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The Subteens Get Out Alive — and Then Some

It’s quite appropriate that the return of the Subteens, via their first album in 18 years, is happening just as the Indie Memphis Film Festival celebrates the ten year anniversary of Antenna, the documentary on the famed club of the same name. But that’s not because the Subteens played there — they formed the same year the fabled venue was shuttered. It’s more because that group has perfected a sound that somehow defines not only the Antenna Club but the whole bedrock ethos of Midtown Memphis rock and roll.

I call it that “Bastards of Young” sound, after the classic Replacements song: big, broad, propulsive anthems, driving riffs, and soaring solos that offer portraits from an underground community teetering between hope, exultation, rage, and despair. It’s a huge, pounding rock sound carried on by diverse bands here, from those Antenna Club godfathers, the Modifiers, to the Psychic Plowboys, to Neighborhood Texture Jam, and beyond.

A band need not sound like the Replacements to capture that sound, as the Subteens demonstrate. Rather, they have a few extra dollops of the Damned or the Ramones, with those bands’ tighter focus and lack of drunken antics. The Subteens — Mark Akin, John Bonds, and Jay Hines — have a sound all their own, and it’s welcome news that their latest release, Vol. 4: Dashed Hopes & Good Intentions (Back to the Light), presents and preserves that sound in all its glory.

The Subteens (Credit: Back to the Light Records)

“You spend your free time running away/Now the loneliness is coming to stay, but/I believe in you/Even though you won’t hear me say it,” Mark Akin sings on side one’s closer, conjuring up a whole world of friends on the fringe, and what passes for affection among us.

There is much hard-won wisdom in these songs. “If we ever get out alive I’m going to tell you how I feel,” runs the title and first line of a personal favorite from the LP. Those awkward barriers to communication recur in this song, this time because “it’s hard to believe it’s real.” There’s a sense of leaning into one’s adulthood in these songs, despite the surreal quality of life. But here, that doesn’t sound like mellow country rock ballads. It sounds like someone stomping a hubcap back on a fixed flat and rolling on, gunning a rumbling engine of indomitable riffs.

The production is spot-on, a rock band in your face, stripped of most of the effects so readily available these days. Yet the songs are arranged with great care, the occasional background and doubled vocals helping choruses punch through. Overall, the mix favors parts that jump out with a bit of drama, as when a ripping guitar solo leaps from the speakers in “If We Ever Get Out Alive.” It’s a difficult trick to pull off without irritating the mastering engineer.

And it’s yet another sign that producer J.D. Reager is guaranteeing down to earth, imaginative, rocking good times under his Back to the Light imprint. That’s all the more true because this LP is being released alongside a solo album by Reager himself, Where Wasn’t I? But that’s another story.

Both albums will be celebrated at a double record release show at the Hi Tone, featuring the Subteens, J.D. Reager, and Seize & Desist, Friday, October 14, 9 p.m. $10.

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40 Watt Moon Carries the Torch of Classic FM Pop

Imagine you’re listening to the radio as you drive through the Bluff City, when a song jumps out of your speakers, all driving guitar riffs and pounding drums, a perfect power pop epiphany, and you think, “Where did this come from? Tom Petty is no longer with us. Matthew Sweet, maybe?” But then a voice, not as sardonic or cutting as Petty’s, nor as sweet as Sweet’s, sings, “Well lately, I’ve been tryin’ to change, but I never seem to get that far/And maybe you can burn it down like another little shooting star.” This is another band altogether: Memphis’ own 40 Watt Moon.

If it seems like hyperbole to compare the group to such greats, just have a listen to the title song from 40 Watt Moon’s latest, I Hope the World Lasts for You. They’ve perfected a blend of that now-endangered genre one might call Classic FM Pop — not quite classic rock, and certainly not hair metal, but a more upbeat, propulsive flavor of power pop that thrives on driving riffs, harmonies, and wry-yet-sentimental lyrics evoking relationships past and present.

