Some artists ponder making albums, wondering if they have enough material, enough musicians, or enough money. But when you’re a player on the level of bassist Mark Edgar Stuart, always staying busy with one project or another and forever mingling with other musos at gigs and in studios, albums sometimes just fall together. One recording session here, another there, and eventually the whole thing snowballs.
That’s how Stuart’s latest release, Never Far Behind, came about, as the singer-songwriter himself admits. “I didn’t really mean to put out another record,” he says. “I thought I was done for a little bit. And then this record just sort of happened.”
Things like that tend to occur when you’re part of a crack studio band, as Stuart is — in this case at Bruce Watson’s Delta-Sonic Sound studio, where Stuart, as a member of the Sacred Soul Sound Section, plays bass behind artists like Elizabeth King on the Bible & Tire Recording Co. He can also be heard on secular Watson-related projects, some of which end up on Big Legal Mess Records. There’s always music cooking over at Delta-Sonic. And at times Stuart would show up only to find his own material on the menu.
“Over the past two years, my buddies and I would get in the studio — Will [Sexton] and Bruce and that whole crew. We just slowly recorded tracks,” Stuart says. “I kind of felt like the universe produced it, you know? Will was the official producer, but every session was just last minute. Will would say, ‘Hey, what are you doing tomorrow? Bruce is in town, I’m here, let’s record some songs!’ And I’m on the phone going, ‘Well, who’s going to be the band?’ So it was pretty much whoever was available at any given moment. Then three months would go by, and Will would go, ‘Hey, we’re in the studio now working on your record! What are you doing?’ I’d say, ‘Oh, shit, I guess I’d better get down there!’”
That approach made Never Far Behind one of Stuart’s most collaborative efforts, including songs he co-wrote with Sexton, Jed Zimmerman, and, perhaps most strikingly, Greg Cartwright. “That loose approach made for some cool combinations,” says Stuart, “like when we recorded a song that me and Greg wrote together [‘We Better Call It a Day’]. I was like, ‘Greg, you in town?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Come over!’ So he played guitar, and Amy [LaVere] played bass, and Krista [Wroten] played on it, and Shawn Zorn, and Will played the keyboards. In the studio, it wound up becoming a duet. It was just real loose and cool. Amy was going to sing backup, and all of a sudden she sang the first verse and it was like, ‘Fuck it, a duet it is! Keep rolling!’”
That track draws on the wit and musicality of Stuart and Cartwright, two of the city’s finest songwriters, to create a kind of Eastern European lament over a failed romance, made all the more haunting by LaVere’s and Stuart’s swapped vocal lines, wistful mandolin, and atmospheric, Tom Waits-esque percussion.
Yet another track, “The Ballad of Jerry Phillips,” grew from a would-be collaboration between Stuart and the song’s titular hero, son of Sun Records’ Sam Phillips. “I was hanging out with Jerry about a year and a half ago,” says Stuart, “and he said, ‘Man we’re gonna write a song together, and it’s gonna be called “Don’t Block Your Blessings.”’
“You know, we’re always blocking our blessings,” explains Stuart. “It’s like God’s trying to bless us, but we get in our own way. We fuck it up sometimes! Sometimes you’ve just got to let it be and just open yourself up to all the goodness. And Jerry and I were supposed to write that song together, but we couldn’t get anywhere with it. So I just turned around and wrote him a silly song about his own biography, and used the blocked blessings idea for the chorus. It came out perfect, you know?” The party atmosphere of the track, a Memphis cousin to “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,” captures Phillips’ rock-and-roll spirit and epitomizes the loose recording style that shaped the entire album.
After many months of such hilarity, an album coalesced. As Stuart describes the process, “A year and a half later, Will was like, ‘Well, we’ve got 15 songs here. … Are you going to put a record out?’ And I was like, ‘I guess we should.’ It was really friendly, you know, and that was cool. I’m really happy with it, probably more so than anything I’ve done in a long time. Nothing against anything else I’ve done, but it’s just that cool! I think this could be it for a while. I think after this I’m just going to get into other things.” Could Stuart really mean it this time? We’ll believe it when we see it.
Hear Mark Edgar Stuart at the 8750’ Barbecue and Music Festival in New Mexico on August 16th; the Fishstock Music Series in Wisconsin on August 25th; Thacker Mountain Radio Hour in Oxford, Mississippi, on September 5th; the Memphis Songwriter Series at the Halloran Centre in Memphis on September 12th; and the Mempho Music Festival on October 4th.
[l to r] Mark Edgar Stuart, Amy LaVere, and Will Sexton chat between performances at the Folk Alliance International conference in Kansas City. (Photo: Karen Pulfer Focht)
The folk music old guard that dominated the Folk Alliance International conferences for the past 35 years has passed the guitar to a new generation that is younger, energized, and mostly female and non-white.
And the kids are all right.
In the BC years (before Covid), the annual five-day conference that draws more than 1,000 musicians from around the world was largely the province of aging performers and music lovers.
This year, the beat has changed. Most of the performers were young, female, and non-white, lending a whole new energy to the event that was held this past weekend in Kansas City, Missouri. The LGBTQIA+ community was also well-represented.
Memphis was everywhere, chosen as the first “City of Honor,” with Memphis-oriented workshops, speakers, and a slew of talented performers including Amy LaVere, Bailey Bigger, Talibah Safiya, Yella P of Memphissippi Sounds, violinist Alice Hasen, and the brilliant Aquarian Blood.
