eggleston’s work, but here they rise to the surface — fierce, tragic and proud,” as The New York Times observed upon the film’s release. And that release came long after the video was shot, its 30-odd hours of footage lying in storage for decades until Robert Gordon edited a feature-length version that premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2005, subsequently leading to a deluxe package by Twin Palms Publishers.
While the film is galvanizing, it is also a hot mess, with little in the way of narrative structure. Yet that very meandering quality lends itself to a musical interpretation, and that’s exactly what Spaceman and Coxon created. But that, too, was hidden away for far too long.
In 2015, Spaceman, Coxon, and friends premiered their original score live at a special film screening of Canton at the Barbican Gallery in London, as part of Doug Aitken’s Station to Station festival. The recording sat on a shelf for 10 years, but it will finally be unveiled through the Fat Possum release, Music for William Eggleston’s Stranded in Canton, due out this October 18th.
And then the duo will conduct a very limited tour. As a press release states, “Spaceman and Coxon will perform the work in London, New York, Los Angeles, and Eggleston’s hometown of Memphis, on the invitation of the photographer’s son Winston Eggleston.” Once again, it’s a coup for WYXR and an indication of the global reach of our thoroughly modernized, internet-savvy community radio station. That also means that seats at their events get swiped up fast: on Thursday, August 8th, tickets to the live score by Spaceman and Coxon will go on sale to the general public. Interested parties should act quickly.
When we sent our latest cover story, “Sonic Sisters,” to print on Tuesday, we knew we weren’t done with it yet. If you haven’t read it, we won’t judge you — let me rephrase, most of us won’t judge you. Seriously, read it. We worked hard on it, but not as hard as the women in music we talk about in the story. They are producing some amazing stuff at an amazing rate.
That being said, we made a playlist full of music by just some of our favorite women in the scene, and because the Flyer is God’s gift to man, we figured we’d share it. No need to thank us.
Remember, this is only a sampling. A chaotic sampling to be sure. There are so many genres jammed in here, but that’s to be expected.
As Miz Stefani, founder of Women in Memphis Music (WiMM) showcase series at B-Side, said, “Girls are everywhere here. They’re in reggae, Americana, jazz, hardcore, punk, rock, and hip-hop. And there are some doing genres that I don’t even have names for. … We’re all over the map, and it’s unbelievable. We can’t be pigeonholed.”
