Few would disagree with the claim that Snowglobe has been one of the most impactful bands of the past 20 years in Memphis. While they may appear in the occasional reunion show, they’re not too active in the city anymore, but one of the band members, Jeff Hulett, has been doggedly pursuing a solo career. This Friday, August 4th, his latest solo effort, The Josh EP (Something Borrowed), goes live on all streaming platforms, and Hulett will celebrate the release at the Memphis Listening Lab.
The sonic palette of the EP echoes Snowglobe’s unique blend of the intimate and the psychedelic, but while there are some grand sonic flourishes here and there, the collection feels rooted in an alt-folk sensibility. Perhaps that derives from the two-man team behind the record.
“The ‘Josh’ in The Josh EP refers to my neighbor and friend Josh Cosby,” Hulett writes in the release notes. “While we’ve collaborated on some songs together, this is a full bore, pedal to the metal, all-in recording with Josh at the helm — mixing, producing, and engineering. I just wrote and performed and let Josh do his thing.”
The instrumentation on the EP’s longest and most ambitious track, “You Can’t Stop It,” gives you some idea of the arrangements at work here. Hulett plays acoustic guitars, vocals, piano, organ, bass, percussion, and harmonica, while Cosby adds vocals, synth, organ, percussion, electric guitar, acoustic, and mellotron, all at the service of unabashedly pop songwriting. If that sounds reminiscent of Snowglobe, the end result is something different altogether, with Hulett’s originals bringing a more disarming vulnerability to the fore.
There’s also a refreshing restraint at work here: The first two tracks clock in at less than two minutes. Yet even these short ventures reveal the craft of a consummate builder of sonic worlds here that should translate well to the state-of-the-art audio system of the Memphis Listening Lab. The event begins at 6 p.m., and Memphis Made Brewing Company will supply the brews. After playing the release in full, Hulett and Cosby will perform a short set of songs live.
Back when David Nance started self-releasing records in his native Omaha over a decade ago, you got the impression that he hadn’t left his hometown much. “I tried to take a trip/So I could visit you/But when I crossed that state line I just didn’t know what to do,” he sang in “Nebraska Plains” on the brilliantly titled EP Let’s Argue. And the song’s chorus only underscored the fact that he was content to stay right where he was. “Keep your tall hills and your subway trains and I’ll keep my Nebraska plains.”
On the other hand, he wasn’t just making sonic postcards. The poetry of place that his songs embodied was leavened with healthy portions of grim observations and fuzz guitars. Even on “Nebraska Plains,” he celebrated Nebraska’s invulnerability compared to trendy cities on the coast, soon to be destroyed by natural catastrophes. And a few songs into the collection he was singing “I’m sick of these games where my ass is the prize/And I’m naked on the floor and they beat me ’til I die.”
Cut to a decade later, and it’s safe to say that Nance is considerably more well traveled, having opened for Jack White at a minor league baseball stadium in Tulsa a few years ago, and otherwise being recognized as the fine songwriter and guitarist that he is. But he’s still based in Omaha and making records in roughly the same way as ever. True, he took a detour in recording 2017’s Negative Boogie at a professional studio, but by the following year’s Peaced and Slightly Pulverized he was back to recording in a basement. And if the lo-fi approach only complemented the feedback and guitar wails of that album, 2020’s Staunch Honey proved that the same approach suited his mellower material as well, sprinkled as it was with tough guitar sounds all around. “I swear everything will be all right/But there’s no return on the merchandise!” he sings on the album opener, a stomper if there ever was one.
Ultimately, the music’s charm boils down to Nance’s unhurried deadpan, which always steers clear of forced affectation even when he’s getting a bit unhinged. As a Nebraska native myself, I appreciate the power of this dryness. It’s plainspoken, it’s down-home, but this tea ain’t sweet. The amber waves of grain are tasty, yes, but the stalks are brittle and ready for reaping. Perhaps that’s why his latest group, with whom he played at last year’s Gonerfest, is called Mowed Sound.
David Nance & Mowed Sound play Railgarten this Friday, July 28th, with the inimitable Aquarian Blood opening. 8 p.m. Tickets. At 10 p.m., Bar Keough will host an after party with DJs Zac & Emily.
The Cooper-Young Festival, slated for Saturday, September 16th, has named a nationally recognized artist to headline its musical stages this year — though he’s not exactly a household name.
