Category: Music

If you’ve been wondering about the origin of those white-on-black, animal-shaped flyers that have been plastered on telephone polls and vacant buildings throughout the city since last December, then you’re in luck, because the culprits are coming out of the closest.

Those ubiquitous images — a turtle and a sheep, seemingly — are the guerrilla marketing tactics of Makeshift Records, a local label/collective founded by young musicians Josh Hicks and Brad Postlethwaite. The animal images are the cover art for the label’s new compilation, Makeshift #2, a 19-song collection that delivers a wonderfully diverse and idiosyncratic snapshot of the city’s musical underground.

Makeshift debuted around this time last year with a compilation called, appropriately, The First Broadcast. That record collected 17 cuts from local musicians working solo, starting with Hicks and Postlethwaite and their circle of friends and branching out from there. The idea was to provide exposure to local artists operating outside the scope of the city’s musical establishment. The non-profit label’s second collection focuses on bands rather than on individuals and presents a much broader and more representative view of the Memphis indie scene. All recordings featured on the Makeshift compilations are previously unreleased and are donated by the artists. The label is celebrating the compilation with a series of release parties, the first held last week at Shangri-La Records. The celebration continues this week with three straight nights of music — Thursday, July 5th, and Saturday, July 7th, at the Hi-Tone CafÇ, and Friday, July 6th, at the Young Avenue Deli.

The artists who stood out most on Makeshift’s first compilation — Alicja Trout, J.D. Reager, and Postlethwaite — offer standout tracks the second time around as well. Trout, whose “Waste of Breath” was the strongest track on The First Broadcast, has her hand in two of Makeshift #2‘s highlights. The Lost Sounds, which Trout fronts along with Jay Reatard, deliver the compilation’s most compelling performance with “A Foreign Play,” a slice of typically dark new-wave garage rock that is startlingly ambitious. This epic cut is a three-part, home-recorded tour de force with an ominous electronic prelude dissolving into a hard keyboard and drum middle section which opens into a finale melding almost classical group vocals and raw, pre-punk guitar locomotion in an inspired mix of sacred and profane. Trout returns two tracks later as Mouserocket, teaming with Big Ass Truck drummer Robert Barnett on “Darkest Hour,” a twisty, keyboard-driven blast of new wave that recalls her performance on the first Makeshift compilation.

Leading off Makeshift #2 is Johnny Romania, led by some-time Flyer contributor Reager. The band’s “I Fall” is a subtle, smart, and emotional example of the kind of low-key and tasteful indie-rock style that is most prevalent on the record. Most of the other bands on Makeshift #2 that are of this ilk — Palindrome, Loggia, the Passport Again, and Pleasant Orbitings — are the least well-known artists on the collection but may well represent a burgeoning indie scene divorced from the blues, country, and garage-rock roots that more typically feed the city’s rock subcultures.

Postlethwaite is captured here with his band, Snowglobe, on “It’s a Wonderful World.” Postlethwaite, an extremely talented singer-songwriter probably unknown to most in the larger Memphis music scene, finished 16th in the Flyer‘s local music poll earlier this year on the strength of rapturous support from those within his subculture. Solo and with Snowglobe, Postlethwaite produces gently psychedelic music and some of the prettiest melodies Memphis has to offer these days. Snowglobe and Liftoff, which is essentially the one-man-band project of Tim Regan, present a side of Memphis music more akin to Elephant 6 bands such as Apples in Stereo and Neutral Milk Hotel than anything else happening locally. Liftoff’s “Dreamworks” is one of the compilation’s most memorable cuts.

Other rock subgenres on Makeshift #2 come in pairs as well. Jetty Webb and the Satyrs, who once shared a 7″ single, present similar brands of atmospheric art rock. Jetty Webb offer the spacey “Caravan Passes,” and the Satyrs make an appearance with the typically droning and beautiful “Where Devils Aren’t Known.” Instrumental rock is represented by Delorean, whose “soundtrack rock” earns the title this time with “Jonny Cargo,” a theme from the recent local independent film Strange Cargo. A more active style of instrumental rock is found in the dub leanings of Reginald’s “Die By Design.” Reginald has since morphed into the Cloots, who will be playing one of this week’s release parties.