Valerie June (Photo: Karen Pulfer Focht )
Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, poet, and actor Valerie June astounded with her keynote speech that said love and hope can defeat hate and fear. As she spoke about the global crisis, the “technological hacking of the human mind and body,” and nuclear war, she abruptly stopped and flashed her trademark smile. She walked to center stage, picked up a banjo, and played a delicate version of “What a Wonderful World” in defiance of the doomsayers.
Wherever she walked, she was treated like royalty. Women and children rushed up and hugged her.
She now lives in Brooklyn but said she would always consider Memphis her home. Like the rest of us, June went from concert to concert to hear the young artists.
The annual gathering is designed to allow music critics, agents, disc jockeys, and concert and festival bookers to get up close and personal with new artists and discover new talent.
It’s also a chance for singers and musicians to strut their stuff in the smaller, intimate venues of the Westin Hotel and gather new fans. There are organized workshops and concerts during the day and evening, though much of the action started at 10:30 p.m. and continued almost to daybreak in hundreds of hotel rooms converted into makeshift music spots. Sometimes a performer played for just one or two people, a memorable experience.
There were a few older performers here, like Tom Paxton and Janis Ian, who acted in more of a non-performing, advisory capacity. Ian received a well-deserved lifetime achievement award. Paxton said he was just there to be inspired by the young people.
Instead of the usual performances by folk icons like Livingston Taylor, John McCutcheon, and Eliza Gilkyson, visitors chose between blues singers from Memphis, storytellers from Ireland, brash bands from Australia, and new Americana voices from everywhere.
The toughest challenge is choosing who to see since every concert choice means missing hundreds of other mini concerts going on elsewhere.
In one, Josh White Jr. seemed a little baffled when his co-performer, 92-year-old jazz genius, composer, and orchestra conductor David Amram asked him to play “House of the Rising Sun” a second time. But he smiled and acquiesced.
Amram impulsively invited young musicians he just met hours earlier to join them. Violinist Rahel-Liis Aasrand of Estonia and percussionist Natalia Miranda from Guatemala nervously joined Amram and White in an impromptu jazz number, as if they had played together for years.
Amy LaVere has a voice much larger than her lithe frame which was dwarfed by the stand-up bass she played. Her voice is at once sweet and powerful, and her accompanying guitarist and violinist could not have been better.
Alice Hasen showed just how versatile the violin could be, switching gears from classical to folk to almost hip-hop.
There was music around every corner. In one room, Brit Shane Hennessy played an instrumental tribute to Chet Atkins. In another, the laid-back Aquarian Blood’s J.B. Horrell played the guitar upright between his knees while his wife, Laurel, sang along.
And the talent goes on and on, stretching out through the halls and into the early morning hours as it expands the definition of folk music far, far beyond the notion of a guy with a guitar.
For more information on the Folk Alliance and how to attend next year’s conference, go to folk.org.
Three 6 Mafia on stage, with Juicy J and Gangsta Boo. (Credit: Craig Brewer)
There was a dreamlike quality to returning to the Beale Street Music Festival (BSMF) after so long. The last one was in 2019, and through the first months of the pandemic some wondered if it would ever return. But yesterday, there it was, under a brilliant, sunny sky and a balmy breeze.
Appropriately, a Memphis act kicked off my BSMF experience, as Amy LaVere and band launched into one of the most eclectic catalogs of any Memphis artist. The band, too, felt dreamy upon this return of the Memphis concert institution, and their enthusiasm was contagious as they tacked between slinky grooves, loping ballads, and full-on rock stomps. LaVere’s elation was clear as she blew the audience kisses.
Amy LaVere (Credit: Chris McCoy)
Just as they finished, the indomitable Al Kapone took to the Bud Light Stage: another hometown hero at bat. He made it clear that his staying power is unchallenged, especially in his bold genre-hopping numbers, deftly combining Memphis trap beats with wailing blues. The combination of the two is something he’s been pursuing of late, in a way that’s uniquely his, and it sounded like Memphis to these ears. When he closed with “Whoop That Trick,” which Kapone penned for Craig Brewer’s Hustle and Flow, and which has become something of an anthem at Grizzlies games, the entire festival crowd — even security guards and patrons lingering away from the stages — stood up and sang along, as he yelled, “Did you want to see us go up in flames?” and the stage erupted with fireworks in the broad daylight.
The Ferris wheel (Credit: Chris McCoy)
From there, I made my way through the huge space. One can always navigate by the huge Ferris wheel in the center of the fairgrounds, and my sense of direction was saved by it more than once. Indeed, it led me to the next act, which I had been greatly anticipating: Van Morrison.
Morrison tends to be a polarizing artist these days, partly because of his irresponsible — and very public — resistance to Covid health measures. But the power of his legacy is undeniable in this writer’s eyes, overshadowing any late-in-life choices he may be making now. And indeed, when he took to the stage in a natty blue suit, playing saxophone, all such controversy was swept away by a crowd eager to see a legend at work.
Van Morrison (Credit: Frank Chin)
The zoot suit seemed to evoke the young Van Morrison more than the controversial modern one, almost a nod to his earliest Beatnik tendencies. And the band, comprising another sax player, two guitarists, two drummers, an elderly Hammond B-3 player, a keyboardist-vibraphonist, and a back up singer, seemed to excel at the classic sounds Morrison must have grown up with, especially the light ska-like lilt of blue beat music that took the U.K. and Ireland by storm in the late ’50s and early ’60s. In fact, they opened with a peppy number in that vein, then ran through a full hour and a half of songs both old and new.
