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.”
The finale of last year’s Tambourine Bash (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
You might imagine that today’s announcement of the featured artists in October’s Tambourine Bash at the Overton Park Shell was meant to synchronize with this week’s Memphis Flyer cover story celebrating Memphis women in music. After all, the new lineup for the annual fundraising concert for Music Export Memphis (MEM) is loaded with some of the city’s great sonic sisters. But Elizabeth Cawein, MEM’s executive director, swears the gender skew was sheer serendipity. “It’s funny because, to be totally honest, we hadn’t thought about it at all,” she says. “But it is so heavily representative of women — I love it!”
It’s proof positive of the ways Memphis music is evolving today, and typical of the kind of synergy that happens when an organization like MEM is so diverse, equitable, and inclusive. Guided only by the principle of lending Memphis musicians a hand, serving as an “engine and platform to grow their careers and elevate Memphis’ profile as a contemporary music city,” MEM has an embarrassment of riches to work with, from all corners of the music world.
What’s more, the Tambourine Bash, now in its sixth year, is a unique space where all of those corners can come crashing together, with some imaginative and inspiring results. That’s in part because Cawein chose early on to structure the event around the intense spirit of collaboration that characterizes this city. When artists play the Tambourine Bash, they don’t just appear with their usual performing bands. Instead, three contrasting artists or bands are thrown together to work with each other in any way they see fit. It’s all about the mash-up. Take this year’s lineup, for example:
Lana J + EsMod + Aybil
Tonya Dyson + Daykisser + ADUBB
Lina Beach + Jessica Ray + Ryan Peel
Wyly Bigger + MadameFraankie + Blueshift Ensemble
Sunweight + Oakwalker + Jeremy Stanfill
Southern Avenue + surprise guest collaborator
FINALE: Superjam featuring all Tambourine Bash performers, produced by Boo Mitchell
Mixing and matching such versatile artists makes the Tambourine Bash unique, for audience members and performers alike. “Curating this lineup is one of my absolute favorite things that I get the privilege to do,” says Cawein. “And artists around the city know about it, so they get excited. I send that email saying, ‘Hey, are you available on October 10th?’ And they get pumped. I love that.”
It’s indicative not only of how collaborative artists here can be, but also of how comfortable they feel when working with MEM. “I feel like they have a lot of trust, too,” Cawein observes. “When I reach out and say, ‘We’re going to put you together with some other artists, and I don’t know who they are yet, but I promise it’ll be good,’ they trust me. And that feels great because it means I can really just come up with some stuff that will be cool.”
One reason it works is because Cawein keeps an ear close to the ground of the local scene. “I have people in my head, and a sense of the scene and where it is and what’s popping. Maybe it’s artists I’ve been playing on my show on WYXR [Straight from the Source] or people that have come across my radar for other reasons. And I’ll have a working document for a solid year. Like, as soon as we do Tambourine Bash this year, I’m sure I’ll have another doc, where I’m dropping names of artists in that I want to feature next time.”
This year’s creative mix have some Tambourine Bash firsts. “One set from this year that I’m super excited about is Wyly Bigger, MadameFraankie, and Blueshift Ensemble,” says Cawein. “We’ve included horns several years. We’ve had the Mighty Souls Brass Band, we’ve had Lucky Seven Brass Band, but this year I really wanted strings. And so Blueshift just popped to mind. As I started putting that one together, I’m thinking about Wyly’s piano playing and just the sort of raucousness of that, mixed with MadameFraankie, who is so versatile as a guitar player, especially the stuff that she’s done with Talibah Safiya recently, just really funky and soulful and kind of gritty, but also going in a very experimental, electronic kind of direction. And then to have strings with that, I’m just so excited about the flavors that have been combined there. I can’t wait to see that one.”
It seems the universe delivered on Cawein’s wish for strings in other ways, too. “The funny thing is that we have strings in several places this year because we have Oakwalker, and we also have EsMod, who is a rapper in that first collaboration on the bill [but] is a violinist as well.”
