Memphis blues man Richard Wilson has a new album. You Can Have It All was laid down at the historic Sam Phillips Recording studio by producer Scott Bomar, featuring heavy hitters Al Gamble on keys and Justin Walker on drums.
“Whisper in Your Ear” is a sweet come-on of a song, which Wilson and Walker perform in the stark black and white video. Take a look.
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Music Video Monday IN SPACE!
Memphis instrumental researchers The City Champs are back with a spacey new single, “Luna 68.” Organist Al Gamble, guitarist Joe Restivo, and drummer George Sluppick reunited after years as hired guns for folks like St. Paul and the Broken Bones and The Bo-Keys to record a new album, and it’s unlike anything they’ve ever done before.
Filmmaker Andrew Trent Fleming created this far-out video for the song. “I’m incredibly humbled to get to direct a video for The City Champs. I love their music. I met them 10+ years ago as a huge fan, have annoyed them ever since, and will continue to do so. I always like to find a way to invest personally in a song and came up with the idea to contemplate and wrestle with my own perspective on the priorities of an artist, told visually through the paradox we all come to at some point as an artist in this city. This is for you, Memphis.”
Music Video Monday: The City Champs
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Fans of local trio The City Champs rejoiced last week when the group’s guitarist, Memphis native Joe Restivo, announced on social media that the original lineup was rehearsing again. Having gained popularity between 2008 and 2010, the group’s subsequent appearances were limited after drummer George Sluppick left town. With his recent return, the group has been woodshedding, writing new material, and making plans for bigger things.
The City Champs were distinguished by primarily being an instrumental group. This arose naturally from the group members’ passion for organ trios and quartets of the 1950s and 1960s, as featured on classic records by Jimmy Smith, Brother Jack McDuff, or guitarist Grant Green. Early on, Restivo found kindred souls in brothers Al and Chad Gamble (on organ and drums, respectively), Muscle Shoals-area natives who had relocated to Memphis. “It was a jam situation,” says Restivo. “In the late ’90s, Al was in town as well as his brother. … And we would just get together at Al’s house.”
Soon after, Restivo left Memphis. His return in 2006 also marked the return of Sluppick, another Memphis native, whose life in New Orleans had been disrupted by Hurricane Katrina. Al Gamble, Restivo, and Sluppick began playing together, and when not on the road, saxophonist Art Edmaiston would join them. They formed The Grip, mixing 1960s Latin-tinged boogaloo sounds with Memphis roots, as with their cover of the Mar-Keys’ “Grab This Thing.” When Edmaiston hit the road again, The City Champs were born.
The City Champs
The new group focused squarely on the stripped-down, funky organ trio sound. Notes Restivo, “We were all fans of that music before we met each other. And so it was a natural fit.” The new combo soon was honing its sound on the road in 2008, opening for the North Mississippi Allstars.
The Champs’ debut album, The Safecracker, was released on Scott Bomar’s Electraphonic label in 2009 to glowing reviews. It was marked by their eclectic approach to the organ trio sound, with inventive versions of “Ol’ Man River” and Amy Winehouse’s “Love Is a Losing Game.” Their 2010 sophomore release, The Set-Up, further expanded their palette, adding horns, Latin percussion, and a cameo from Motown legend Jack Ashford on percussion.
The combo developed a devoted local following, but Sluppick was lured to Los Angeles by the Chris Robinson Brotherhood. The Champs would continue to play Memphis occasionally when Sluppick was in town, but these appearances were rare. Restivo began working with The Bo-Keys and his own quartet, and Gamble began touring and recording with soul revivalists St. Paul and the Broken Bones. While these affiliations remain, things changed last year when Sluppick settled in his home town once again.
Now the group is once more developing new material, with an even more eclectic bent. Restivo notes the influence of “Willie Mitchell Dance Party records … a little bit of that honky-tonkish Memphis instrumental thing.” He adds that they’re perfecting their own take on the 1971 classic Blackrock “Yeah Yeah” and exploring more psychedelic flavors as well. The Champs are itching to record their third album, planned for later this year.
“Since we started this project, it’s been 10 years,” Restivo says. “We’ve all played in a ton of different groups and played a ton of shows with a lot of different artists. So, there’s a lot there to add. I know I’m a much more seasoned musician than I was when I started this thing. I think we’re just a better band. But at the end of the day, it’s a labor of love. More than any band I’ve ever been in, we have more fun just going over to Al Gamble’s house and just cooking up songs and arrangements. And we try to present that in our shows and our records.”
Eddie Hinton has become an archetype: the tortured white boy lost on a quixotic quest to sing like a black man. An Alabama native, Hinton was a producer, guitarist, songwriter, and a singer who spent a short, troubled life in pursuit of the African-American preacher’s tone. Hinton was the house guitarist at Muscle Shoals Sound from 1967-1971 and wrote Dusty Springfield’s “Breakfast in Bed.” Producer Johnny Sandlin (Allman Brothers’ Fillmore East, Eat a Peach) once told of touring with Hinton and how he would stick his head out the window in the cold, shrieking at the top of his lungs to roughen his voice.
Paul Janeway may have done all that and more. St. Paul & The Broken Bones is the soul-revivalist band built around Janeway’s remarkable voice. They play the Levitt Shell on Sunday, September 28th. That morning, Janeway and organist Al Gamble are the guests at Grace-St. Luke’s Rector’s Forum on Religion and Culture.
St. Paul & the Broken Bones
Cultural Appropriation happens when a member of a privileged class uses a cultural practice of a minority class. From Elvis to Miley Cyrus, American popular music doesn’t exist without it. But when a pasty kid who looks like it’s his first day in the Regions Bank trust department opens his mouth and sings like a civil rights-era shouter, the issue is particularly acute. In the South, all this stuff is complicated. It’s likely that Janeway, like fellow Alabamians Sam Phillips and W.C. Handy, was moved by the music he heard growing up in the South and, from a place of love and respect, tried to emulate it. It’s complicated. Maybe it’s best to leave intellectual theory in its tiny, windowless, academic office. The rest of us will be at the Shell to hear the season’s most inspired booking.
Grace St. Lukes is hosting a musical lecture series that starts this Sunday, September 7th. Luther Dickison is the inaugural guest of the series that focuses on religion in Southern music. Luther’s topic is “Up over Yonder: The Sights and Sounds of Heaven.” Robert Gordon, author of Stax history Respect Yourself, talks about “My Baby on Saturday Night, Jesus on Sunday Morning” on Sunday, September 14th. Look out: Sunday, September 28th is a big deal: Al Gamble and Paul Janeway from St. Paul and the Broken Bones discuss ““From Gospel to Soul.” St. Paul and the Broken Bones are on a major roll as second-generation purveryors of Southern soul. Gamble is the go-to Hammond organ wizard of his generation. The lectures run from 9:30 until 10:15 a.m.
Sunday Morning Coming Down at GSL