Among his classic works, standouts were “And It Stoned Me,” “Wild Night,” not to mention a blues mash-up that included Morrison singing “Parchman Farm” through his harmonica mic, adding glorious grit to the otherwise very clean band. The big finish was “Brown Eyed Girl” and “Gloria,” but for me the highlight was an extended workout of “Baby Please Don’t Go,” another gem from his time with the band Them.
From there, after a bit of fair food to bolster my energy, it was time to head back to the Bud Light Stage for the ultimate heroic homecoming: Three 6 Mafia. A huge crowd seemed to fill every nook and cranny of the area before the stage, and as the rappers assembled, complete with dozens friends and family crowding around the sides of the stage, the crowd was easily led into the call and response of “Three 6!” — “Mafia!”
Every chorus was echoed deftly by thousands of super-fans, as Juicy J and DJ Paul, joined for most of the set by Gangsta Boo, hammered out a flawless set. As one dreadlocked fan told me, “They’re at their peak! They brought out Gangsta Boo, which they haven’t done in a while, and it’s a hometown crowd. I came here just to see them. They’re so important because they connected orchestrated music with trap, and they are hittin’ it so hard right now!”
Three 6 Mafia (Credit: Joseph Mikos)
And they were, ever on-point and aware of their legacy. At one point, DJ Paul exhorted the crowd to “lift up your lighters, or your cell phones. If you ain’t got a cell phone, get the fuck outta here! Now wave them in the air.” As we all did, he announced “R.I.P. Lord Infamous,” and the crowd reflected on the life of the now deceased founding member.
An air of gratitude permeated their vibe, set off by the entourage that surrounded the performers, standing onstage with them for the entire set. And so it made a great deal of sense to end it with gratitude. “Thank you, Memphis, for listening to Three 6 for 20 years! And thank you to the Grizzlies for being great!”
With that, the night was over, but for one last flourish: fireworks that echoed throughout Midtown as we drove home, until nearly 12:30 a.m. A fitting end to a glorious return to form.
“We’re back!” There ought to be a banner with those words draped over the Hernando DeSoto Bridge this weekend, marking the grand return of the Beale Street Music Festival. After being shuttered for the last two years, making it three years since the last edition, the perennial gathering of music lovers is roaring back to life with more momentum than ever.
The typical BSMF experience always runs the spectrum from your favorite blockbuster artist to that new unheard-of band that blows your mind. And as for the former, concert-goers need little additional information on why Megan Thee Stallion, Weezer, or Van Morrison are phenomenal. But for the typical out-of-town fan, too many artists based in Memphis fall in the latter category. Naturally, given that Memphis still rules the airwaves and charts as in days of yore, plenty of our local artists need no introduction, either. But chances are good that everyone will discover something new about the Bluff City after this weekend.
Randy Blevins, vice president of marketing and programming at the Memphis in May International Festival, thinks this makes BSMF especially valuable to the city. “People talk about going to other places and exploring to learn about new music,” he says. “Most of our ticket-holders come from over 200 miles away. They’re coming from all 50 states and five or six different countries. So most of the people there are not Memphians. There are a lot of people coming here from out of town; exposing them to these Memphis acts that Memphians know and love is part and parcel of helping promote Memphis. You might show up because you bought tickets to see Counting Crows, and out of nowhere you learn about Don Bryant. The average person may or may not know about him. That’s Memphis pumping through the blood. We’re helping to spread the word.”
Sure, we all love songs by Smashing Pumpkins or DaBaby or Sarah McLachlan. Of course the Indigo Girls and Shaggy and Lindsey Buckingham are phenomenal. Toad the Wet Sprocket, Soccer Mommy, and Robert Randolph are worth a special trip. But given that it’s such a point of pride for the festival, and in light of the fact that this year’s BSMF boasts the most local acts ever — “at least over the past two decades for sure,” Blevins says — today we celebrate the native talent that makes Memphis ground zero for so much musical innovation and style. Here, by the day of their appearance, are the hometown heroes that make this music festival a little different from most.
Al Kapone (Photo: SP Stylistic Photography)
FRIDAY
Three 6 Mafia Bud Light Stage, 10:35 p.m. No group represents the staying power of Memphis hip-hop like Three 6 Mafia, who’ve parlayed their relatively obscure, ’90s cult status into global celebrity through the staying power of their game-changing beats and attitude. Now their horror-movie soundtrack to life on the Memphis streets, which won them an Oscar, has morphed into the crunk and trap genres. See where it all began.
Al Kapone Bud Light Stage, 6:15 p.m. Kapone came up alongside Three 6 Mafia back in the day, and also contributed to the award-winning Hustle & Flow soundtrack. His “Whoop That Trick” from the film lives on as an anthem for the Memphis Grizzlies. Lately, he’s become more eclectic but always grounded, telling the Memphis Flyer’s Michael Donahue: “At some point I’m still just a songwriter, a guy from the projects and the hood.”
Amy LaVere (Photo: Todd V Wolfson)
Amy LaVere Zyn Stage, 5:45 p.m. This singer, songwriter, and bassist extraordinaire is such a fixture on the local scene that it’s easy to forget that she’s a Louisiana native. It was in Memphis that she really found her voice, and she even lured her husband Will Sexton here from his native Texas. We dubbed LaVere’s most recent album, 2020’s Painting Blue, “dark and beautiful.”
Kenny Brown Coca-Cola Blues Tent, 9:05 p.m. Hailing from North Mississippi, Michael Donahue calls Brown a “Hill Country Hero.” Given the way the blues ebbs and flows, only to be reinvented by stalwart artists like Brown, that’s not an exaggeration. He learned well from the likes of R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. No wonder his latest album, with The Black Keys and Eric Deaton, snagged a 2022 Grammy nomination.