Another favorite group of artists is a group who originally were competing for a single slot on the bill. “One that I’m really excited about is Lina Beach, Ryan Peel, and Jessica Ray,” Cawein adds. “Jessica Ray was one of the winners of a partnership we did with Choose901. We got them to call on their audiences to vote for artists they wanted to see on the Tambourine Bash lineup. And the secret, that you can totally reveal here, is that we ended up adding all three of them. We narrowed them to finalists, and we had people vote, but in the end, it was like, ‘I want all three of these artists,’ and that was Jessica Ray, Oakwalker, and Jeremy Stanfill.
“So Lina Beach sings and she’s a songwriter, but she’s such an amazing guitar player! And I knew I wanted a big, bodacious vocal to pair with her, and we had a lot of beautiful vocals on the lineup already, don’t get me wrong. But I wanted someone who is just a belter, right? And so I thought of Jessica Ray.”
That’s but a fraction of the sparks that are bound to fly come October. As usual, all artists performing at the Bash will congregate onstage for the finale led by Boo Mitchell. That too should offer some surprises, on a night when all should set aside their preconceptions and expect the unexpected, as these harbingers of the city’s musical future gather together for an unforgettable night.
Click here to reserve your tickets to the 2024 Tambourine Bash now.
On Sunday, July 14th, the Premiere Palace hosted a memorial service for the late Sturgis Nikides, best known locally as the virtuoso blues guitarist in the Low Society, who passed away last April. Gone far too young, he managed to pack several lifetimes of experience into his 66 years, growing up in Brooklyn, New Jersey, and Staten Island, then ultimately falling in with Manhattan’s alternative music scene. Those familiar with the film Who Killed Nancy?, about Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, may recall Nikides’ on-camera recollections of his days living in the Chelsea Hotel on the same floor as Vicious in 1978, including the night of Spungen’s murder.
During that era, by the time he was only 19, Nikides distinguished himself as a guitarist for John Cale, who’d long moved on to a solo career after his time with the Velvet Underground. At last Sunday’s memorial, that era of Nikides’ life was well-represented by the singer-songwriter deerfrance, who played a short set with a band that included her bassist Kai Eric (erstwhile member of Tav Falco’s Panther Burns) and two local players (Lynn Greer on drums and myself on guitar and keyboards).
During the set, deerfrance spoke wistfully of getting to know Nikides when they both played in Cale’s band from 1979-1981. Indeed, the guitarist was nicknamed “Hellcat” in the credits to Cale’s 1981 album, Honi Soit. That album was Cale’s greatest commercial success, making it into the Billboard 200 that year.
Yet the bulk of those in attendance were Nikides’ Memphis fans and friends, who were most familiar with Low Society, the dynamic band he and his wife Mandy Lemons formed in 2009. Jeff Janovetz, DJ for the online Radio Memphis, gave a heartfelt remembrance of his encounters with Nikides, followed by Brad Dunn, who recalled the power of hearing Low Society for the first time and his efforts to book the band at American Recording Studio. This ultimately led to the band’s second album, released by Icehouse Records/Select-O-Hits in 2014, You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down.
Mandy Lemons and Sturgis Nikides perform as Low Society at the 2018 Western Maryland Blues Festival. (Photo: Alan Grossman)
That made it all the more powerful when Lemons joined deerfrance’s band for a passionate rendition of Tom Waits’ “Way Down in the Hole.” In what was clearly a cathartic moment for the singer, she had the audience spellbound. Afterwards, I caught up with Lemons to learn more of her and her husband’s story.
Memphis Flyer: How did you and Sturgis meet?
Mandy Lemons: It was in October of 2008, in New York. A good friend of mine had known Sturgis for thirty years or so, and he was already trying to hook us up musically. Like, ‘Oh, you need to meet this guitar player!’ and telling him, ‘You need to meet this singer!’ So he had a party at his house and we met and I was just like, swept away immediately. But I had to play it cool for a while. You know what I mean? He had no idea that I was that in love with him! Then, after playing music for a year, we got to know each other and became friends. And then we dated for a year, and then we got married.