The band wears its influences on its collective sleeve, with classic Memphis self-deprecation. “Kind of like Tom Petty, but not as good,” they quip on their Bandcamp page, but that’s unfair to what they’ve accomplished here. A lot of the emotional authenticity comes from singer/guitarist Kevin Pusey’s delivery — a more hapless everyman than Petty, to be sure, but no less trenchant or pithy in his observations of everyday life and the ways people escape it.

Super low, that’s where you’ll go
Hiding secrets everyone knows
Find a pen at the back of the bar
But, these love letters won’t get you too far
Out of time, on this rocket ship
Lately I’m so tired of all this
Nothing’s real or meant to last
And it’s catchin’ up with you so fast
— “One and Lonely”

He’s backed by a band that blends driving rock and sparkling textures with a disciplined feel for arrangements. These players — drummer Vince Hood, bassist Michael Duncan, and guitarist Chip Googe (senior account executive at the Memphis Flyer) — have an almost architectural approach to arrangements, always playing at the service of the song. That’s equally true for the feelgood opener, “Everytime I Fall” (reminiscent of the Face’s classic, “Ooh La La”), the pummeling “Over You,” the lilting “Madeline,” and everything in between.

It doesn’t hurt that the pounding rhythms and shimmering guitars are given a bit of extra panache via Toby Vest’s production at High/Low Studio. Nor does guest keyboardist Rick Steff, typically heard with Lucero, hurt the overall effect, bringing pitch-perfect piano flourishes or organ pads as needed.

DJs take note: the opening scenario is not just a daydream. You need to play this album on the radio. It was meant to be blasted over the airwaves, carrying news of love and heartbreak, with ringing guitars, across the Mid-South and beyond.

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Record Reviews

Mama Honey: Grooves Dug from Raw Memphis Clay

Mama Honey, Out of Darkness

Mama Honey (a.k.a. Mama Honey. or mamahoney.) is just what the pop world needs: a Memphis power trio fronted by a funk/psych/blues groove goddess whose voice ranges from a lilt to a rock banshee wail, slinging a guitar, flanked by bass and drums, putting the world on notice. Watching them live or listening to their latest album, Out of Darkness, one can’t help thinking, “this could get very big,” so spot on are the elements the group brings together. If one of those elements is their rawness, all the better.

That may keep them from the commercializing clutches of corporate rock, and that’s for the better as well, though I wish them all the success they can muster. Regardless of all that, band leader Tamar Love already lives in her songs like a star, her voice having so evolved in strength, nuance, and confidence since the group’s 2019 debut EP, Punk Blues, as to render all other trappings of success meaningless. Hearing the sheer variety of ways she approaches her songs, from deadpan bluntness to wailing lament to soaring cries — all with a sure melodic footing — is one of the delights of this record.

Love’s playing, too, has evolved, growing hand in hand with her songwriting, as each vocal moment is clearly crafted with the riffs, fills, and solos she spins so deftly on the frets. Her breakdowns, intricate figures, and choogling grooves are well-complemented by drummer David McNinch and rock-solid bassist Fields Falcone. Both know when to leave space for Love’s intricacies and when to bear down.

The end result is an eclectic Funkadelic-meets-the-Minutemen mash up. Both classic bands were plenty eclectic in their own right; if Mama Honey is their love child, expect even more twists and turns. And while the style changes flow naturally enough, their real power is when there are dramatic shifts in a song’s mood. Given that Love is also a fine cellist, one can only imagine the fresh combinations of sounds and styles they’ll pursue in the future.

Though many of the tracks kick off with a classic blues/rock boogie riff, be sure to buckle up for sprinklings of psychedelic or prog rock, as meters and keys skip subtly here and there along the way. The end result gives one the sense that Mama Honey are rediscovering and reinventing blues rock, unmindful of the various approaches to it in the past, now seemingly dug up whole-clay from the Mississippi’s banks and sculpted into a uniquely personal creation.