Doug MacLeod doesn’t do arena tours with multiple costume changes, but he’s the real deal, and has been for 40 years. That’s when he made his recording debut on Pee Wee Crayton’s Make Room For Pee Wee, and the guitarist and singer has been celebrated as both a side man and solo performer ever since. And while the award-winning blues man grew up in New York City, it’s only fitting that he now calls Memphis home.
MacLeod’s bio notes that he first studied with a one-eyed country bluesman from Toano, Virginia named Ernest Banks, who also gave him the principles of music and performance that have guided him ever since: “Never play a note you don’t believe” and “Never write or sing about what you don’t know about.”
Unlike many blues artists, MacLeod plays only his own compositions (and he’s written over 300 songs), but his music has also been recorded by many other artists, including Dave Alvin, James Armstrong, Eva Cassidy, Albert Collins, Papa John Creach, Big Lou Johnson, Albert King, Chris Thomas King, Coco Montoya, Billy Lee Riley, Son Seals, Tabby Thomas, and Joe Louis Walker.
Local and international fans of the Blues Music Awards know his name well, and just this May The Blues Foundation announced in its 44th Annual Blues Music Awards that MacLeod was the winner of the 2023 Acoustic Artist Award. Earlier this year, Downbeat also named MacLeod’s 2022 record as an album of the year.
“Doug MacLeod’s A Soul To Claim, like many of his 21 previous albums, makes it clear that he’s an archetype of the top-level blues storyteller: wry, sharp-witted, virile, inclined to poke fun at sentiment,” wrote Frank-John Hadley in Downbeat Magazine. “MacLeod bestows his music with a human intimacy that’s a function of his affable personality and the original material he works with. With natural authority and charisma, he communicates one-on-one with listeners.”
Meanwhile, there will be plenty of other music at this year’s Cooper-Young Festival, as is only fitting for the neighborhood calling itself “Memphis’ largest historically hip neighborhood dating back to 1849.” Here’s the full lineup:
Memphis Grizzlies Stage 12:30 pm Steve Lockwood and Old Dogs 1:30 pm Robots Attack 2:30 pm Switchblade Kid 3:30 pm Avon Park 4:30 pm SKIFF
Guaranty Bank Stage 11:15 am Brian Blake 12:15 pm Mike Hewlett & The Racket 1:15 pm Short in the Sleeve 2:15 pm Raneem Imam 3:15 pm Rowdy & the Strays 4:15 pm Max Kaplan & The Magics 5:15 pm Headliner – Doug MacLeod
To anyone who’s ever complained that Memphis is not cosmopolitan enough, this will be a weekend to remember: For one night only, Memphis will be visited by a celebrated band from one of the world’s oldest, busiest cities to ever spring up around a trade hub.
I’m talking about Agadez, of course. You know, just east of Timbuktu? (That’s not just a figure of speech). Since the 14th Century, the city, in what’s now Niger, has been at the cross section of caravan routes from all across North Africa. Now, this Saturday, July 15th, at Growlers, Memphians can get a taste of the guitar-driven sound that’s been rocking the Sahara for nearly 30 years, courtesy of the region’s most celebrated quartet, Etran de L’Aïr.
Currently touring the U.S. this summer, the band is focusing squarely on the Midwest, with just a smattering of shows on either coast. Perhaps they intuitively gravitate inland? If the inland empire of Memphis is feeling like the Sahara lately, Etran de L’Aïr’s groove should be relatable. Now, the band has releasedLive in Seattle, a two-song live recording of the group performing at Madame Lou’s in Seattle on the last night of their first-ever US tour. This soundboard recording, featuring fan-favorite songs “Toubouk Ine Chihoussay” and “Nak Deranine,” is available on Bandcamp as a Name Your Price recording.
This release is also the latest evidence that Etran de L’Aïr are a consummate live band, having cut their teeth at innumerable wedding parties in the Aïr region of Niger, homeland of the Tuareg people.
Over recent decades, a distinctive approach to the guitar has fomented in Tuareg culture. Agadez’s style is the fastest, with frenetic electric guitar solos, staccato crashes of full drum kits, and flamboyant dancing guitarists. Agadez is the place where artists come to cut their teeth in a lucrative and competitive winner-take-all scene. Guitar bands are an integral part of the social fabric, playing in weddings, baptisms, and political rallies, as well as the occasional concert.