How did you two wind up in Memphis?
We had our first European tour at the end of 2012. And after that, I wanted to go down south and roll around a little bit, you know, and take him down there and get into Texas blues. Everyone’s a badass down there, you know, and I’m originally from Houston. So we went down to Texas and kicked around for like four months, but we just couldn’t find a place to live, we couldn’t find a good drummer or bass player. And then we played the Juke Joint Festival [in Clarksdale, Mississippi], as a duo.
My friend, who was kind of like our patron at the time, said, ‘You know, Memphis is right around the corner. You guys should go check it out.’ And we were like, ‘Oh, we didn’t think about that. Really?’ So he put us up for a week here, in an AirBnB, and everything just went right. So we got our stuff in Texas and came back here and have been in the same apartment ever since.
And you connected with the scene here rather quickly, it seems.
On our first night here, we saw Earl the Pearl play at Huey’s. And we were just like, ‘What?’ Like, ‘We’re home. We’re in the right place.’ And the next night, there was an open blues jam at Kudzu’s. So we went over there, and of course they made us wait till the very last, because we looked like a couple of New York freaks, which is what we are! They were like, ‘These people are either gonna really suck or they’re going to be great.’ So we did our best, and everyone loved it. People came up to shake Sturgis’ hand immediately. Me and Dr. Herman Green connected, and we played on Beale Street the next night, which had been a dream of mine since I was 12. And I just was blown away.
Low Society was so well regarded after that point, and many fondly recall your residency at the fabled Buccaneer Lounge back in the day. You made your second album at American Recording, and released a third album as well. Are there any unreleased tracks by Low Society that you were working on while Sturgis’ health was failing?
Well, you know, he started having health issues when Covid started, and had open heart surgery last summer, and that’s when it started getting scary serious. Then he got this crazy, aggressive, super fast cancer that killed him in two months.
So that was on and off for the last four years. He would get better and then something else would happen. But in the good times, when he was feeling good, he definitely was playing guitar. I mean, it’s like being an athlete. You have to give back, because if you don’t consistently use it, you lose it. So he was practicing, and we had our fourth album in the works. He was producing that and mixing it and putting in his magic sauce and overdubs and all that stuff. And he finally finished it just a few months ago, and he said, ‘That’s it! It’s finished.’
All I’ve got to do is lay some vocals down and get it mastered and distributed and all that stuff.
Was it also cut at American Recording?
No, actually, we recorded all of it in Belgium. Our drummer and bass player live there. But it’s been like five years, since 2019, since Sturgis and I played a show. So thank you guys so much for having me up there [at the memorial] and allowing me to sing with y’all. That was really cool and very much needed. It’s been a long time. But…there’s more where that came from.
Justin Timberlake at the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con International in San Diego, California. (Photo: Gage Skidmore/Courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
When local police in Sag Harbor, New York saw a BMW run a stop sign, then weave between highway lanes in Tuesday’s early hours just past midnight, they were duty-bound to pull the driver over, according to a CBS News report. Little did they suspect that the culprit was Millington, Tennessee native, onetime Disney Mouseketeer, and pop phenom Justin Timberlake. In any case, he was charged with driving while intoxicated.
The CBS story notes that “when Timberlake was pulled over, the officer said he was ‘in an intoxicated condition’ and that ‘his eyes were bloodshot and glassy, a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage was emanating from his breath,’ and he ‘performed poorly on all standard field sobriety tests.'”
But the musical superstar had something to say about that. “I had one martini and I followed my friends home,” Timberlake allegedly told the officer, according to CBS. “He also allegedly refused to do a chemical test,” continued the report.