Other offerings stand alone. Lucero is probably the most high-profile band on the compilation and their offering, “Poor Heartache,” is one of their purest country efforts, making it a radical departure for Makeshift. An outtake from the recording sessions that produced the band’s recent debut album, “Poor Heartache” features the North Mississippi Allstars’ Luther Dickinson on lap steel and Jim “East Memphis Slim” Dickinson on piano. Another of the more recognizable bands on the record, American Deathray, come through with the stylish, organ-driven garage rock of “You Make Me Sick.”

But the most welcome element of Makeshift #2‘s diversity is the inclusion of hip hop into the label’s view of the Memphis indie scene. Local DJ collective Memphix work the wheels of steel on “Music or Noise,” cutting instructional-record vocal samples over a hip-hop beat. Hip-hop crew Genesis Experiment offer “Free Your Style,” a song they gave an incendiary performance of at last year’s NARAS-sponsored Urban Music Showcase.

The result of all this is a glimpse at a diverse, art-first, commerce-second underground music community. You could see this community in the flesh at Makeshift’s first release party last week at Shangri-La as Memphix spun hip-hop cuts like Nas’ “It Ain’t Hard To Tell” in between indie performances from Loggia and Reager. The Cloots and American Deathray capped an afternoon that boasted a welcoming, community-building vibe. Here’s hoping that same vibe carries over to Makeshift’s series of release parties this week, where Friday’s triple bill of Lucero, the Lost Sounds, and Snowglobe (now featuring Liftoff’s Regan), in particular, promises to be one of the most intriguing local lineups of the year.

Makeshift #2 is available at Shangri-La and Last Chance Records for $10 and can be bought at the release shows this week for $8. For more information on Makeshift, see the label’s Web site at www.makeshiftrecords.com.

You can e-mail Chris Herrington at herrington@memphisflyer.com.

Makeshift #2 Record Release Parties

Mouserocket, Pleasant Orbitings, Mito & the Aryan Race

Thursday, July 5th

The Hi-Tone CafÇ

Lucero, The Lost Sounds, Snowglobe

Friday, July 6th

Young Avenue Deli

The Cloots, Palindrome, Johnny Romania, The Passport Again

Saturday, July 7th

The Hi-Tone CafÇ

local beat

by CHRIS HERRINGTON

Beanpole were the big winners Saturday night at Newby’s in a battle of the bands sponsored by the artist development company Rockstar 2K and organized locally by radio station WMFS 92.9. This Memphis showcase was part of a national contest organized by Rockstar 2K, whose parent company, McGathy Promotions, claims credit for discovering current platinum-selling rockers Creed and 3 Doors Down, and by Refuge/MCA records, which will offer a recording contract to the winner. Bands that win local contests around the country will have their music available on the company’s Web site, rockstar2k.com, where listeners can vote for their favorites. In August, two bands will be chosen by popular vote and three more by MCA’s A&R staff to compete in a final showcase in New York. The finals are scheduled for August 25th.

Seven local bands competed at Newby’s Saturday, whittled down from 46 entries, according to WMFS’s Baker Yates. The station promoted the contest on air and through the station’s Web site as well as through local music stores. The station then convened three panels of judges, none of whom are employees of WMFS. The first panel picked 14 finalists from the 46 initial entries. The second panel picked seven of those 14 to perform at the contest, and the final judging panel chose the contest winner.