As for the punk element, it’s yet another thread worked into the weave of styles, a residual anger lurking in the attitude of “Victims of America,” “You Don’t Own Me” (not, incidentally, a cover of Leslie Gore’s chestnut), and others. To be clear, though the group’s debut EP was titled Punk Blues, it did not feature a song by that name. As if picking up where they left off, the lead track of Out of Darkness now bears that title. And yet the song is more subtle than the blunt title might suggest, seemingly a wail of frustration at what society deems worthy or not worthy of discussion. Such a wail is a closer cousin to Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground” than, say, “Clash City Rockers.” Then again, who says there wasn’t something punk about “Higher Ground”?

Mama Honey will present and discuss their new album, Out of Darkness, this Saturday, July 23, at the Memphis Listening Lab, at 6:30 p.m.

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Memphis-Based Wraysong Records Releases Hyle King Movement Albums

The cover art for the HKM collection, art by Jeff Wack (Courtesy Wraysong Records)

It all started in 1967 when Mac Davis was managing Metric Music in Hollywood California. Davis put Memphis-based duo Hial Bancroft King and Ray Chafin together to collaborate on a music project. Liberty Records wanted something to follow an Elton John and Bernie Taupin album. Both members sing and play multiple instruments, but King was something of a musical virtuoso (and an avid experimenter, especially with synthesizer music and sound effects) and Chafin had a deft touch with lyrics and conceptual form.

Thus the Hyle King Movement was born. Unfortunately, the group was short-lived. Metric Music balked at the more experimental song composition, and the group’s demos were shelved. 

For a time, that put a pin in the group’s musical endeavors — at least together. King wrote symphonies and conducted orchestras, played concerts, and was endorsed by many legendary conductors. He worked with Leon Russell, Lou Rawls, Jackie DeShannon, and Brian Wilson, among a cadre of charting artists. Chafin went on to record two of the duo’s songs on Bob Marcucci’s Chancellor Records and appeared on American Bandstand with Dick Clark.

Now, after a 30-year hiatus, Hyle King Movement’s two-volume collection has been remastered and released on Wraysong Records. I spoke with Ray Chafin about (with input from Hial Bancroft King) about the journey to get these songs out in the world.

Memphis Flyer: The synth-driven sound wasn’t what I expected based on looking at the cover. Can you tell me a little about how you crafted the sound for the album. 

Ray Chafin: All the songs on the album were recorded on multi-tracks with Hial playing all the instrument parts on multiple sessions of overdubbing. The synthesizer was the main instrument for both sound and effects. He also sang all the parts in the extensive vocal backup, along with Grammy winning artist Darlene Koldenhoven. Each song was recorded at different times over several years, in Hial’s state-of-the-art King’s Studio. 

The album is quite atmospheric. Can you talk a little about the decision to include sound effects in the music? 

We, as songwriters, believe songs should be felt as well as listened to, visualized as well as heard, and sound effects add that touch of being there, witnessing, and experiencing what the words describe. 

Would you talk a little bit about your musical influences? 

Hial was raised in Hollywood during those years of classic filmmaking. His award-winning grandfather, actor George Bancroft, set the environment for Hial to become the child prodigy he was, and the extraordinary musician he is today. I, on the other hand, was born and raised on a farm in West Virginia, with country music and bluegrass festivals as my major influence. I didn’t play an instrument until my late teens. 

At least in “Silvery Dawn” it seems that science-fiction is one influence. Is that true? 

Absolutely! What was considered fiction 50 years ago is finally becoming reality today. This song stems from the prediction of coming events that are not clearly explained. However, in making the video I considered it science-reality. Having witnessed a UFO encounter with my mother in I952, I gained great respect for the notion that we are not alone in this vast universe.

Again talking about “Silvery Dawn” but it seems faith plays an important part in the lyrical composition. Would you talk about that? 

As a child we were taught about the coming rapture, Hial explained it as a childhood fear that became this visionary dream with biblical origins. Rapture, they say, or an ethereal garden, perhaps.

“Cozy Little Corner” seems to have more of a lounge feel. Do you enjoy experimenting with different genres? 