The singer/songwriter/producer/actor was last seen in Memphis this January, as reported by Samuel X. Cicci, where he debuted a new song, “Selfish.” That foreshadowed the release of his sixth album in March, Everything I Thought It Was. In April, he launched The Forget Tomorrow World Tour, which is scheduled to carry on internationally through this year. He has shows scheduled in Chicago this weekend and at New York’s Madison Square Garden next Tuesday.
Those shows will likely go on as planned: after being formally charged, the former Mouseketeer was released without bail on his own recognizance, with a virtual court appearance scheduled for July 26th. In other words, concertgoers are encouraged to not forget tomorrow.
For lovers of classic jazz, witnessing the ascendance of Samara Joy has been a great … well, joy. Having been born in the last few weeks of the 20th Century, one might expect her to be mining the same vein as Adele or other pop stars, and yet she is that rare 24-year-old who’s devoted mostly to jazz, and not only that, but jazz standards written nearly a century ago like “Someone to Watch Over Me.” And, as her three Grammy Awards suggest, she brings a natural talent and interpretive verve to the material: a breath of fresh air indeed.
That’s why this Monday, June 3rd is a great day for jazz aficionados in Memphis, as Joy will be appearing at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts then, thanks to Cultural Arts for Everyone. (Click here for tickets.)
Anticipating her appearance, the Memphis Flyer reached out to Joy via email to explore her thoughts on her musical upbringing, her love of jazz, and what Memphis means to her. Read on for a most enlightening interview.
Memphis Flyer:Your life in music echoes something often seen in Memphis: the musical family, strongly rooted in the church. Your grandparentsco-founded the Philadelphia gospel group The Savettes, and your father is a professional gospel vocalist and bass player. What did you learn from your family that still informs your artistry today?
Samara Joy: I learned that performance, for me, is about connecting people to something greater than one can put into words. I can try to do a million cool things with my voice but, when I’m presenting music, the goal is to encourage people to feel and understand that, at the end of the day, there are life experiences and emotions that we all experience. Therefore, we’re all connected in more ways than we might think. Music is a great aid in realizing this connection, which is why I love singing for people.
Assuming you sang a lot of gospel music in your youth, did that prepare you well for jazz singing or was there a learning curve ? How did you came to embrace classic jazz to such a degree?
There was definitely a learning curve and it took a while for my voice to catch up to what I was hearing. But I think gospel prepared me to listen with intent. I didn’t have any knowledge of what jazz sounded like and in order to feel confident enough to sing it, I had to put it in my ears. Listening to gospel music growing up and trying to imitate other singers helped me to develop my ear for detail and I’m grateful for that musical influence.
I came to embrace jazz simply by listening to it. Because the genre was so new to me, I listened with open ears and allowed myself to be immersed in the sound of the artists who created it. As a result, my love for it grew stronger and I was able to use my voice in an entirely new way.
Should we look for more music from you in the vein of your latest single from the Netflix film Shirley, “Why I’m Here,” a song which is “pop” but also seems closer to contemporary gospel?
That was a special song for an incredibly important story and movie about Shirley Chisholm. My focus for my own music, as of now, is still jazz. What I love about jazz is the fact that even though I feel at home within the genre, I am also constantly being challenged to grow.
What specific thoughts or associations do you have about Memphis, whether it’s the jazz players from here, the gospel tradition here, or any soul/R&B artists from here?
One of the first documentaries I ever encountered was Wattstax (1973), which was a concert sponsored by Stax Records at the Watts Summer Festival. I was blown away by this footage of a completely different time in music and culture. Seeing the crowd’s response to Memphis artists like Rufus Thomas and Isaac Hayes was inspiring to watch and I’ve seen the film multiple times. That being said, I can’t wait to perform in Memphis!
The Mempho Music Festival, scheduled for October 4-6, has announced the performers to be featured this year, and it makes it clear once again why Billboard Magazine called it “one of the premiere southeast music festivals for Americana, rock, and blues music.” And with Queens of the Stone Age topping the bill, Mempho is certainly bringing serious rock bona-fides to the Mid South.