Each band performed a 20-minute set at the showcase, with Beanpole emerging as a deserving winner, delivering by far the most polished set of the night. For those unfamiliar with the band, which has been a presence on the local music scene for several years, they play pretty straightforward, mainstream rock with occasional roots flourishes. The band would compare favorably with success stories such as Matchbox Twenty and 3 Doors Down — less faux-sensitive than the former, considerably smarter than the latter. Beanpole’s set was highlighted by “Changed,“ a song currently in rotation on WMFS, and “How Much Longer,“ a rootsier number with guitarist John David Morledge taking over lead vocals. On this night, Beanpole were not only the best band to take the stage but also the band that would seem to have the best chance to win the national contest — and those two qualifications aren’t necessarily the same.

The night’s second-best set came from Crash Into June, who delivered the strong, pretty melodies that they’re known for. The band’s brand of Big Starish pop was an anomaly on a night when metal and hard rock dominated the stage and the crowd, and the band seemed a little nervous about being so out of its element. But their music still came across very well. Also making a fine showing were The Internationals, an interesting new local band who seem to be able to merge the city’s generally divided hard rock and punk camps. Sporting a sound that might remind some of prime Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, this all-male three-piece delivered the night’s most entertaining performance with their crowd-pleasing original, the lascivious “Hey Man, I’m Sorry About Your Girlfriend.“

The other four bands on the bill were metal/hard rock bands and didn’t fare quite as well. The best of the bunch was Bullet Theory, who looked quite a bit older than their metal competitors and, consequently, played a more straightforward style of metal than the other hip-hop- and industrial-influenced bands. Bullet Theory had the night’s largest fan base, most of them wearing brand-new Bullet Theory T-shirts. Logic 34 and Dead Tight Five played similarly trendy brands of pop-metal — with Logic 34 being more cohesive and more fun to watch, while Dead Tight Five had more memorable songs. Opening the show and making the least impression was Mrs. Fletcher, whose over-the-top light show and comically misplaced and overdone smoke machine obscured their music.

The alt-country movement is dead.

Also known as y’allternative and insurgent country, the genre that gave us Uncle Tupelo and the Jayhawks, among many others, has breathed its last breath. And while there’s no autopsy to perform or any evidence to gather, it seems apparent that the time of death was 1999 and the cause was pop music. That year saw the release of Wilco’s Pet Sounds-inspired Summerteeth and the Old 97’s poppy Fight Songs — strong albums by artists who had outgrown the genre that gave them their starts.

Perhaps one of the major reasons for alt-country’s success during the ’90s — and one of its constricting factors — was its emphasis on song over sound. It was a songwriter’s market, attracting many aspiring musicians to its fold and nurturing their talent for lyrics and melodies. All anyone needed was an acoustic guitar and a few capable backup musicians. The music itself was rarely ever revolutionary, but songwriters working in this genre were able to produce some stellar work while cultivating devoted fan bases.

But as the community that formed beneath the No Depression banner became increasingly insular, the warm reverence that marked the genre soon curdled into keep-it-real elitism. When bands sought to expand their sound outside alt-country, which was an inevitable trend, fans booed as often as they cheered — and never so loudly as for the Old 97’s Fight Songs. Many fans and Dallas-area journalists criticized the band for disowning its roots, but they didn’t realize that this transition had been a gradual process beginning with the band’s debut album, Hitchhike to Rhome, a jangly alt-country discovery. The follow-up, Wreck Your Life, saw that acoustic twang develop into a harder, more electric sound, while the band’s Elektra debut, Too Far to Care, was loud and angry and gloriously messy. A more radical departure, Fight Songs remains the band’s shining moment, a 12-song meditation on lost loves and lost cats that places equal emphasis on song and sound.

So in the context of this progression of twang to pop, the band’s new album, Satellite Rides (Elektra), sounds like a step back. It has more twang than Fight Songs, more pop than Too Far to Care. But it retains all the elements that have made the Old 97’s one of the most fascinating groups around. Singer-songwriter Rhett Miller remains compellingly ambiguous: He’s both the sweet-natured boy who lavishes girls with affection and the rebellious troublemaker who exudes a slightly dangerous sexuality. And the rest of the band — bassist Murry Hammond, drummer Philip Peeples, and guitarist Ken Bethea — do more than simply back him up; playing as a tight unit, they infuse the songs with personality and dynamic energy.