Earl the Pearl Coca-Cola Blues Tent, 6 p.m. Born in 1936, Earl Banks is a living link to the blues in its rawest, earliest expression. Having first played with Joe Hill Louis, he went on to define the Memphis blues style for decades and can still be seen on Beale Street nearly every week. From Jimmy Reed to Howlin’ Wolf and B.B. King, Earl the Pearl makes every blues his own, with a guitar tone like quicksilver.
NLE Choppa (Photo: @damnjohnnie)
SATURDAY
NLE Choppa Zyn Stage, 7:30 p.m. With “one of the greatest flows in current hip-hop,” as M.T. Richards wrote in 2020, NLE Choppa brings a unique angle to trap music. This “creature of Memphis’ strobe-lit skating rinks” honors his Jamaican heritage by “sprinkling patois in rap’s everyday vocabulary.” He’s created a unique sound and credits his hometown: “So many good artists are in Memphis,” he says.
Project Pat Zyn Stage, 6:15 p.m. Few artists are as close to the Three 6 Mafia orbit as Project Pat, self-described brother of Juicy J, whose biggest hits were on the Hypnotize Minds label owned by J and DJ Paul. Yet Project Pat has crafted his own identity with Dirty South classics like “Chickenhead,” “Ballers,” “Don’t Save Her,” and the ever-relevant “Ghetty Green.”
Duke Deuce Zyn Stage, 4:50 p.m. With his hit single “Crunk Ain’t Dead,” Duke Deuce has let it be known where he’s coming from. Son of Duke Nitty, a producer for Gangsta Blac and Nasty Nardo, the rapper’s name-checked his hometown in debut tracks, “Memphis Massacre” and “Memphis Massacre 2.” Last year, his debut album Duke Nukem debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart.
Lil Wyte Zyn Stage, 3:25 p.m. It’s no accident that Lil Wyte is a natural ally of rapper Frayser Boy. Growing up in Frayser helped Lil Wyte transcend any racial barriers, as he proved himself in the world of Three 6 Mafia enough to release his debut on the Hypnotize Minds label, with hits like “Oxy Cotton” and “My Smokin’ Song.”
White $osa Zyn Stage, 3:25 p.m. Kicking off the Zyn Stage string of Memphis rappers, White $osa is unique in that his name inspired his rapping, rather than vice versa. Originally gaining fame through an Instagram account that’s now up to 129,000 followers, it turned out he had a flair for flowing rhymes as well. Since turning to music, his collaboration with NLE Choppa has garnered 21 million streams on Spotify.
Blvck Hippie Bud Light Stage, 2 p.m. As Jesse Davis wrote in the Memphis Flyer, this group’s 2019 track “Hotel Lobby” is “one of the catchiest Memphis-made songs in recent memory.” With indie-pop songs marked by “excellent arrangements” and group founder Josh Shaw’s “open and honest lyrics,” and fresh off a series of concerts at South by Southwest, Treefort Music Fest, and Audiotree promoting their new LP, If You Feel Alone at Parties, Blvck Hippie is one gem to keep an eye on at this year’s festival.
Tora Tora Terminix Stage, 2:15 p.m. If you thought that Memphis was all about blues, soul, and hip-hop, think again. These metal masters have been honing a distinctly Mid-South variant of their chosen genre since the ’80s, when a trio of hits like “Walkin’ Shoes,” “Guilty,” and “Dancing with a Gypsy” (the latter featured in the film Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure) powered a career that includes 2019’s Bastards of Beale.
Don Bryant & the Bo-Keys Coca-Cola Blues Tent, 9:25 p.m. Don Bryant has lost none of the power of his voice since he began performing over half a century ago. Indeed, his delivery has matured as if aged in an oak barrel, and now that he has ace neo-soul group the Bo-Keys backing him up, we dubbed his latest LP, YouMake Me Feel, an “instant classic” of pure, down-home soul.
Ghost Town Blues Band Coca-Cola Blues Tent, 7:55 p.m. This group is proof positive that the blues still offers plenty of room for innovation. Not your typical bar combo, Ghost Town Blues Band blends traditional blues with Stax-era soul and even includes novel instruments like cigar box guitars and electric push brooms in their arrangements. Expect the unexpected.
Barbara Blue Coca-Cola Blues Tent, 2:10 p.m. Blue is a queen of Beale Street, a regular performer at Silky O’Sullivan’s who has worked with some serious contenders in the past (including three albums with Taj Mahal’s Phantom Blues Band in the 1990s). Her latest album even features the legendary Bernard “Pretty” Purdie on drums. World-class blues, soul, and jazz live on with Barbara Blue.
Moneybagg Yo
SUNDAY
Moneybagg Yo Bud Light Stage, 7:40 p.m. It was only five years ago that Zandria Robinson reported on Moneybagg Yo’s album release party for his debut, Federal 3X, and now he’s a leading star in the trap music universe. His 2020 album, A Gangsta’s Pain, debuted at No. 1 on the charts. Yet he continues to appreciate his hometown, gifting Covid-related supplies to local schools after that album conquered the charts.
Jucee Froot Bud Light Stage, 2:10 p.m. If Memphis hip-hop is dominated by male stars, Jucee Froot is bucking that trend with her meteoric climb to fame. Since 2020, when she released her debut Black Sheep on Atlantic, she’s had tracks featured in soundtracks for the film Birds of Prey and the series P-Valley and Insecure.