Certainly. We both love to tread outside the musical boundaries of the norm. Hial is the “king” of versatility, as shown in his work. He can do it all!

Is there anything else you would like to add? 

It has been said, “The chase is more enjoyable than the catch,” and in our case it rings true. We had the good fortune to create songs, play music, and share special times with some pretty amazing people.

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Music Record Reviews

Gay Prudes: The Sissy Dicks Laugh All the Way Through Pride Month

Gay Prude by The Sissy Dicks

Even as New York City prepares for the mother of all pride marches this coming Sunday, June 26th, we Memphians are still savoring memories of our own Mid-South Pride Festival on June 4. One eye-catching, prize-winning float in the parade that day was sponsored by Goner Records and was manned by those new musical comedic sensations, The Sissy Dicks.

Actually, they’re not that new, but don’t let that diminish their pride or yours. Memphis Flyer readers may know them from Andria Lisle’s profile in their earliest days, when they were known as the Dixie Dicks. Now re-branded, presumably for more international appeal, The Sissy Dicks soldier on with a new EP released at the top of the month, Gay Prude.

From their band name to the album title, The Sissy Dicks are designed to turn heads, but don’t let that distract you from the fact that they really do make good music. Their hearts are clearly in the country camp, and proof of their earnestness is made plain in the simple fact of their harmonies. Harmony singing is a dying art in some genres, but not in the realm of The Sissy Dicks.

The Sissy DIcks (Photo by Micah Winter)

It helps that drumming duties are handled by Charlotte Watson, best known for her work with Nots and Hash Redactor. She’s now been welcomed aboard as a full-fledged member, and, as always, her drumming is powerful and expressive. Indeed, the driving Go-Go’s rhythm of opening track “Circle Jerk” is key to the spirit of fun it conjures. In less than a minute and a half, it’s come and gone, but it certainly clues listeners in to what’s in store.

Some of the bawdy fun is actually based on the group’s own songwriting, but there’s also plenty of Weird Al Yankovic-type fun when the group takes on old bar band warhorses like “Wagon Wheel” (transformed into “Fuck Me Daddy,” a heartwarming tale of two men “out back behind the dumpster in the parking lot”), or “Learning to Fly” (here redone as “Learning to Top”). No matter what your sexual preference, there’s something satisfying in hearing overplayed radio hits transformed into something so deeply radio-unfriendly.

To be fair, they do credit the Old Crow Medicine Show and Tom Petty as the songwriters for the above tracks, and they carry them off musically with aplomb. As Lisle wrote in 2018, “Their musicianship, which harks back to the folksy, bluegrass style re-popularized with the release of 2000’s O Brother, Where Art Thou?, is top-notch.” And with Gay Prude, it’s better performed and recorded than any of their previous efforts.

This is partly because Watson is not the only finely-trained ear in the group, which is built around the trio of guitarist Brandon Pugh, percussionist Joel Parsons, and banjo player Brandon Ticer (who plays keyboards for the New York-based rock band Wheatus). The music goes down easy, thanks to their focused playing and well-blended vocals. And their straight delivery makes everything that much funnier.

And so, even as many plan for Pride Night on Tuesday, June 28th, at AutoZone Park, before moving on to the other cis-dominated 11 months of the year, Gay Prude will remain long after June is behind us, always ready keep the gaiety in “gay” with a laugh and a naughty wink.

Watch The Sissy Dicks on the Goner TV Pride Special, Friday, July 1, 8 p.m., at www.gonertv.com.

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Rob Jungklas Wanders Beulah Land with Rebel Souls

An ill-informed music fan might mistake Rebel Souls, the latest album from Rob Jungklas, as a slice of Americana. And with titles like “Southern Cross the Dog,” “Beulah Land,” and “Down to the River,” who could blame them? Other details — the cover art by Brooke Barnett, suggesting a black-and-red rose wood print, or the presence of the Sacred Harp Singers of Cork, Ireland, on two tracks — only seem to confirm its Americana provenance.