Etran De L’Aïr’s current three-week tour also includes headlining dates at Music Hall of Williamsburg and The Getty Museum, festival appearances at 80/35 Music Festival and Square Roots Music Festival, and intimate appearances at record shops Total Drag and Grapefruit Records. Saturday’s Growlers show is being presented by Goner Records, and includes opener Graham Winchester (click here for tickets).
With a tour itinerary like that, the band is clearly open to fans from all cultures. “We play for the Tuareg, the Toubou, the Zarma, the Hausa,” current band leader Moussa “Abindi” Ibra explains. “When you invite us, we come and play.”
New Music composer Evan Williams is no stranger to Memphis, having lived and taught here from 2018-22. And, as he noted in his remarks in the Crosstown Concourse East Atrium last night, his time as a assistant professor of music and director of instrumental activities at Rhodes College made an indelible impression on him. Indeed, Wednesday evening’s premiere of his new work, Crosstown Counterpoint, was a deep rumination on that iconic space and its place in the city’s history.
But that multi-movement suite was book-ended and contextualized by other pieces that helped situate Crosstown in time and space. Williams began with a trombone solo titled Amber Waves, in honor of the semi-rural Chicago suburb where he grew up. His use of delay effects only added to the natural reverberation of the towering atrium, with its echoing brass tones reminiscent of Sean Murphy’s Sketches of Crosstown from 10 years ago, featuring tuba and saxophone in the abandoned Sears Tower, pre-renovation.
There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, it makes you so sick at heart that you can’t take part! You can’t even passively take part! And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus — and you’ve got to make it stop!
Historical recordings of Savio’s words were woven into a duet for flute and cello, and, echoing through the cavernous space of Crosstown, the combination served to remind listeners of the political and aesthetic dimensions of such a public commons, and the citizens’ duty to make good on any promise that such a space implies.
And then came the centerpiece of the evening, taking place within the very space it celebrated. Subtitled “for two antiphonal string quartets and audio playback,” Crosstown Counterpoint and Memphis’ own Blueshift Ensemble made use of the concourse’s multiple levels, with one quartet on the ground floor and another on the mezzanine above. The sound of stereo strings responding to each others’ hypnotic patterns evoked the origins of Sears, Roebuck and Company’s founder, Richard Warren Sears, in the railroad business; and as recordings of voices were heard on the P.A., the effect was reminiscent of Steve Reich’s Different Trains. But the voices’ stories were closer to home.
Those voices, originally recorded for the Crosstown Concourse Breaking Ground Oral Histories Project, were provided to Williams by Crosstown Arts, and recounted decades of history, from the original Sears department store to its demise and abandonment, and finally its rebirth. In one moving passage, a Memphian observes, “The building has a personality,” then adds, “and layers of history,” a phrase which repeated as the strings played on, the words echoing through the very walls being remembered.
Throughout the proceedings, it was as if the atrium itself was an instrument, its reverberations throwing the composer’s sounds back at us in real time. When Crosstown Counterpoint concluded, Williams then led an expanded ensemble through a classic of the modern classical canon, Terry Riley’s In C.
Evan Williams leads scattered musicians through Terry Riley’s In C (Credit: Alex Greene)
This piece was also well-suited to the space, full of cascading, contrasting patterns played by various musicians scattered strategically throughout the atrium, on multiple levels. The slightly out of sync parts would ebb and flow, harmonizing with each other in unpredictable ways. Though considered groundbreaking when it premiered in 1964, the piece is not often heard in Memphis, though Williams noted that he led a group through the piece during his time at Rhodes.
In this case, the ever-shifting piece held the crowd’s attention for nearly a half hour, as audience members wandered through the atrium, sampling the sounds from different niches of the concourse. It was met with a standing ovation and raucous cheering as the evening came to end, the reborn vertical village of Crosstown still resonating with its own history.
He may be one of the best kept secrets of the local blues scene, though he’s won some national recognition in the music press and made an appearance on Beale Street Caravan. It’s just that Willie Farmer doesn’t get to Memphis much. Of course, he had to come here to record his 2019 album, The Man From the Hill (Big Legal Mess), at Bruce Watson’s Delta-Sonic Sound, which made the Memphis Flyer‘s best-of list that year. But he’s too busy working as a mechanic in Mississippi to make regular trips here. That’s why the show at The Green Room at Crosstown Concourse this Thursday, June 15th, is a rare opportunity to see him live.