Cory Branan
Cory Branan Zyn Stage, 2 p.m. Rolling Stone got it right when they dubbed this consummate singer/songwriter “a country boy with a punk-rock heart.” Since the late ’90s, when he found his voice in the Memphis indie scene, he’s been perfecting the combination of those elements in his music and lyrics. He’s also a phenomenal guitarist. Watch for a new album later this year.
Blind Mississippi Morris Coca-Cola Blues Tent, 3:25 p.m. Blind Mississippi Morris is Beale Street royalty, and no festival named for the famed blues district would be complete without his uniquely powerful harmonica playing and singing. The recipient of the Mississippi Music Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award and a two-time winner of the Premier Player Grammy Award for Harmonica Player of the Year, Morris combines the grit and grind of the blues like no other.
Melvia “Chick” Rodgers Coca-Cola Blues Tent, 3:25 p.m. A vocal powerhouse, Melvia “Chick” Rodgers-Williams grew up in the historic Black neighborhood of Orange Mound, singing in her father’s church. Being steeped in the passions of gospel music stuck with her, as she followed her musical star on USO tours and a successful career in Chicago. With BSMF, she’s bringing it all back home.
BSMF 2022: Liberty Park Logistics
The Beale Street Music Festival is such an institution in Memphis, and so closely associated with Tom Lee Park, that any change to the winning formula is hard to fathom. Yet fathom it we must, as the BSMF situates itself on new grounds this year so that work may continue apace on the riverfront space where it typically lives. And if Tom Lee Park, once given its remake, promises to be better than ever, the 2022 iteration of the festival will have a glory all its own, nestled in the shadow of the Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium. To get a sense of what has changed and what has remained, Memphis Flyer asked BSMF’s Randy Blevins to give us the lay of the land.
Memphis Flyer:It must have caused quite a shake-up to relocate away from your usual home. How will the experience be different for festival-goers? Randy Blevins: We’re going to be at the fairgrounds at Liberty Park just for this year while Tom Lee Park is under construction. As far as the festival is concerned, the layout is a different shape. Where everything at Tom Lee Park is kind of lined up north to south, the fairgrounds at Liberty Park are in a big rectangle. It’s still a big site. Two of the main stages will have the Liberty Bowl in the background, and the other main stage will have East Parkway in the background. There’ll be two main entrances on the north and on the south. And in the middle is Tiger Lane.
It actually surprises people who may have only driven on Tiger Lane or to the Coliseum. Once you’re there, you realize that’s a really big space. The fairgrounds had the Mid-South Fair for such a long time, and there’s plenty of room for the experience. So it’ll include all the things you’re used to seeing, just placed a little differently. All three stages will be triangulated with plenty of space between them. From the fountain at Tiger Lane, you’ll be able to see one stage to the south and another to the north. So it’ll create a really electric atmosphere.
How will parking be handled this year? We’re trying the best we can to make things easy and nice for everybody. There is on-site parking, and that area is accustomed to holding big events. And there are all these other locations, like CBU and other places that turn their surface lots into parking. We’ve also arranged with MATA to have a free rapid shuttle coming from Downtown. Most of our fans are coming from 100, 200 miles away, spending on average two to three nights at a hotel in Memphis. And most of our hotels are Downtown. That’s why Tom Lee Park works so well. So this year we’ll have a rapid shuttle, which will pick up at two locations: B.B. King and Union, and on Second Street by the [Renasant] Convention Center. Ticket-holders will be able to hop on the rapid shuttle and get dropped off at two locations, then take the shuttle back Downtown to continue to hang out on Beale Street and enjoy all the nightlife down there. If you’ve ever been Downtown after the festival, it’s packed. So we want that to continue. And if people want to use that, it’s free, but they have to register online first. They just show their ticket and they can hop the shuttle and ride about every 10 minutes or so, depending on traffic.
We’re also coordinating to set up a couple hundred spaces at the University of Memphis, and you’ll be able to buy access to a parking spot next to the Holiday Inn there, and then ride a shuttle from the U of M to the site and back. That’s just for Memphians who might not want to go Downtown and don’t want to deal with congestion around Liberty Park. It might be a nice option if you’re coming in from Cordova or Germantown.
The festival’s been delayed for years because of the pandemic. What procedures are in place to address Covid? We have a disclaimer on everything and we have a plan ready to go if anything happens, as we did last year when we had a half festival with the barbecue cooking contest at limited capacity. Whatever comes down from the Shelby County Health Department, we’ll comply and do what needs to be done. The world’s used to this now.
Have artists made different requests as far as vaccinations and the like? There have been different requirements from artists, but that’s become less and less part of the conversation as the months and weeks have come along. Currently we’re not asking for proof of vaccination from the public. But currently, anything is possible. Some of the artists have different requirements for ground transportation that’s picking them up or in the backstage areas. They might request masks. The vendors and backstage crews will meet each specific artist’s requirements.
After the 2020 festival was canceled, did many ticket holders opt to just redeem their tickets when the festival resumed? We have a decent number of deferrals. We did not get a lot of refund requests. Many folks just decided, “Whenever you come back, we’re in.” It shows the staying power of the story. It’s a great deal of trust, if you’ve paid hundreds of dollars for tickets, in some cases, and you’re flying blind because you don’t know who we’re going to book. So we felt pretty good that 90 percent of the people weren’t just saying, “Give me my money back.” It could have happened. We were prepared for whatever.