But examine both the songs and the cover image a bit more closely, and something altogether more intriguing appears.

On closer inspection, that darkly sensuous rose is actually a kind of landscape, a hallway or tunnel ending in some sort of mandala, framed by broken chains. And the lead track’s title, “Ruination,” offers another hint. Open the book of lyrics that accompanies the CD, and you’ll see the full title is “The Body’s Ruination is the Soul’s Release.” The music isn’t the typical folk gospel that might accompany that line, but the modern drone of a synthesizer, leading a minor key dirge as Jungklas sings with an eerie desperation.

In “Beulah Land,” Jungklas “sees Death walking like a man” — a familiar figure in the universe of Rebel Souls. If the phrase carries echoes of ageless blue songs, that’s appropriate. The blues as an idea permeates the album, though the music itself is barely hinted at. Muddy Waters and Furry Lewis appear in different songs, and moreover, the specters of death and loss hover over nearly every word. “Love is the religion,” he sings in “Ruination,” “but Death is the deity.”

Make no mistake, love is present in this world, as crafted by Jungklas in deft literary touches. It’s just that it’s hard-won, coming only after one faces the costs of survival in a brutal land. “I paid in blood for all I have,” Jungklas sings. By the album’s end, one gets a sense of what his rewards might be, as the music turns to major-key hopefulness, albeit cautiously, in “Down to the River.”

The moon rose over Midtown
With a sweet narcotic pull
Shining down on the bleeding and the beautiful
Shining down on all the noble savages
And all the ragged saints
Those of us who are redeemed
And those of us who ain’t

The album’s atmosphere of creeping twilight owes much to the subtle arrangements, blending expertly crafted synthesizer textures with the sound of an organic band. Indeed, some tracks were even recorded live at The Green Room at Crosstown Arts by the inimitable Kevin Houston, who co-produced the album with Jungklas. Other tracks and overdubs were then recorded and mixed by Houston at Nesbit Recording Services. And the contributing musicians — including strings by Jonathan Kirkscey, Jana Meisner, and Krista Lynne Wroten, bass by Sam Shoup, guitar by Dave Smith, and percussion by Shawn Zorn — lend a human warmth to the dark proceedings.

Some music has the distinct ability to immerse you in a landscape, be it a mansion on a hill or the rains down in Africa. The latest from Jungklas has that quality, centered on Memphis, with a vision of the American South laced with dread and foreboding, and perhaps a shred of hope.

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Black & Wyatt Goes Global in New Comp

It bodes well for Black & Wyatt Records that their catalog has already been anthologized. And hearing the label’s finest moments gathered together in one place casts their releases in a new, impressive light, as Always Memphis Rock & Roll, a new collection of the label’s best and brightest tracks, reveals.

Part of the revelation in hearing this new compilation, out now on both Black & Wyatt and Dresden’s Head Perfume Records, is realizing that the label can no longer be considered a “newcomer.” It’s an established voice of Memphis that’s recognized globally. Five years have passed since the Memphis Flyer’s Chris McCoy first profiled the two Memphis doctors who launched the label out of a sheer love of gritty rock-and-roll. And yet the historical sweep of the compilation goes far beyond that half-decade, as Head Perfume’s website proudly announces tracks spanning “1956-2019!”

And that’s technically true, with the lead cut being none other than Black & Wyatt’s archival release of two takes of “Steady Girl” by the Heathens, a teen band who recorded at Sam Phillips’ Memphis Recording Service in 1956 but didn’t make it onto wax at the time. Fittingly, Side B opens with Mario Monterosso’s reimagining of “Steady Girl,” also recorded in the very studio that Sam Phillips designed, 63 years later.