It was with good reason that The Man From the Hill was named one of 2019’s best LPs. As the Flyer noted at the time:
The first epiphany comes from the guitar tone. Farmer’s amp exudes a wonderful crud, a dirty squawk that seems to boil up out of the ground itself, like crude. After a few volleys on the strings to clear the air and put your mind in the zone, George Sluppick’s rock-solid drumming kicks in and we’re off, journeying through an album marked by the pitch-perfect, no-nonsense production we’ve come to expect from Big Legal Mess.
People talk about garage rock a lot (too much?) these days, but this is true garage blues. That’s not to suggest it’s especially frenetic. Rather, from the tone alone, you can feel in your bones the scene of Farmer’s auto repair shop in Duck Hill, Mississippi. And Farmer’s playing also conveys both the rough hewn strength and the sensitivity one develops from growing up on a farm.
It’s a style not often heard in these days of pop-crossover blues, made all the more powerful by Farmer’s soulful voice.
Opening the show will be two artists who’ve proven to be worthy acolytes of the blues. Shaun Marsh, a U.K. native, has mastered the finger-picking style of country and Delta blues from recordings of the forms’ early pioneers. It was that music that brought him to Memphis, where he continues to study these historical styles, with a repertoire ranging from Robert Johnson to Charley Patton, from Skip James to Big Bill Broonzy. He’ll have drummer Lynn Greer on Thursday, giving his set extra oomph.
In the night’s middle slot will be Ryan Lee Crosby from Medford, Massachusetts, who’s been turning heads for years with his blend of traditional music from Mississippi, Mali, and India, including what he calls “Hindustani slide guitar.”
As Mike Greenblatt writes in Goldmine magazine, “With a riveting singing style and the compositional chops to pull off such searing sagas ‘Institution Blues’ and ‘Down So Long’ plus add new lyrics to the 19th century ‘Was It The Devil,’ Ryan Lee is the real deal. Recorded in Memphis by Bruce Watson of Fat Possum — the label famous for RL Burnside and Junior Kimbrough — it sounds unique, proudly independent and like a relic from another time.”
Fans of Big Star and the band’s two chief songwriters, Chris Bell and Alex Chilton, are no strangers to Chris Stamey. Of course, as a solo artist, co-founder of the dB’s, member of the Golden Palominos, and producer of artists ranging from Alejandro Escovedo to Le Tigre, Stamey’s career has gone far beyond Memphis. But his involvement with those two key Memphians predated those subsequent accomplishments. After the North Carolina native graduated from New York University in the mid-’70s, he became immersed in the New York scene. By 1977, he’d founded Car Records, which released Chris Bell’s “I Am the Cosmos” single a year later.
This was also a time when Chilton was testing the waters in New York, and he was a fixture at Stamey’s apartment in 1977. Both frequented CBGB’s and took in the wildly innovative music percolating there. Ultimately, Chilton would produce a single by Stamey, “The Summer Sun” b/w “Where the Fun Is,” for Ork Records. And, when Chilton began playing gigs in the city as Alex Chilton and the Cossacks, Stamey played bass.
By then, Chilton had already recorded “She Might Look My Way,” written with Tommy Hoehn, but when there was an opportunity to submit demos to Elektra Records, he and Stamey included a new recording of the song in the batch (using Patti Smith’s drummer at the time, Jay Dee Daugherty, according to Holly George-Warren’s Chilton bio, A Man Called Destruction). Those demos still have not seen the light of day.
Fast forward to nearly a half-century later, and Stamey’s still tight with Big Star, having become the de facto musical director of the Big Star’s Third tribute concerts since they began after Chilton’s death in 2010. Memphis heard the latest core quintet of that project last December at Crosstown Theater, with Stamey’s singing in the group coming the closest to the subtly sardonic delivery of Chilton on the original recordings, even while avoiding any mimicry. When it comes to the delicate balance of personalities that made Big Star tick, Stamey gets it.
It’s quite in keeping with history, then, that Stamey should revisit “She Might Look My Way” now, still remembered fondly by Stamey from his late ’70s time with Chilton. This time around, it features two world-class fellow producers: Mitch Easter (Let’s Active front man and R.E.M. producer) on drums and Terry Manning (Ardent Studios’ producer/engineer/guitarist who worked with the Staples Singers, Led Zeppelin, and ZZ Top) on bass, guitar embellishments, Mellotron flutes, and harmonies.
The audio track and video go hand in hand with Stamey’s newest album, The Great Escape, the first release in decades on his seminal indie label Car Records.
