With the balmy breezes of spring in the air, music lovers know that live concerts at the Overton Park Shell are not far away, and last week the nonprofit announced the performers slated to appear there this summer and fall. And beyond the nationally touring acts brought to Memphis by the Shell, a host of local heroes will also play under the stars there. Such an appearance can often be a local group’s best gig of the year, and it can serve to remind casual music fans of the riches available in their own backyard.
For starters, the ticketed Shell Yeah! Benefit Concert Series kicks off with the force of nature known as Wendy Moten. Ever since she cut a deal with EMI in the 1990s, and the top ten singles in the US and UK that followed, Moten has been a formidable presence in the industry, whether singing harmony or as an especially eclectic solo artist, mastering styles from country to R&B.
Soon after that, the Orion Free Music Concert Series opens on May 28 with the time-honored Sunset Symphony series by the Memphis Symphony Orchestra (MSO). This year, “symphony” is a bit of a misnomer, as the focus will be on the MSO Big Band, founded in 2010 to highlight the jazzier side of MSO musicians. Led by principal trumpet Scott Moore, the MSO Big Band performs swing classics spiced up with samba and other genres.
The Sunset Symphony tradition is a fitting season opener, harking back to the earliest days of entertainment in Overton Park, before the Shell was opened in 1936. Indeed, as detailed in this Memphis Magazine article, 2023 marks the 90th Anniversary of the first organized performance in the park, a staging of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado in a dip in the landscape where the Shell now sits.
From there, a both national and local acts will play every weekend until the beginning of July. The local focus continues on June 16th, when both Star and Micey and the Dead Soldiers will grace the stage. That should prove to be the perfect pairing, with two local groups that bring their own respective approaches to the more rocking side of Americana. Given that both groups have eased up on their live appearances in recent years, this should feel like a real homecoming for those who love tight harmonies and arrangements with a funky, folk-rock feel.
On the following weekend, on June 24th, the Stax Music Academy will showcase its best and brightest in what has become a new tradition all its own. And then fans can catch a more contemporary take on the Memphis sound when Unapologetic takes over the Shell on July 1st. What’s known primarily as a hip hop collective actually showcases artists as diverse as Cameron Bethany, PreauXX, A Weirdo From Memphis (AWFM), and more.
That revue will close down the summer season, but the Shell revs back to life when cool temps return in September. The first weekend of that month starts, appropriately enough, with Memphis Powerpop Presents, a recurring event that showcases the city’s seminal roots and promising future in that genre. This year, the day’s highlight will be the Sonny Wilsons, a new power pop project featuring Adam Yancey (Solo artist, Afterglow, The Chain Hopsons, The Becky’s), Allen Couch (East Link), Danny McGreger (Lately David), Chris Swenson (El Dorado Del Ray, Black Oak Arkansas, studio engineer) and Johnny Norris (Crash Into June, Your Academy). Their first album, recorded at Ardent and High/Low studios with Jon Auer (Posies, Big Star) producing, will be released late summer of this year.
Two weeks later, in back to back concerts on Septemeber 15th and 16th, Memphians will have a chance to savor two versions of hard-hitting local music, both grit and grind. The grit comes from Pezz, practically grand-daddies of the Memphis punk scene by now, and still making vital, politically charged original music decades later. The grind will come on the 16th from Al Kapone, well loved for huge hits like “Whoop That Trick,” but also bringing things home in a deep way with his experiments in blues rap.
And finally, the Memphis Country Blues Festival on September 23rd will feature another African American artist who’s expanded the vocabulary of the blues in his own inimitable way, the axemaster Alvin ‘Youngblood’ Hart. Though based in Coila, Mississippi, Hart has won a considerable following here and exemplifies the Memphis tradition of music made at the crossroads. While the Shell’s season carries on to the end of September, Hart’s appearance will be a fitting local finale to a season peppered with the best the Mid South has to offer.
The full season and details on each band can be found here. Below is a list of what to expect, play by play, from the Orion Free Concert Series.
5/28 – Sunset Symphony (ft. the MSO Big Band)
6/1 – The Collection
6/3 – Magic!
6/8 – Tré Burt
6/9 – Anand Wilder
6/10 – Battle of Santiago
6/15 – The Heavy Heavy
6/16 – Star & Micey | Dead Soldiers
6/17 – Rumble ft. Chief Joseph Boudreaux Jr.
6/22 – AvevA
6/23 – Jimmi Kinard presents Muzaic
6/24 – Stax Music Academy
6/29 – Jenny & The Mexicats
6/30 – Buffalo Nichols
7/1 – Unapologetic Night
9/1 – Los Rakas w/ Special Guests
9/2 – Memphis PowerPop Presents
9/8 – Thee Sinseers
9/9 – Black Joe Lewis
9/15 – Pezz
9/16 – Al Kapone
9/22 – Jeremie Albino
9/23 – Memphis Country Blues Festival
9/29 – Spree Wilson
9/30 – Telmary
10/6 – Morgan James
10/15 – Shakespeare at The Shell