The album displays a unique flair and cohesion: Each song seems to have its own complementary twin or twisted doppelganger. The first single, “King of All the World,” shows Miller on top of the world, a strange place for a guy who thinks too much about how relationships inevitably sour. But by the second-to-last song, the brilliant “Book of Poems” — the equivalent to Fight Songs‘ “Busted Afternoon” in its propulsive hook progression, if not in tone — he’s having nightmares again and his book of poetry isn’t enough. One song later, he’s a nervous guy again, wishing us goodbye. Miller remains unbending in his faith in love and romance, even though he admits he’s been hurt by it many times: “I believe in love,” he sings on “Rollerskate Skinny,” “but it don’t believe in me.”

While it’s not quite as consistent as its predecessor, Satellite Rides is an ingenious album that brims with humor and heart. The sound may be a little different from the Old 97’s earlier work, but the songs remain the same: unflaggingly energetic and catchy, simultaneously funny and heartbreakingly sad.

The same is true of the Old 97’s one-time peer Joe Henry. His sound may have evolved into something completely different from alt-country, but the elements that made his early work stand out still shine on his more recent releases.

When founding member Mark Olson left No Depression giants the Jayhawks in 1997, there was a rumor that Henry would replace him. Whether the product of actual discussions between the band and the singer or just wishful thinking by many distressed fans, the collaboration never happened. And not surprisingly either: The year before, Henry had released Trampoline, an album that completely disowned his alt-country background for a more urban and experimental sound.

Such a transition would have been a career-ending risk had the album — and its successor, the near-perfect Fuse — not been as assured and revelatory as it was. Trampoline set drum loops and erstwhile Helmet leader Paige Hamilton’s scorching guitars against Henry’s sophisticated songwriting, and the more eclectic Fuse exquisitely combined jazzy neosoul crooning and dark cabaret pop.

While his new album, Scar (Mammoth), doesn’t top Fuse for cohesion and originality, it does exceed it in ambition. With an elegantly smoky atmosphere and an impressive roster of guest musicians, including jazz legend Ornette Coleman and pianist Brad Mehldau, Scar sounds at times like a concept album, especially with so many names in the song titles: “Richard Pryor Addresses a Tearful Nation” (which gets my early vote for best song title of the year), “Nico Lost a Small Buddha,” and “Edgar Bergen.”

Like its predecessor, Scar also showcases Henry’s keenly observant songwriting. The Richard Pryor song is a poetic funeral dirge that examines the comedian’s influence on American culture, his uneasy relationship with his audience, and his failing health brought on by years of drug abuse and disabling multiple sclerosis. “You watched me while I tried to fall, you can’t bear to watch me land,” Henry sings as Coleman delivers a beautifully angular saxophone solo.

But the big story on Scar is “Stop,” which was rearranged and renamed “Don’t Tell Me” by Henry’s sister-in-law Madonna for her most recent album, Music. With vocals as detached as the stiff beats that bubble beneath the melody, Madonna’s version sounds antiseptic and unconvincing next to Henry’s exotic take on the tune. He brings out the fiery sexuality in the lyrics, and the exotic percussion and Middle Eastern-sounding strings reveal strange, complex emotions.

Further widening the rift between Henry and his folksy beginnings, Scar is an accomplished album full of dark, closeted emotions that proves he still has a gift for lovelorn lyrics and sharp melodies. These are the same talents that made him successful as an alt-country artist, but in this more exotic setting, they bloom more brilliantly.