Signage celebrating Tina Turner on Summer Avenue (Credit: Alex Greene)
Social media lit up yesterday when news of Tina Turner’s death was announced, especially in this city, with which the singer had a specially affinity. Her passing made for many moving testimonials to the power of her music and the personal depths it plumbed in her fans’ hearts. And with so few details given, what could one do but look back at her place in history? As the New York Times reported, the R&B and pop superstar “died on Wednesday at her home in Küsnacht, Switzerland, near Zurich. She was 83. Her publicist Bernard Doherty announced the death in a statement but did not provide the cause. She had a stroke in recent years and was known to be struggling with a kidney disease and other illnesses.”
The Memphis Flyer recently had an opportunity to hear some of that history straight from Turner herself, when she responded to questions on the occasion of the Memphis premiere of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical earlier this year. The show, written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Katori Hall, portrays Turner’s life with unprecedented veracity, and the premiere offered the singer a chance to look back at some of her less well-known ties to Memphis — and Clarksdale, Mississippi native Raymond Hill, with whom she had her first child. The Flyer, having already delved into Hill’s importance in the local R&B and blues scene, turned out to be a perfect vehicle for conveying the singer’s thoughts about this region. Below, in loving memory of the soulful firebrand who shook the music industry to its roots, we reprint our full email interview with Tina Turner from this February.
Memphis Flyer:Growing up in Nutbush, Tennessee, what did Memphis represent to you? Were you aware of the radio and records coming out of Memphis at the time?
Tina Turner: Memphis seemed another world away when I was growing up in Nutbush. Our town was so small and the access to the records coming out of Memphis was just from the radio. My life in Nutbush was very focused on my family, and the church and I suppose that was the music that I remember and how I started to sing. It wasn’t until I moved to St Louis that I started to be more aware of the Memphis music through the local R&B scene.
In the song “Rocket 88,” Jackie Brentson yells “Blow your horn, Raymond!” Ethnomusicologist David Evans has called Raymond Hill “an unsung hero of Black music.” Was this a significant relationship in your life? How do you feel about seeing that romance portrayed in the musical’s plot?
My relationship with Raymond was a very significant relationship in my life especially because of my son Craig. Raymond and I met when I was very young, and I had just started working with Ike when our romance began. Raymond had so many years of experience and I feel calling him an unsung hero of Black music is very true. I was very happy that the relationship has found its moment in the musical.
Was the fact that Katori Hall is from Tennessee important to you? Did you feel she could better relate to your upbringing because of that? How did that play out in specific scenes from the musical?
From the minute I met Katori I felt she was the right person to tell this story. We talked so much about growing up in Tennessee and our families’ experiences. Katori understood immediately what it took for me to get to where I did, given where I started. The odds I had to overcome time and again.
Some great Memphis soul songs are featured in the musical, from “I Can’t Stand the Rain” to “Let’s Stay Together.” Has the Memphis sound spoken to you over the years, and does the premiere of Tina: The Musical in Memphis take on extra meaning because of it?
So many forms of music have their roots in Memphis, and my life and career has circled the city so many times. To bring my show to Memphis has huge meaning to me. If you had told me all those years ago as a small child picking cotton in Nutbush that this would happen … I definitely wouldn’t have believed you, and thought you were telling me a fairytale! It does feel almost like a full circle, to be returning home and to be able to tell my story in such an amazing way; through performance including all my music. How special and how lucky am I. I feel very blessed that I have this opportunity
What is the most powerful moment of the musical for you? Did it lead to any epiphanies about your life, to see it portrayed that way?
Before Tina: The Musical opened in London, my producer Tali [Tali Pelman, the musical’s producer] snuck me into a preview performance. I sat on an aisle, watching the show, and no one ever knew I was there. Later in my hotel room, I turned to Tali and told her that they found the love. That I wished my mother and Ike would have been able to see the show. I remember she teared up. In this way I do feel the musical, though it brought up many painful memories again, also helped me gain acceptance and harmony of the highs and the lows.
The absence of Shawn Cripps and his band, Limes (aka The Limes), on the local scene is still difficult to process for many. His death in a highway accident at the age of 55 in 2021 was so sudden as to seem surreal, especially because his art — in the form of three celebrated albums and even more unreleased material — lives on so vividly. As reported in 2019, The Limes’ “mesh of crunchy guitar tones, sharp rock rhythms, and Cripps’ acerbic lyrics” occupied a niche all their own in the local scene.
