When you put on Rhythm of the City, the new album by John Paul Keith on Italy’s Wild Honey label, you know just what city he’s talking about from the get-go. A twin saxophone attack launches a driving bulldog beat that could be an outtake from some Hi Records sessions. The background vocals, by Southern Avenue’s Tierinii and Tikyra Jackson, evoke the “blood harmony” that only singing siblings can offer. The guitar stabs could be samples from an Albert King record. And yet, with Keith’s blue-eyed-soul everyman vocals front and center, it still feels fresh. You’ve never heard all these Bluff City elements in quite the same way before.
That impression is compounded on track three, “The Sun’s Gonna Shine Again,” a soul shuffle full of airy, wistful jazz chords, topped with the electric sitar sound pioneered by guitarist Reggie Young on American Sound Studio hits like “Hooked on a Feeling.” By the time you hear the sound of a jet on the title track, you’re well situated in a Memphis of the mind, reinvented in myriad ways.
Geoffrey Brent Shrewsbury
John Paul Keith
“Once I decided that I was really gonna make a Memphis record, I had so much fun doing that,” says Keith. “Like the airplane in the title track. That’s a Box Tops reference. Al Gamble does kind of a swell on the organ there, and it was funny how well they blended, the B3 and the jet sound. [laughs] I also use a lick there that Steve Cropper does on ‘Pain in my Heart’ by Otis Redding. There’s little Easter eggs like that all over the record.”
But Keith didn’t envision that approach when he began the record. “I became more conscious that it was becoming a very Memphisy record, as it was progressing. I didn’t set out to do that, but when I noticed that, I decided to really lean into the idea. Of course, I was already gonna have horns.” Indeed, a horn-heavy approach was hardwired into both this album and Keith’s live set over the last two years or so, especially the less-often-heard combination of two saxophones.
“I got the idea to do that from Hunt Sales. I saw him play at Bar DKDC with a bunch of local guys, and he had two saxes. And I thought, ‘That’s so cool! Why didn’t I think of that?’ So I started hiring two sax players for my Beale Street gigs. And it’s real versatile. They can cover the Stax sound and nobody really notices that there’s no trumpet. But you can also do the Little Richard thing and stay in the rock-and-roll tone.”
A more classic horn section also appears. “We had the best of both worlds because we could bring in Marc Franklin on trumpet for some tunes. And he also gave me some good advice: When you have two saxes, cut the horns live with the band … because two saxes become part of the rhythm section.”
The sound of a live-tracked band also pays off with Keith’s guitar playing, some of the finest of his career. “For most of the album,” says Keith, “the guitar is one performance, one take. It’s exactly what I would play if we were playing a gig.”
And that is really where the heart of the city beats loudest here. Over his 15 years in Memphis, Keith has become a fixture on the scene, and the record smartly evokes those sweaty, blues-and Elvis-drenched nights. “When I was cutting these at Scott Bomar’s studio,” Keith notes, “he said, ‘I can really tell you’ve been playing at Graceland and Beale Street!'”
Now, those touchstones have become fundamental to Keith’s sound: “A handful of human beings playing live together, using their breath and their muscles and their brains. It’s magic. Like with the horns, I love the fact that you have a different person assigned to each note in a chord. That’s powerful! You can’t replicate that with a computer.”