Has it been difficult to gear up for this after such a long hiatus? Just a short time ago, we were at a skeleton staff of only five people and the future of everything was a giant question mark. A festival depends on bringing people together in big groups. We don’t receive money from the city or the state or anything to cover overhead. And we had a reserve saved up for a rainy day, but a rainy day is a bad year, not a year with literally nothing. Who would have ever predicted that, right? So it was really tough. To be in the situation we’re in now, back to doing a big, full-on festival, is really good. There were no guarantees just a short time ago, when everything was shut down and there were just five of us, basically, living month to month. We just started hiring people and getting back up to full staff this fall. And we’re glad to be back, and glad that we’re getting such a good reception to this.
Beale Street Music Festival Schedule 2022
Friday, April 29, 2022 Gates at 5 p.m.
Bud Light Stage Three 6 Mafia 10:35-11:50 p.m. DaBaby 9:15-10:05 p.m. Waka Flocka Flame 7:45-8:45 p.m. Al Kapone (Memphis) 6:15-7:15 p.m.
Zyn Stage Sarah McLachlan 10:15-11:45 p.m. Van Morrison 8:15-9:45 p.m. Kurt Vile & The Violators 6:35-7:40 p.m. Amy LaVere (Memphis) 5:45-6:20 p.m.
Terminix Stage Sammy Hagar & The Circle 10:30-midnight Dirty Honey 9-10 p.m. Glorious Sons 7:30-8:30 p.m. Black Pistol Fire 6-6:55 p.m.
Blues Tent JJ Grey & Mofro 10:45-12:15 p.m. Kenny Brown (Memphis) 9:05-10:15 p.m. Janiva Magness 7:30-8:35 p.m. Earl the Pearl (Memphis) 6-7 p.m.
Saturday, April 30, 2022 Gates at 1 p.m.
Bud Light Stage Death Cab for Cutie 9:35-11:05 p.m. Spoon 7:55-9:05 p.m. Grouplove 6:20-7:25 p.m. Toad the Wet Sprocket 4:45-5:50 p.m. Soccer Mommy 3:15-4:15 p.m. Blvck Hippie (Memphis) 2-2:50 p.m.
Zyn Stage Megan Thee Stallion 10:45-11:35 p.m. Sarkodie (Ghana) 9-10:15 p.m. NLE Choppa (Memphis) 7:30-8:30 p.m. Project Pat (Memphis) 6:15-7:05 p.m. Duke Deuce (Memphis) 4:50-5:45 p.m. Lil Wyte (Memphis) 3:25-4:25 p.m. White $osa (Memphis) 2:15-3 p.m.
Terminix Stage Smashing Pumpkins 10:15-11:45 p.m. Stone Temple Pilots 8:30-9:45 p.m. Chevelle 6:50-8 p.m. Rival Sons 5:15-6:20 p.m. Ayron Jones 3:45-4:45 p.m. Tora Tora (Memphis) 2:15-3:15 p.m.
Blues Tent Robert Randolph & the Family Band 11-12:15 p.m. Don Bryant & the Bo-Keys (Memphis) 9:25-10:30 p.m. Ghost Town Blues Band (Memphis) 7:55-9 p.m. Hurricane Ruth 6:25-7:30 p.m. Mitch Woods & His Rocket 88’s 5-6 p.m. Brandon Santini 3:35-4:35 p.m. Barbara Blue (Memphis) 2:10-3:10 p.m.
Sunday, May 1, 2022 Gates at 1 p.m.
Bud Light Stage Lil Wayne 9-9:50 p.m. MoneyBagg Yo (Memphis) 7:40-8:30 p.m. Shaggy 6:10-7:10 p.m. Stonebwoy (Ghana) 4:45-5:45 p.m. Third World 3:20-4:20 p.m. Jucee Froot (Memphis) 2:10-2:50 p.m.
Record Display in A. Schwab General Store, 1930s
(Photo Courtesy A. Schwab)
At one time, A. Schwab General Store and Soda Fountain was the only store open for business on Beale Street. Founded in 1876, it has been in continuous business since then, and is still independently owned, with two Schwab family members still on staff. It has been closed for business only twice: during the Yellow Fever epidemic of the late 1800’s and during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It only makes sense, then, for the establishment to champion all things Memphis. And if you’re on Beale Street, Memphis means music. The store has carried records since the 1930s, and has a large collection of vintage records once sold there, including “Crazy Blues” by Mamie Smith, arguably the first blues record ever recorded. Indeed, A. Schwab’s archives pre-date the age of phonography, holding several player piano rolls, including W. C. Handy’s “Beale Street Blues,” and numerous examples of sheet music.
In keeping with this fine legacy, the store has announced a significant new focus on such holdings, the “Memphis Music Vinyl” department, to be celebrated in a special event, an official Record Store Day Launch Party on June 12th, from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m., staged in partnership with Shangri-La Records. The event will include door prizes, special event sales, an exclusive ticketed evening concert AND free chocolate “45 rpm records” made by Memphis chocolatiers Dinstuhls to be given to the first 45 people purchasing vinyl.
Terry Saunders, owner of A. Schwab’s, first contacted local musician Amy LaVere about the idea of expanding the music department. “Jake [Saunders] and I are so in love with the rich music history of Memphis, as well as the depth and breadth of talent in the contemporary music scene,” she says. “We felt it should be showcased in vinyl in keeping with the store’s long history of selling records.”