Those bookends are a good indication that Black & Wyatt’s heart is in the right place, a place of bacon grease and mud clods and the buzz of old amps. Indeed, hearing these cuts jump from one artist to another, one hears certain common denominators: great guitar sounds, with many varieties of crunch delivered, track by track; punchy songwriting that’s willing to dwell on the dramatic edge, from Turnstyles’ “Cut You Off” or Jack Oblivian & the Sheiks’ “Fast Friends” to Fingers Like Saturn’s “Candy’s Dead” or Tyler Keith’s “Born Again Virgin”; and a glorious preponderance of driving drums and bass. One notable exception? Ironically, a demo recorded by Jack Oblivian & the Dream Killers way back in 2000, the tough-yet-wistful “Loose Diamonds,” which sports only the sparest of snare-hits.

Better yet, for those working on their own Black & Wyatt collection at home, each track opens a potential rabbit hole, as it sends you to the albums from which these tracks are sourced. Such was the case on hearing Toy Trucks’ “Schoolbus,” which led me to marvel at that group’s Rockets Bells and Poetry LP, a power pop diamond in the rough. With Always Memphis Rock & Roll, one can discover such gems all over again.

Always Memphis Rock & Roll will be featured tonight, Friday, May 20, in Memphis Listening Lab’s SoundRoom. Albums will be available; music starts at 6:30 p.m.

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Obruni Dance Band Brings Ghana to Memphis

The Obruni Dance Band (Credit: Misti Rae Holton)

“World boogie is coming,” the late Jim Dickinson often quipped, and it’s usually taken to mean that the rhythms and sounds of the South will one day become universally embraced around the globe. But sometimes the rhythmic currents flow in the other direction, as Africa, the mother lode of the groove, resonates with those who have already been steeped in American blues, jazz, and funk, and they go straight to the source.

Such a dynamic informed the musical journey of Adam Holton many years ago, as he absorbed the music of Ghana while studying at the University of Colorado. The Memphis Flyer detailed his journey with the Obruni Dance Band some four years ago, and since that time his journey has continued apace. Now his group, dedicated to the sounds of Ghanaian highlife music, has released an intriguing new EP, Highlife in Memphis.

Put in perspective, it’s a minor miracle that these Memphians have so mastered the rhythms and feel of highlife. Having been a fan of the genre since the ’90s, I know highlife when I hear it, and this is it. The loping, infectious beat, colored by cascading guitar ostinatos, with keyboard jabs added for punctuation, is a musical world unto itself, and this band inhabits that world effortlessly.

Perhaps more importantly, Holton makes the sound his own, with a handful of originals done in classic highlife style that nonetheless flow organically from this white bass player from Memphis. It works largely because Holton delivers the songs in a plainspoken, unaffected voice, free of mimicry or theatrics.

That perfectly suits the subject matter, which, in keeping with the tradition’s classic songs, dwell earnestly on the simple pleasures or frustrations of life. “Flat Roof” is paradoxically joyful plaint about a leak in a rainstorm; “Oh Awurade” can be translated as “Oh Lord,” and is both an exclamation and an earnest prayer; “My Buddy” is a lovely ode to the bond between father and child; and “Lonely,” which ventures into a more Fela Aníkúlápó Kuti-inspried Afrobeat/funk style, dwells darkly on “talking to ourselves in an unaccepting tone.”

As with Ghanaian highlife, the key to Memphis highlife songs is simple, heartfelt expression paired with the complex rhythms of the music. Take these lyrics by Daddy Lumba in the Twi language, translated by a blogger in Ghana:
Ɔdɔ abɔ n’ani akyerɛ me – My love has winked at me
Ɔte biribi ara ase – She understands something
Ɔsere kakra kyerɛ me – She smiles a little at me
Dada, woama ma nane – She makes me melt

Holton echoes these uncomplicated sentiments with “My Buddy”:
Whatever you are
You will be adored
Wherever you go
You will take my love

The real clincher is the strength of the flowing, unhurried melodies, as they unwind over the jumping, rolling rhythms of Ghana. And the band, comprising some of this city’s A-list players (Holton on bass and vocals, Logan Hanna on guitar, Felix Hernandez on congas, Robinson Bridgeforth on drums, Tim Stanek on keyboard, Victor Sawyer on trombone, and Hope Clayburn on saxophone) plays with a looseness and precision that befits the music’s importance in West Africa.