Mempho’s commitment to the jam band sound, well-established with its history of bringing Widespread Panic to Memphis multiple times, also continues unabated, with Trey Anastasio also headlining. As the lead guitarist and songwriter for Phish, the jam band star will be continuing the approach started this month in touring with his “classic” Trey Anastasio Band (TAB), composed of drummer Russ Lawton, keyboardist Ray Paczkowski, and bassist Dezron Douglas.
Finally, the outlaw county element will be well represented by Cody Jinks, the onetime thrash rocker from Texas who’s been making waves on the country charts for nearly a decade.
Mempho’s eclecticism goes far beyond those genres, as the next tier of talent slated to appear this year reveals. If snagging the Fugees for Mempho Presents’ recent RiverBeat Music Festival was impressive, so too is the appearance of both The Roots and Digable Planets at Mempho Fest this fall. And beyond those eternally fresh Philly favorites, the list also includes Goose, Sublime with Rome, Marcus King, Charles Wesley Godwin, Drew Holcomb and The Neighbors, Cory Wong, Warren Haynes Band, and The Kills. Other artists will fill in the roster as well, including some of this city’s finest artists. Once again, ground zero for the multi-stage festival will be Radians Amphitheater at the Memphis Botanic Garden.
Three day tickets to the Mempho Music Festival are now available and can be purchased through memphofest.com/tickets. Single-Day tickets will be made available soon with the announcement of the daily lineup.
Taj Mahal appears in holographic form. (Photo: Courtesy Blues Foundation)
The Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame Museum has unveiled a brand-new interactive hologram of blues musician Taj Mahal, making it the first museum in Tennessee and second in the United States to have a full-body hologram, says Blues Foundation CEO and president Kimberly Horton.
Horton says when she found out about Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame’s hologram of philanthropist Ernie Boch Jr., whose personal collection of guitars were on display at the museum at the time, she knew she “had to have one for Memphis.”
The Blues Foundation’s first hologram features Blues Hall of Famer Taj Mahal. “It’s him. Like he’s actually sitting in there, actually sitting in the [holographic] box,” Horton says. “You could actually have a full conversation.”
That means that guests can ask whatever question comes to mind, and the hologram, which has been trained with AI, will generate a response as Mahal himself would answer. “We had Taj Mahal sit still for 12 hours one day and just asked him all these questions, about 250 questions, and filmed him while he was doing that,” Horton explains. “So this is his voice. And these are his mannerisms. These are his hand movements.”
From the beginning, Horton says she knew Mahal would be a part of the debut of the permanent exhibition, which will spotlight other artists in the future. “He’s just great,” she says. “When it comes to music, he’s multi-Grammy-winning. He has touched every genre of the industry. He’s got his hand in everything. Taj will be 82 this month, so it was imperative that he was the first person that was in the hologram.”
After all, Horton says, “If you want to preserve something or preserve history, then what better way to do it?”
The Blues Hall of Fame Museum is located at 421 South Main Street. Admission is $10/adults, $8/students, and free for kids 12 and under. There is an additional charge of $10 to interact with the hologram. Museum hours are Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Christone "Kingfish" Ingram performing at the Blues Music Awards on May 9th (Photo: Christopher Caldwell)
Last week’s 45th Blues Music Awards (BMAs) featured many familiar faces in the spotlight, but none so familiar as Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, from just down the road apiece in Clarksdale, Mississippi.
He came away with a win in the “Album of the Year” category for his Live In London record, which was also named the best Contemporary Blues Album. The BMAs also recognized Ingram as this year’s best Instrumentalist – Guitar and the best Contemporary Blues Male Artist.
Ingram, featured prominently in the Memphis Flyer‘s 2022 survey of the regional blues scene, has become somewhat of a ringer at the BMAs, having first won in all four of the above categories in 2020, then garnering awards in every subsequent year since.