Once considered to be the saviors of alt-country, North Carolina’s Whiskeytown seemed to have all the ingredients to break through the genre barrier and garner mainstream success: a young, tortured-soul singer named Ryan Adams; a sound that wasn’t too country; and a promising deal with major label Outpost Records. But in 1999, during the round of mergers that restructured almost every aspect of the music business, Outpost dissolved and shelved Whiskeytown’s third album indefinitely. Dealing with that shattering disappointment and amid squabbles among the musicians — of whom only Adams and violinist Caitlin Cary were founding members — Whiskeytown followed its label’s lead and dissolved too, leaving that last album unreleased.

Some two years later, upstart Nashville label Lost Highway Records has made Whiskeytown’s heretofore-unheard swan song, the horribly titled Pneumonia (Lost Highway), available at last. It’s a calculated risk for the new imprint: Because the band is now defunct, the album is virtually unpromotable — no videos, no tours, no radio or television appearances.

Fortunately, Pneumonia might be good enough to overcome that handicap and secure the band’s legacy as No Depression leaders as well as to perhaps gain Lost Highway some prestige points from fans and critics. It’s easily the band’s most accomplished and accessible album to date, despite — or as a result of — the fact that Whiskeytown seemed torn between the safety of the alt-country umbrella and the excitement of experimenting with and expanding their sound.

Pneumonia‘s most outstanding and accomplished tracks are also its most bizarre and unexpected. Lolling along on Hawaiian-sounding ukulele, psychedelic flutes, and bossa nova beats, “Paper Moon” indulges in some sweetly eclectic orchestration that recalls the grandeur of old Disney soundtracks. And “What the Devil Wanted” loops a dark, muted piano theme behind Adams’ vocals, which, plaintively void of any twang, are treated to sound like a scratchy record. The result is evocative and mysterious, and the song ranks among the best the band has ever produced.

At the forefront of Pneumonia are Adams’ gravelly voice and his songwriting, both of which display a greater range of clarity and emotion to match the band’s more diverse musical backdrop. The further he and the band stray from their alt-country roots, the more dynamic and original the music is. And it’s truly a shame that a group finally on the cusp of creating something memorable disbanded before they could reap the rewards. Pneumonia is Whiskeytown’s best and most consistent collection of songs, and it hints that had they stayed together, they might have lived up to all the expectations.

Ultimately, the alt-country movement and its binding sense of community may have run out of momentum, but certain elements of the music — especially the value it placed on intelligent, meaningful songcraft — still thrive in the works of artists like the Old 97’s and Joe Henry.

In other words, alt-country is dead. Long live alt-country.

Friday, June 8th, offers a tough choice for local music fans as two of the city’s most popular bands — Big Ass Truck and The North Mississippi Allstars — make what have become increasingly rare local appearances. But tough though the choice is, the pick hit this week has to be the Truck. As reported in these pages a few weeks ago, the eclectic five-piece that has been a premier local attraction for nearly a decade is at a bit of a crossroads and their show Friday at the New Daisy Theatre promises to be the band’s last for a while. Oddly enough, Big Ass Truck will go on hiatus just as their next album, The Rug, is getting ready for release (it’s due out in late July). Accidental Mersh and Retrospect will be on hand to help send BAT out in style.

As for the Allstars, Friday’s show at the Young Avenue Deli will be the band’s first local club gig since their fabulous (and fabulously well-attended) set at the Beale Street Music Fest and their Handy Award win in May. Be on the lookout for some of the original material that’ll be featured on their sophomore album, which is due out later in the year.

A final local show this week that demands attention is Songwriters In Their Own Voice, a song swap that’ll be at the Bartlett Performing Arts Center on June 9th. Hosted by Nancy Apple, who frequently hosts similar events at Kudzu’s and the Blue Monkey, this event will see Apple joined by Keith Sykes, Teenie Hodges, Delta Joe Sanders, Duane Jarvis, and Sandy Carroll.