Consulting Shangri-La Record’s John Miller, and other Memphis music aficionados such as It Came From Memphis writer Robert Gordon, and label owner Bruce Watson (Fat Possum, Big Legal Mess, Bible & Tire Recording), LaVere curated the new “All Memphis Then and Now” vinyl record collection and it is impressive. No genre or era is left behind.
The special ticketed event begins at 5 pm and features a live interview and brief performance by Gospel Soul artist Elizabeth King, hosted by charismatic WYXR DJ Reverend Juan D. Shipp. Elizabeth King’s latest release Living In The Last Days recently reached #2 on the Billboard Blues Charts. At 77 years old, the gospel singer and mother of 15 children has a fascinating life story, recently detailed in this Memphis magazine profile.
Ms. King will be followed by John Paul Keith, who will be playing songs from his stellar brand new LP release, The Rhythm Of The City.
Tickets for the special event can be purchased directly through Amy LaVere, via A. Schwab’s General Store.
Photo illustration: Justin Fox Burks;
Prop Styling and Hand Modeling: Aaron Brame
The COVID-19 pandemic is not over. The Johns Hopkins University of Medicine’s Coronavirus Resource Center, which has been tracking the spread of the disease for more than a year, reports that 165 million people have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 worldwide; 3.4 million people have died from the disease. The United States has both the most cases, with just over 33 million, and the most deaths, with 588,548. In Shelby County, roughly one in 10 people have been infected, and 1,644 people have died.
The development of COVID vaccines and a massive government push to get “shots in arms” has blunted the spread of the disease. In real-world conditions, mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer and Moderna have been found to reduce an individual’s chance of infection by more than 90 percent. A two-shot dose virtually eliminates the possibility of hospitalization and death.
Vaccine development has been a science success story, but we’re not out of the woods yet. It’s unlikely COVID will ever go away entirely. The virus will go from pandemic to endemic, with flu-like regional outbreaks recurring every year. It will take time to vaccinate the world. Early fears about new virus variants able to evade vaccine-generated antibodies have not materialized, but most experts believe it’s just a matter of time before a new mutation makes a vaccine booster shot necessary.
As restrictions ease with the falling case numbers, the country seems to be crawling back to normal. Interviews with Memphians from different fields impacted by the pandemic reveal how this new normal will be different from the old.
Tamra Patterson (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
Dining In/Out
Tamra Patterson, owner of Chef Tam’s Underground Cafe in the Edge District, was just getting her business off the ground when the pandemic hit. “In February of 2020, we saw such great success, having just relocated from Cooper-Young,” she says. “We were right in the middle of Black Restaurant Week, and we were expecting for that to catapult us to new heights. As you could imagine, we were kind of sucker-punched in March.”
Instead of managing new growth, Patterson found herself facing no good options. “We had to make the really hard call of do we close, or do we do what we ended up doing, which is strictly going to-go?”
The constantly changing health directives made closing the dining room the logical choice. “I didn’t want the yo-yo: You can open but you can only have six people. You can open but you can only have 20 people. I felt like the inconsistency for a customer would be much more detrimental than what was happening.”
Eric Vernon of The Bar-B-Q Shop agrees that dine-out business was the only play available but says a good restaurant is about more than just the food. “At The Bar-B-Q Shop, you come in, you sit down, you stay overtime, and the staff gets to know you. So a lot of what we did was cut right off the bat. We don’t just sell food, you know. It’s an atmosphere thing. I think we went into a little bit of panic mode. I couldn’t worry about atmosphere; I just had to get the food out. So within a three-week, maybe four-week process, we did what normally takes a year to develop. We had to come up with an online system for people to pick up, and we had to do a delivery system, and we had to figure out how to get all these systems to ring up in our kitchen.”
Huey’s (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
Steve Voss faced the same challenge across the nine Huey’s locations. “We hit the streets as quickly as possible to figure out, how are we going to get food out to our guests efficiently and timely while maintaining the quality? So we went straight into curbside.”
Customers liked picking up food to eat at home, but the learning curve was steep, says Vernon. “We went from people placing orders for ribs and a couple of sandwiches to-go to doing full family orders. People don’t get that it takes longer for us to bag up an order for a family than it does to get it to the table. We had never done to-go orders for seven or eight people, every other time the phone rang. We had people calling to say they’re outside. Well, we’ve got a front door and a back door, so we’re running out to the front, they’re not there, so then we’re running out back!”
Restaurateurs got a crash course in the delivery business. “We’ve had people approach us in the past, wanting us to venture into that area,” Voss says. “We’ve developed some systems with DoorDash and ChowNow, and now it is a tremendous part of our business, but it’s really hard to execute well. It’s like having a whole other department in the building.”
Crosstown Brewing Company (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
Take-out wasn’t just for restaurants. “We had to shut down the taproom, which was a major source of revenue for our business,” says Crosstown Brewing Company owner Will Goodwin. “But people kept coming, and we made beers available in six-packs. I remember having a stack of beer sitting in the middle of the taproom, and we had a skeleton crew taking pre-orders and running beer out the door to people in cars.”
Goodwin says pandemic-era liquor law changes saved his business. “Beer is kind of hung up in this antiquated, three-tier system where there’s a manufacturer, there’s a distributor, and there’s a retailer.”
The pandemic proved direct sales from brewery to customer is “a new business model that could be sustained. We’re still doing deliveries on Mondays and Tuesdays from the brewery. I’ve got one guy that orders a mixed case of beer every Monday. He’s done it for a year and a half.”
Vernon says his dining room is filling back up, and the take-out business is bustling. After having to cut his staff in half, re-hiring is proving difficult. “Drive down Madison, and there’s a help wanted sign in every restaurant.”