His talent and success are partly a testament to the power of educational programs like those he attended at Clarksdale’s Delta Blues Museum as a young man. As he told the Flyer in 2022, “My instructors were actual bluesmen, Bill ‘Howl-n-Mad’ Perry and Richard ‘Daddy Rich’ Crisman. They were my teachers and my mentors of the blues, from the time when I played bass through when I got into guitar. And when they found out I had a little voice, they even pushed me to sing. There were even times when we would do readings. It was a full-on educational class, for sure. And it still goes on today.”
Another local favorite who won big was living legend Bobby Rush, who was not only named the B.B. King Entertainer of the Year but also snagged the best Soul Blues Album award for his All My Love for You. And transplanted Memphian John Németh, fresh off a riveting performance with the Bo-Keys at this year’s RiverBeat Music Festival, also excelled in the soul blues category, winning the Soul Blues Male Artist award.
Other top titles went to Keb’ Mo’ (Acoustic Blues Artist), Danielle Nicole (Contemporary Blues Female Artist), and the Nick Moss Band (Band of the Year). “What Kind Of Fool,” written by Ruthie Foster, Hadden Sayers & Scottie Miller, was named Song of the Year, and The Right Man by D.K. Harrell was named the Best Emerging Artist Album. Like Ingram and Rush, Foster, Mike Zito, and John Primer also garnered multiple awards.
The Fugees at the inaugural RiverBeat Music Festival (Photo: Joshua Timmermans/courtesy RiverBeat Music Festival)
After it was discovered that the RiverBeat Music Festival‘s social media accounts posted a clumsily-Photoshopped image that inflated the apparent crowd size (which the festival organizers copped to, blaming the photographer and removing the image), many in the online-iverse ramped up their complaints about the festival, dissing the lineup, the attendance, and even the lack of chain link fencing along the river shore (believe it or not).
Yet, as a musician, a music fan, and journalist embedded in the actual RiverBeat experience, I witnessed throngs of happy listeners and had more than a few magical encounters myself. In the end, that’s what will stay with us. Here, then, are a few personal, highly subjective moments that make a celebration of music on this scale worth the while, complemented by the Memphis Flyer‘s own mixtape.
Charlie Musselwhite The magic began before I even entered the festival gates. Walking along the perimeter toward the entrance, I heard the sound of pure liquid gold ringing out over the river. It was the blues harp of Charlie Musselwhite, known as “Memphis Charlie” in his youth, his family having moved here from Mississippi when he was a toddler, though he was based in Chicago as his career accelerated in the ’60s. To this day, he’s criminally under-booked in Memphis venues, making this moment a rare one indeed. This octogenarian and the melodic flow of his harp are national treasures.
Charlie Musselwhite at RiverBeat Music Festival (Photo: Joshua Timmermans/courtesy RiverBeat Music Festival)
Lucky 7 Brass Band Seeing this group in the charged setting of the festival brought home what a tremendous font of creativity and groove the Lucky 7 can be. As I walked into Tom Lee Park, I heard the familiar strains of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” but far groovier and brassier than the original. It was quickly followed by Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name,” Victor Sawyer’s singing full of the original’s fury, but layered over the forward momentum of a second line groove. An utter revelation.
DJ’s at Whateverland The Memphis gem Qemist took DJing to new artistic heights, weaving together disparate tracks into a whole greater than the sum of its parts. “It’s about to get real Black real fast!” he announced at one point. The crowd gathered in the shade of the fanciful tent shimmied and swayed along with him…even the staff walking past. “I see you, Security! Get your strut on!” he exclaimed. On Saturday, WYXR’s Jared Boyd, aka Jay B, aka Bizzle Bluebland kept up a similar vibe with some fine disco-tinged vibes, puffing on a jumbo cigar as he manned the wheels of steel.