This weekend, as part of the ongoing River Series at the Harbor Town Amphitheater, a group of his friends and fellow musicians will offer some closure as they honor Cripps’ unique, unflinching talent. They’ll be opening for headliners Spider Bags, who were also friends and fans of Cripps.
I spoke with Chris Owen, who helped organize the ad hoc group known simply as “Limes Tribute,” about the challenges of recreating the sound of The Limes, the way Cripps’ songs captured the imaginations of die hard fans, and how those songs inspired them to form groups of their own.
Memphis Flyer:Who will be playing in Limes Tribute? Were they all in The Limes at some point?
Chris Owen: Yeah, the core is me and Jack [Oblivian], who played with Shawn a lot, and Tim Prudhomme, who played with Shawn a few times. And then the Spider Bags guys — we went on tour with them twice. There were a few bands that idolized Shawn for whatever reason. He was kind of an enigma, in the sense that he was just a normal person sitting at the bar, like many of us here in Memphis, and then you go out on tour with them and inevitably at every show some crazy fan would come up who just worshiped him. It was an era when it was really cool to know a band that no one else knew, when I was playing with him, which was around 2008-10. Because Shawn was my friend, he was just another musician. But once we got on that first tour, it was like, ‘Oh, this guy is very well liked!’ So it was always fun to meet people that were just obsessed with his music. Dan [McGee] from Spider Bags was one of those people, and so we ended up going on tour with them.
I guess the bands and artists who dug him so much are real songwriters’ bands. Was it his unique lyrical approach that they dug most about him?
I think the inclinations of a songwriter would certainly guide you to Shawn’s music, but also I think his guitar playing was so strange that people had a hard time figuring it out sometimes. I know for a fact that everybody that’s ever played with him was constantly trying to figure out what the hell he was doing. And I don’t think anybody ever did. Playing with Shawn was very seat of your pants. Sometimes it would be a disaster and other times it would be euphoric. He would use standard tuning but he he stayed in this G chord kind of thing — I think most of his songs are in G, but he could make a G chord sound 10,000 different ways.
Did he lead The Limes through their arrangements?
Well, his picking style was really strange. He didn’t have any training. It was all just him sitting in his apartment with a guitar and singing all the time, and it created this very unique sound. The songs are built off of the nuances that those of us that have played with him could hear, enough of to sort of form an arrangement around them. He had no idea that that was even there. Like he couldn’t say, ‘Oh, yeah, it goes like this.’ It would just be something that came out of the garden of his music, and we all just tried to pick those things out. Make sense? Some of the more unique arrangements are just things that Jack and Harlan [T. Bobo] picked out of Shawn’s craziness and said, ‘Okay, well, you’re doing this here. Let’s make that a part of the song, let’s make that a theme.’ I don’t know what you’d call that but he was like a genius who doesn’t know they’re a genius.
The Limes at Gonerfest 16 in 2019. L-R, Shawn Cripps, Chris Owen, Jack Oblivian, and Seth Moody. (Credit: Alex Greene)
What was your time in The Limes like?
I got to know the most of those guys, Jack and Harlan and everybody, and started hanging around, and at some point Shawn asked me to play drums. I was like, ‘Dude, I’m not a drummer.’ And he was like, ‘I know, that’s why I want you to play drums.’ Finally he convinced me and I went on three tours. So that that line up was me and this girl Stephanie Richards. She was part of the co-op scene and played bass with us. She was very melodic and complex, and she had an innate ability to key in on what Shawn was doing. She passed away about seven or eight years ago, from gastrointestinal cancer. She died super young too; it was really sad.
So we went on three tours with that line up: west coast, east coast, and then a little southern/southwest tour. And we recorded probably three records that no one has ever heard. Shawn probably recorded 20 albums and only three of them have ever been put out. We did some stuff with Doug Easley, and he’s got a reel somewhere in his collection. We actually mixed it and everything and Shawn just never did anything with it. He was was never finished with anything. You know, it was always, ‘Oh, I’ve got a little bit more work to do on that,’ and then years would go by and nothing would ever come of it. He was so prolific, but had a hard time getting it out there, you know?
Will you be playing any of that unreleased material on Saturday?
Yeah, I’m going to play a song called “Hey Killer” that was part of that period of his writing. Eventually there’s potentially going to be a collection of his unreleased stuff. They located all the reels and his notebooks and everything.