As for the out-of-towners, that old five-and-dimer himself, Billy Joe Shaver, will be at the Hi-Tone Café on Thursday, June 7th. Teenbeat Records’ True Love Always will be at the Map Room on Friday, June 8th, with Palindrome and Jai Alai. But the best bet might be Little Rock’s Boondogs, who will be at the Blue Monkey on Saturday, June 9th. The Boondogs won a record contract through garageband.com, a talent-search site created by Talking Head Jerry Harrison. With three vocalists a la Fleetwood Mac, the Boondogs make what they call Roots Pop For Now People, which is the Nick Lowe-inspired title of a promotional EP the band recently put out. That EP features the three original songs that won them the garageband.com deal as well as covers of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” Elvis Costello’s “Blame It On Cain,” and Suzanne Vega’s “Luka” (in Spanish). The EP captures a band in full command of its tasteful but crafty adult pop sound and only whets the appetite for the full-length to come, which was produced locally at Ardent Studios by Jim Dickinson. — Chris Herrington

Well, the saga of Last Place on Earth continues: Contrary to previous reports, the downtown punk/metal/rock club did not close at the end of May and the once-cancelled Bad Brains reunion show is on again. According to owner Chris Walker, the club will remain open through June 15th, the night of the Bad Brains show, then close for good. Negotiations by a club employee to purchase and re-open the club have apparently fallen through. Bad Brains are, of course, a seminal early-’80s D.C. hardcore band, the most important African-American hard rock band ever, and the only American punk band to do justice to the music’s reggae fetish. The original lineup has reunited under the moniker Soul Brains and will close the twisty but often vibrant tenure of Last Place on Earth with help from openers Candiria and Haste. Tickets for the show are $15; for more info call 545-0007.

The delay has been long and well-chronicled, but the Gibson Guitar Plant downtown is now at 80 percent production (producing 80 guitars a day with an eventual goal of 100) and you can go down and witness the production process yourself. In conjunction with the Rock ‘N’ Soul Museum, Gibson began giving tours of the facility during Handy Award weekend and will continue the tours Thursdays through Saturdays, with tours leaving on the hour from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tours are $10 per person and last about half an hour. The tours allow visitors to see the complete guitar-making process at the Memphis Gibson plant, which currently receives wood guitar molds from Nashville (the Memphis plant plans to open its own woodworking area in the near future, so that the plant will be self-sufficient). Every step of the process is done by hand, and you can see the guitars glued, sanded, buffed, painted, lacquered, detailed, fitted with electronics, tuned, inspected, and probably a lot more that I’ve forgotten. I took in the tour over the weekend, and it might be the most interesting quick-and-easy music tour in town this side of Sun itself. For more info call 543-0800, ext. 101.

Humorist Garrison Keillor will bring his popular public radio staple, A Prairie Home Companion, to Memphis this month. The program will be broadcasting live from The Orpheum from 5 to 7 p.m. Saturday, June 16th. Local musicians and guests featured on the broadcast will include Alvin Youngblood Hart and The Memphis Horns, who will be joined by roots-music notable Tracy Nelson. Tickets for the event range from $25 to $40 and are available through Ticketmaster (743-ARTS) or The Orpheum box office (525-3000). You can call WKNO-FM at 325-6544 for more information.

You can e-mail Chris Herrington at herrington@memphisflyer.com.

Hi Records is generally and justly thought of as the home of Willie Mitchell and Al Green, but before Hi replaced Stax as the city’s greatest soul provider it was the home of Hit Instrumentals (what the “Hi” originally stood for) in the form of two titans of the long-defunct jukebox market: Bill Black’s Combo and Ace Cannon. But now, with Hi Records Years collections from each of these two significant local acts, that side of the Hi story gets its due.

The continuation of a series that has also featured Hi soul artists Ann Peebles, Syl Johnson, and Otis Clay, these two 18-song compilations contain liner notes from music historian Colin Escort, who wrote the definitive Sun Records history, Good Rockin’ Tonight. The pieces captured on the two albums may seem pretty dated, but at their best — like the instrumentals of Booker T. and the MGs and the Markeys — these sides are a testament to the economy of the Memphis sound; Black’s and Cannon’s respective groups lay down tough, soulful grooves with no unnecessary flash.