Durand Jones & the Indications I’d never heard this old school soul and R&B vocalist live, but certainly will again after the scorching set he delivered last Friday afternoon. The very on-point band formed over a decade ago at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, but a distinctly more Southern flavor of soul springs from Jones’ roots in Hillaryville, Louisiana. “I feel like I’m an ambassador of the rural South,” he quipped at one point. “I’m just a boy from a town of about 500 people, and our land is being taken away from us. It’s about time we saw what is going down.” Midway through their cover of Irma Thomas’ “Ruler of My Heart,” Jones spoke wistfully about a young man who came to Memphis “with just a guitar” and made Thomas’ song his own, bringing the house down with Otis Redding’s version, “Pain in My Heart.”
Talibah Safiya We just profiled this neo-soul/hip hop auteur, and, armed with fresh new tracks from her new album and a tight live band featuring MadameFraankie on guitar, she held the Stringbend Stage last Friday with aplomb. Even in the group’s tight execution of beats there was a playful looseness, exemplified when, seeing a few sprinkles in the air, they launched into an impromptu take on “I Can’t Stand the Rain.” That soon gave way to more of Safiya’s originals. “Look to your right,” the singer called out to the audience, pointing to the Mississippi River. “Let’s honor that body of water,” she said, and then launched into perhaps her most popular track, “Healing Creek.”
Carla Thomas at the RiverBeat Music Festival (Photo: Joshua Timmermans/courtesy RiverBeat Music Festival)
Take Me to the River Having written about the group assembled by Boo Mitchell in last week’s cover story, I knew this would be a special moment, but it exceeded all expectations. Lina Beach, the young guitarist for Hi Rhythm, rocked her originals with verve, Jerome Chism delivered soul standards like “Tryin’ to Live My Life Without You” with passion, and Eric Gales delivered some scorching guitar work that was both virtuosic and soulful on “I’ll Play the Blues for You.”
While Mitchell is naturally grounded in Royal Studios and Hi Records, that latter song’s provenance in the Stax catalog confirmed that Hi Rhythm was the perfect vehicle for all stripes of Memphis soul. That was especially clear when Carla Thomas took the stage, cradling a crutch in her right hand but looking spry as she exhorted the crowd to do some classic straight-eighth note “soul clapping” while the band vamped on the intro to “B-A-B-Y.” She followed that up with the song her father Rufus put on the charts, “Walking the Dog,” whereupon Chism appeared with a small pup wearing ear protectors. That in turn was followed by the inimitable William Bell delivering stone classics like “I Forgot to Be Your Lover,” making the Take Me to the River set a festival highlight.
No Blues Tent, Plenty of Blues As if to make up for the lack of a blues tent, always a fixture at Beale Street Music Festivals, the blues seemed to crop up everywhere at RiverBeat. Kenny Brown brought the Hill Country Sound on day one, laconic and completely at ease as he unleashed guitar licks with his trio. On Sunday, the Wilkins Sisters brought their unique gospel-blues straight out of Como, Mississippi, just as their late father, Rev. John Wilkins, and their grandfather, Rev. Robert Wilkins, did before them. As lead singer Tangela Longstreet said, “We lost our daddy in 2020. But I can still hear him telling me, ‘Don’t stop singing, baby!'”
And there was more of that sanctified blend from Robert Randolph & the Family Band, as the master of sacred steel guitar delivered a sermon from the church of good times. In his hands, the pedal steel guitar became an engine of squeaks, squalls, and heavily distorted riffs. Indeed, their finale of “It Don’t Matter” was the weekend’s personal highlight of unfettered abandon, and, judging from the way Boo Mitchell and Lina Beach were dancing, they felt the same. Such high energy blues were also apparent in Southern Avenue‘s fiery set, wherein the humble acoustic guitar played by Ori Naftaly on most of the tunes presented country blues riffs amped into overdrive, adding a new grit to their sound.
Yet there were blues in more unexpected niches. Lawrence Matthews‘ latest work draws heavily on sampled blues in the Fat Possum Records catalog, and his anti-hype attitude, sitting calmly on a stool as he delivered his rhymes was only underscored by the bare-bones country blues guitar underpinning much of his work. Al Kapone has also taken to blending his hip hop vision with the blues, and that was on full display in his Saturday set, especially on the dread-laden “Til Ya Dead and Gone (Keep Movin’).”