He tended to record to tape, didn’t he?
He was recording on reel-to-reel tape machines he had in those later years. He had a fascination with those things. And one of his frustrations was that could never find somebody to work on them. So he just started tearing them apart and putting them back together again, and ended up being able to fix a lot of the old stuff that he was buying. He got them working and so he did a lot of recording on old ’70s-era, reel to reel machines.
It must be difficult, putting together a set without him.
We’re going to try not to be trying, so as to embody Shawn’s ethos, and not be stressed about anything. It was really hard to get Shawn to do anything if he didn’t want to play music. He wasn’t like a regularly disciplined kind of guy. He’d say ‘Hey, I got a show, you know, let’s practice.’ So I guess it’s apropos for The Limes to be slapdash. It’ll be quick and dirty, for sure. We’re anticipating having a couple of acoustic jams. Just people playing songs that they like, and sort of ramping up to a full bands for a few numbers, depending on what Spider Bags want to do. And then of course, the Spider Bags are amazing.
You know, you never really think about how valuable people are to you until they’re gone. And Shawn was a perfect example of that, because we spent so much time together and that was just a normal part of life, to have him around. Now that he’s been gone for a year and a half, I’m realizing he inadvertently had a huge effect on my life. And a lot of other people’s, too. Without even trying! He could just so casually change somebody’s life. He was a magic man, for sure.
The River Series at the Harbor Town Amphitheater, featuring Limes Tribute and Spider Bags, takes place Saturday, May 20, 4-7:30 p.m., behind the Maria Montessori School. $10 for adults, $5 for children. All proceeds support the Maria Montessori School.
Sure, most Memphians have heard of the Sunset Symphony. There will likely be a big turnout for this year’s iteration of the traditional spring concert, centered on the Memphis Symphony Orchestra’s “MSO Big Band,” playing everything from swing to samba. That alone shows there’s a growing audience here that’s hungry for jazz. But not as many music fans know of that other great outdoor experience, Sunset Jazz.
Starting as a pop-up concert in 2018 in that historical downtown gem, Court Square Park, it had become an annual event by the next year at the request of Downtown Memphis, with series curator Deborah Swiney receiving a Downtown Memphis Vision Award that year.
This weekend, the annual free series is upon us once more, and there’s no better artist to champion the city’s jazz heritage than Joyce Cobb, who’ll perform with her band from 6-8 p.m., Sunday, May 14th, as the sun sinks in the west.
Those who attended the Stax Museum of American Soul Music’s Night Train gala on April 29th were treated to a performance by Cobb, and it revealed how her truly eclectic and passionate approach remains firmly rooted in jazz. Indeed, between songs she reeled off a list of the jazz greats who’ve emerged from Memphis — Jimmie Lunceford, George Coleman, Phineas Newborn, Jr., Charles Lloyd, etc. — by way of calling out the need for a Memphis Jazz Museum.
Yet despite her mastery of both the history and the artistry of jazz, she remains as stylistically diverse as ever. That’s only fitting for a singer who first came to Memphis from Nashville in the mid-seventies to record country music for Stax Records. After that fell through amid the label’s financial demise, she stayed here, becoming a Memphis institution in her own right. And she finally did get a Top 40 single, 1979’s “Dig the Gold” on Cream Records, a politically charged jam that borders on Afro-Pop, recorded at the now-legendary Shoe Productions Studio.
Joyce Cobb and band at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music’s Night Train gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)
The same venturesome spirit that led to her genre hopping in the ’70s persists today, as was well in evidence during her Night Train set. Calling out the Miles Davis classic “All Blues,” she gave us a heads up to listen to some lyrics she was adding to the typically instrumental piece. But we had to wait for that, as she proceeded to wail beautifully on the blues harp. Anyone who thought of Cobb as only a singer should certainly take note of this performance. And if you thought of her as strictly a jazz artist, listen to the lyrics that follow.
As an encore, Cobb took to the harp again, this time letting her ace band’s funky flag fly high. Expect more of this vibe, or vibes — from classic jazz to who knows what? — this coming Sunday evening at Court Square Park.
Sunset Jazz at Court Square takes place the second Sunday of each month, May through October, 6-8 p.m.Free.
May 14: Joyce Cobb June 11: Gary Topper July 9: Deborah Swiney August 13: Paul McKinney September 10: Cequita Monique October 8: Southern Comfort Band (Univ. of Memphis)