Black was, of course, the bass player for Elvis Presley’s Sun-era group, forming his own combo after parting ways with the King. The 18 songs on this collection — which should be complete enough for most listeners — follow Black’s astoundingly successful instrumental group chronologically, from its founding to Black’s death in 1965 from a brain tumor.

Most of the cuts on The Best of Bill Black’s Combo — The Hi Records Years (Hi Records/The Right Stuff; Grade: B) charted, and the lead cuts, “Smokie Part 2” and “White Silver Sands,” both hit Top 20 pop and number one R&B. The changing lineup of Black’s combo features the formative work of some of the era’s finest regional talents, including Chips Moman, Tommy Cogbill, and Ace Cannon himself.

This collection mixes Black originals with covers of then-contemporary hits such as “Don’t Be Cruel” (Black never worked with Presley again, but that didn’t stop him from grabbing onto a good thing), “Tequila,” and Chuck Berry’s “Little Queenie.” This stuff probably sounded a lot better at the time, coming individually out of a jukebox or as background music at a crowded bar or nightclub. But all together as one document it can be a bit of a drag to listen to, so much so that the likes of “Tequila” and “Blue Tango” are refreshing purely as changes of pace.

Honestly, unless you were there and harbor some nostalgic attraction or you’re a music historian or you just blindly love any music associated with Memphis, I have a hard time seeing how these decent little R&B shuffles could hold much interest today.

Cannon’s music holds up much better. The Best of Ace Cannon — The Hi Records Years (Hi Records/The Right Stuff; Grade: B+) covers a decade in the formidable sax man’s career, starting with his hit “Tuff” in 1961 and ending with the more modern-sounding “Drunk” from 1971.

Cannon’s music didn’t chart as well as Black’s, though it was every bit as prominent on jukeboxes and sure sounds better today. The bulk of this collection consists of lean, tasteful instrumentals, with Cannon’s slow, moaning blues sax spread over a reserved rhythm section of drums, bass, guitar, and organ or piano.

As with Black’s combo, the material here balances interpretations of pop hits of the day (“Kansas City,” “Searchin’,” “Heartbreak Hotel”) with original or more obscure material, but some of Cannon’s interpretations are so reworked that the sources are almost unrecognizable, and the music is all the better for it. This is the case with Cannon’s bluesy take on Johnny Cash’s “I Walk The Line” and his jazzy rendition of Hank Williams’ “Moanin’ the Blues” (here shortened to “Moanin'”). But not all is well. Cannon’s take on “Cotton Fields” (which would be treated to a great version a few years later by Creedence Clearwater Revival) is done in an arrangement too jaunty by half and marred by some histrionic, white-bread backing vocals and misplaced handclaps. It’s an atrocity.

Cannon’s music shows tremendous growth over the course of this collection, as the late ’60s and early ’70s see him getting into straight, hard funk on “Soul For Sale,” “Drunk” (the only cut with lead vocals), and (of all things) Pete Seeger’s “If I Had a Hammer” with surprisingly credible results.

R.L. Burnside may have become a college-radio cause celebre in the mid-’90s, when hipster labels Matador and Epitaph joined Oxford’s Fat Possum in figuring out how to market old blues to young alt-rockers, but he’d been making high-quality blues records for a long time prior to that “discovery,” as two new collections attest.