It’s an unexpected perk that Memphis, now celebrating the country of Ghana in this year’s Memphis in May festivities, just happens to have an ace highlife band living here. That happenstance will come to its full flowering this Saturday, May 7, at the Museum of Science & History (MoSH), when the Obruni Dance Band plays the Taste of Ghana event from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.  

In collaboration with the Ghanaian Association of Memphis, MoSH will celebrate the history and culture of Ghana with an evening of Ghanaian music, food, shopping, and more. Guests can sample authentic small plates and soups while they enjoy the rhythms of the Obruni Dance Band, as well as hear and share personal stories from the local Ghanaian community.

It’s all part of the new Isaac Hayes: Black Moses Gives Back exhibit at MoSH, a colorful exhibit that introduces a side of Hayes that many may not be familiar with. Hayes was known for his interest in Black pride and Afrocentrism, often sporting African clothing and doing philanthropic work in Ghana. Indeed, he was made an honorary king of the Ada region of Ghana for his work there.

The celebration of Ghana by the Memphis in May International Festival is a perfect time to explore this unlikely and moving example of cultural transformation. Lest anyone condemn it as mere appropriation, take note of the music: it’s from the heart.


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Son House Unearthed: First Release of 1964 Recordings

Forever On My Mind, by Son House. (Credit: Easy Eye Sound)

Monday, March 21 will mark the 120th year since the birth of Edward James “Son” House Jr. in Lyon, Mississippi, just north of Clarksdale. And just in time to celebrate one of the most stirring voices in blues history, today witnesses the release an album of previously unheard recordings by House on Easy Eye Sound, Forever On My Mind.

The bluesman’s distinctive vocals, paired with guitar licks that feel like he clawed them out of the earth itself, won House much acclaim during the blues Renaissance of the 1960s, when many artists were brought out of obscurity. After Folkways Records re-released House’s original 1930s tracks on Blues from the Mississippi Delta in 1963, Columbia Records made new studio recordings for its 1965 album, Father of Folk Blues, and House’s profile grew exponentially. He was even featured on the cover of Newsweek at the time.

But Forever On My Mind represents the time in between those two records, when Son House was rediscovering himself. In 1964, blues enthusiasts Dick Waterman, Nick Perls, and Phil Spiro tracked House down in Rochester, New York, but the then 62-year-old musician had not performed for decades. Yet he was persuaded, under Waterman’s management, to undertake a series of performances at folk music festivals and college campuses around the country that year.

After one such performance at Indiana’s Wabash College was recorded, the tapes were given to Waterman, and he sat on them for decades before Easy Eye Sound acquired them (along with many other tapes from Waterman’s collection). Now, released on the new album, they are a revelation.

Notably, the recordings transcend the limitations of most live performances on tape, being devoid of crowd noise, banter or other distractions. They sound as intimate as studio recordings, yet with a rawness and spontaneity that outshine the Columbia sessions of five months later.

If you’ve thrilled at the rugged descending bass figures of House’s “Empire State Express” from the Columbia album, listen to the version here for a rendition even more gutsy, as the guitarist’s hands seem to pull the notes from stone, his voice testifying with spiritual fervor.

The same could be said for nearly all these tracks, even if other versions have been known for years. Five of the eight songs heard on Forever on My Mind were represented in other forms on House’s Columbia LP. Another two songs, his versions of Charley Patton’s “Pony Blues” and the gospel blues standard “Motherless Children,” were recorded by the label but went unreleased until 1992.

The eighth number heard on the Easy Eye Sound release, the titular “Forever on My Mind,” was never attempted in a recording studio, though there is film footage of him playing it at the 1966 Newport Folk Festival. The version heard on the new album borrows from Willie Brown’s classic “Future Blues” and House’s own “Louise McGhee,” true to the improvisatory Delta blues tradition.