Al Kapone and Mayor Paul Young at RiverBeat Music Festival. (Photo: Chris McCoy)
And finally, bringing it back full circle to classic soul revivalism , there was plenty of blues in a groovy set by Rodd Bland and the Members Only Band, the horn section’s evocation of his father Bobby “Blue” Bland’s classic take on the minor-key “St. James Infirmary” giving this listener chills. Some of those same great horn players appeared with the Bo-Keys as they backed up singers Emma Wilson and John Németh in a stomping soul set. Are players like Jim Spake, Marc Franklin, Kirk Smothers, Tom Clary, and Tom Link becoming the new de facto Memphis horns? Their presence on the RiverBeat stages, and so many records cut here, suggests as much.
Memphis is a Star Perhaps the most striking pattern of the weekend was the way that the biggest stars of the event expressed their gratitude for playing our city. Of course, that was to be expected of Memphis-based mega stars like 8Ball & MJG, who made their set ultra-topical when they announced, “We’re going to dedicate this to the mayor!” then launched into their hit, “Mr. Big” in honor of Mayor Paul Young. Fellow hip hop star Killer Mike also got very specific in his love of the Bluff City, paying homage to both Gangsta Boo and Jerry Lawler in one breath.
There were plenty more tips of the hat to our city. Black Pumas singer Eric Burton called out the city many times, but his greatest tribute was perhaps through his vocal style, which one friend described as “Al Green without the horns.” Their psychedelic soul fit the riverfront crowd like a glove.
The Fugees‘ electrifying set also embraced our city in very musical ways. The crowd went mad as Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean (sans Pras) performed “Zealots,” with its distinctive sample of The Flamingos’ “I Only Have Eyes For You,” but no one could have expected them to shift that beat into a shuffle for a lengthy bridge, wherein their crack ensemble sounded like nothing so much as a consummate Beale Street blues band. Aside from the mere fact of their appearance at the festival, quite a coup for RiverBeat’s organizers, they showed their love of Memphis in myriad small ways, as when Hill sang “killing me softly in Memphis,” or turned the line “embarrassed by the crowd” into “embarrassed by Memphis’ crowd.” Naturally, the crowd ate it up.
Jelly Roll at the RiverBeat Music Festival (Photo: Joshua Timmermans/courtesy RiverBeat Music Festival)
And yet, fittingly, the most involved embrace of the Bluff City came from Tennessee native Jelly Roll, who closed out the weekend just before Sunday’s second downpour descended. As the set was still warming up, the Antioch, Tennessee native shouted, “It feels so good to be back in my home state!” Later, he quipped “Since we’re in one of the birthplaces of rock and roll, I figured we’d play a little rock and roll,” before launching into “Dead ManWalking.”
But then he got more personal. “When I was growing up, my family would drive down to for Memphis in May, to be right here in front of this river,” he said. “I feel like this is God’s exact fingerprint on the bible belt, right here.” He noted his disbelief at now being on the festival stage where his musical heroes once played, then added, “I cant express how honored I am that you people are out there standing in the fucking rain for this!”
Then he began to reminisce: “When I was 13, we were all listening to rap. I’d go up to my brother’s room, looking for whatever smelled like skunk. And someone gave me a mixtape from Memphis, Tennessee labelled Three 6 Mafia.” As the night wore on, he displayed his formidable rapping chops, even calling out his old friend in attendance, Memphis rapper Lil Wyte. It peaked when he described his influences as “somewhere between Hank [Williams] and Three 6 [Mafia],” then launched into his mega-hit, “Dirty South.” The multiracial crowd went wild in the drizzle, celebrating the hybrid confluence of the many musical styles that typify Tennessee, Memphis, and the RiverBeat Festival itself.