Well Well Well (MC Records; Grade: B+) collects live recordings made by Burnside at five different locations from 1986 to 1993. This record adds something useful to the Burnside discography by capturing spontaneous and unguarded moments prior to Burnside’s repackaging that reflect something of the man’s personality outside of the image Fat Possum has cultivated for him. A hard, violent, and bemused take on the classic “Staggolee,” recorded at a friend’s home in New Orleans in 1986, is Burnside uncensored but detectably aware of the “badass” image he’s playing with. Even better is the extraordinary “Grazing Grass Rap,” a Richard Pryor-worthy monologue he delivers at a 1986 show in Charleston: “I was out in this yard, man. I was so hungry. I’d been hitchhiking for three or four days and I ain’t got no money in my pocket and I’m eating grass here on the front yard. This little girl, she came to the window and she looked out there and she saw me. So she looked back and told her mother. She said, ‘Mother, there’s a man out here that must just be plumb near about to starve to death, ’cause he’s eating grass.’ So [the mother] gets up, comes to the window, looks, and after she sees that I’m a black man, she says, ‘Mister, there’s better grazing in the back yard, ’cause we ain’t mowed that one.'”

Nothing else on the record can touch that, but the same intimate and relaxed mood informs the mix of Burnside originals and blues standards — Muddy Waters’ “Can’t Be Satisfied,” Lightnin’ Hopkins’ “Mojo Hand,” Howlin’ Wolf’s “How Many More Years.”

Also from Burnside is Mississippi Hill Country Blues (Fat Possum/Epitaph; Grade: B), a straight reissue of a 1985 solo record that was mostly recorded in the Netherlands. Mississippi Hill Country Blues, as a studio recording, has better sound quality than Well Well Well but isn’t quite as interesting a document. It’s probably best recommended to recent Burnside aficionados who have never heard his more traditionally acoustic, pre-Fat Possum material. This record also contains three very early Burnside cuts, recorded in Coldwater, Mississippi, in 1967: “Rolling and Tumbling,” “Mellow Peaches,” and “I Believe.”

You can e-mail Chris Herrington at herrington@mempisflyer.com.

The most promising event this week has to be the Phatidef Music Techno Rap Show, which is scheduled for Saturday, June 2nd, at the International Shell Complex (806 E. Brooks Road). Put together by local hip-hop production company Phatidef, the event promises over 20 artists — a mix of techno DJs from the mecca of electronic music, Detroit, and rappers from Memphis, though no names have been announced. The event will begin at 7 p.m. and tickets are $20. For more information see Phatidef’s Web site — www.phatidef.com.

Nashville singer-songwriter Kate Campbell has captured the people and culture of the modern South in song since her mid-’90s debut. Campbell’s latest record, Wandering Strange, is a Southern gospel album recorded at Fame Studios, the Muscle Shoals birthplace of some of the greatest soul music of the ’60s, with studio icon Spooner Oldham in tow. Campbell will perform at the Center for Southern Folklore on Saturday, June 2nd.

Accomplished post-bop pianist Mulgrew Miller, who served a stint in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in the mid-’80s, will be performing at Centenary United Methodist Church (584 East McLemore Avenue) on Saturday, June 2nd, at 7 p.m. There is no cover charge for the event, but the performance is being given to benefit the church’s summer youth camp, so don’t be stingy when the offering plate gets passed around.– Chris Herrington

Any band that can entice Buck Owens to record with them has my seal of approval. And while I was once leery of the Austin-based Derailers — their sound was too muscular and showy for my country music tastes — their 1999 release Full Western Dress turned me right around. From their duet with Owens to their gender-inverted cover of the Crystals’ “Then He Kissed Me,” I was enthralled. They found that elusive groove where classic country meets mid-century pop and penned gritty, heartfelt lyrics that would make even the great Harlan Howard proud. While their live shows are fueled by the kind of energy that can only be described as punk, these guys never lose their pure, honky-tonk sound. And though they lack the ragged sincerity of the Two Dollar Pistols, the virtuosity of BR5-49, and the plain-talking charm of Dale Watson, the Derailers rank high in the pantheon of country revivalists. I’ve recommended them a number of times in the past and recommend them again now. Any chance to scoot your boots with these guys should be taken. So get your Stetson re-creased. The Derailers hit the Hi-Tone Café on Saturday, June 2nd. — Chris Davis