Son House, ca. 1964. (Photo courtesy Easy Eye Sound)

All in all, the album reflects a sharp musical focus that diminished in House’s later concert appearances and recordings. Waterman notes in a press release that “as [Son House] toured in ’65 and ’66 and ’67, he developed stories — they were self-deprecating stories, with humor and things like that. So, he became sort of an entertainer. But these first shows in ’64 were the plain, naked, raw Son House. This was just the man and his performance. He didn’t have any stories or anything to go with it.”

For Easy Eye Sound founder Dan Auerbach (of the Black Keys), this release has a personal dimension. “Easy Eye Sound makes blues records,” he notes, “and not many people make blues records anymore. This record continues where we started off, with our artists Leo Bud Welch and Jimmy ‘Duck’ Holmes and Robert Finley. It also is part of my history — some of the first blues music I heard was Son House. I was raised on his Columbia LP, Father of Folk Blues. My dad had that album and would play it in the house when I was a kid, so I know all those songs by heart.”

Hearing Waterman’s tapes for the first time, Auerbach was galvanized. “He sounds like he’s in a trance, and his singing is so nuanced here. He’s very playful with his phrasing, just right on the money with his singing and playing. It sounds so right to me — top form Son House.”

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Autumn Almanac: Paul Taylor’s Old Forest LP

The Old Forest Trail, half of this year's double-EP release by New Memphis Colorways

With the Memphis Zoo now backpedaling on their ostensible commitment to avoid using the Overton Park Greensward as a parking lot, everything old is new again, and that includes a renewed appreciation of Overton Park by we, the people. How timely, then, to revisit some music inspired by that great green space. In this case, it’s two EPs by Memphis native Paul “Snowflake” Taylor, aka New Memphis Colorways, which were paired together earlier this year as a single LP in glorious vinyl.

One side of Paul Taylor’s double-EP release (Credit: Paul Taylor)

Memphis Flyer readers already know Old Forest Loop, a groovy, rollicking EP of instrumentals, which Andria Lisle profiled on its release in 2018. All riffs, beats, and changing gears, Taylor conceived of it as “homemade and light-hearted, and I see it as kind of a start-over for me. This is music I deliberately made for people to take summertime drives to — they can grill to it or swim to it.”

And yet, it somehow matches the elation Memphians feel at the return of cool weather as well. It’s an active record, an up record, and fits that impulse to get out of the house for some hiking, biking, or more. Having taken it on a test run while cooking out in the backyard, I can attest to the truth of Taylor’s claim that it pairs well with grilling.

Another side of Paul Taylor’s double-EP release (Credit: Paul Taylor)

If that’s one side of fall, the beauty of these twin EPs being brought together is that the older work, 2015’s The Old Forest Trail, perfectly matches autumn’s air of melancholy and reflection. A largely acoustic outing, it is, in Taylor’s words, “An homage to a sacred natural space in the middle of Memphis TN — the Old Forest Arboretum located in Overton Park.” The somewhat more wistful sound also matches what Taylor was going through in the year of its release, and he notes: “Also lovingly dedicated to the memory of my father, Pat Taylor 1949-2015.”

As he told Lisle, “When my dad [Memphis musician Pat Taylor, a veteran of numerous bands including the Breaks and the Village Sound] was sick, I was playing acoustic guitar by his bedside, and when he passed in early 2015, I was spending a lot of time in the Old Forest in Overton Park.” The peace of wild things, as poet Wendell Berry put it, is thus very much present in this set of songs, which sometimes echo Nick Drake’s application of a folk picking style to unexpected chords.

Another aspect of this album that is uniquely Memphis is the label: It’s the first release in many years by the great Peabody Records, founded by the late Sid Selvidge, now kept afloat by his son Steve. As Taylor points out in the notes, Old Forest Loop/The Old Forest Trail is “a joint venture between Peabody Records and The Owl Jackson Jr. Record Company.”

Ultimately, a refreshingly holistic view of Overton Park comes across with this album: a place of rambunctious activity and a place of solace. Delve into both with this multifaceted work by one of this city’s greatest players.