The new normal will likely include both curbside service and increased delivery options, says Voss. “We’ve been very fortunate to have great managers and tremendous support from the community and our wage employees to navigate all this. It’s been a heck of a ride, and we’re still battling every day.”
Out of the Office
For millions of office workers, 2020 meant taking meetings in your Zoom shirt and sweatpants. Kirk Johnston is the founder and executive partner of Vaco, a consulting and staffing firm specializing in technology, finance, accounting, supply chain, and logistics. He says many businesses who were dipping their toes in remote-work technology found themselves shoved into the deep end. “I think a lot of them were just slow to adapt, but now that it’s been proven that people can work remotely and be very effective, companies have been forced to say, ‘Gosh, this does work, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t be more flexible because it makes people more productive when they can do the things they need to do for their family and also get their job done and done well.’”
Just before the pandemic, Memphian Audra Watt started a new job as vice president of a medical device company based in Lebanon, Tennessee. “I lead a marketing organization of individuals all over the country, and we’re a global organization, so we interact with people all over the world,” she says. “We have a lot of folks that already worked remotely. I’d never really worked with remote employees. I’d always been with people, who reported to me and my bosses, in the office. So I was like, this is going to be weird. I had no idea it was going to be the new normal. A month into my new job, everybody started working from home. I was shocked at how productive everybody was! It was like, well, we don’t actually need to all be together. Our productivity just skyrocketed to the point where I was telling people, ‘Hey, you don’t need to work nights and weekends.’”
The experience was an eye-opener. “I don’t see a reason to go back to the office in the full-time capacity we had in the past,” she says.
As vaccinations decrease the danger of an office outbreak, a new hybrid model is likely to take hold. “There’s a very hands-on element to what I do, with product development and product management,” says Watt. “Being able to touch and feel, and look at prototypes, and talk to people on the line is super critical. But I don’t do that every day. If I look back at my time in the office, a lot of it was spent on the phone. … I think one of the most compelling things I realized is how much time I spent traveling to get to in-person meetings, which probably could have been accomplished virtually.”
Like most teachers, John Rash, assistant professor at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, spent the last year and a half teaching remotely. “I would say it went pretty well for certain areas,” he says. “There were definitely some areas where it was not as good as in person, but there’re some areas that actually worked better. … I have one class I teach nearly every semester with a hundred students in it. It’s just not possible to address their questions and individual concerns during class time. A lot of those things that might take two or three back-and-forth emails, now, we can jump on Zoom and get it settled in four or five minutes. I feel like I’ve had a lot more contact with students over the past year than I did previously, just because of that accessibility that’s available through Zoom.”
Johnston says some form of remote work is here to stay. “The question is going to be, what is the best model for each individual company and each individual person? I think both are going to have to be flexible. Those companies that are just saying, ‘No, we’re going back eight-to-five, five days a week,’ will have a hard time recruiting people. And I think those people who are dogmatic and say, ‘I will only work remotely,’ will not find themselves in the best company or the best position. There’s going to be some kind of a compromise on both sides.”
Amy LaVere (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
The Show Must Go On
Amy LaVere and Will Sexton were touring in support of two new albums when COVID shut the country down. “We had gigs just falling away off the calendar,” LaVere says. “We had one big one left in Brooklyn, and it canceled because they shut the city down.”
On the terrifying drive back to Memphis, they stocked up on rice and beans and prepared to hunker down indefinitely. “What will become of us? Is this the end of mankind?”
LaVere and Sexton were among the first Memphis musicians to try streaming shows as an alternative to live gigs. “We just had to figure out a way to try to make a living, but it didn’t really work,” she says. “For the first couple of months, we were doing one a week, and people were very, very generous and sweet to us. It helped us get back on our feet. But then, it just became so saturated, and there were so many people doing what we were doing, that we really just kept at it to keep our craft up. It was a thing to do every week to just not lose your mind.”
Eventually, LaVere and Sexton started playing private, socially distanced shows in their driveway. “I hated the livestream so much,” she says. “It’s really difficult to perform to nobody.”
Zac Ives says the pandemic accelerated changes at Goner Records. “We were already working on a website and converting everything over to a more functional, online way to sell records. We’ve been living in the ’90s for the majority of our lifetime as a company online, and for a while that was fun and it worked. But we went ahead and launched the site we had been working on about a month before it was ready. That was our lifeline.”
Applying for a PPP loan and emergency grants forced Ives to re-examine long-standing assumptions. “The grants made us pull a bunch of different numbers and look at things differently,” Ives says. “My biggest takeaway from all of this is that it forced everybody to get way more creative, and way more flexible with how their business works.
“We were pushing people online to shop, but we also started thinking, if there are no shows, how can we get these records out when the bands can’t tour with them? How do you put stuff in front of people? Our solution was Goner TV.”
Goner had already been livestreaming their annual Gonerfest weekends, but after participating in a streaming festival over Memorial Day weekend 2020, Ives says they realized the bi-weekly show needed to be more than music. “The idea was sort of like the public-access cable shows we used to pass around on VHS tapes,” he says. “People would do all kinds of crazy stuff.”
Filmed on phones and laptops and streaming on Twitch and YouTube, the typical Goner TV episode includes live performances, music videos, comedy, drag queen tarot card readings, puppet shows, and even cooking and cocktail demonstrations. “We recognized that the power of all of this was that there were all these other talented people around who wanted to try to do stuff together. And it really did kind of bring that community back together. We’d get done with these things and be like, ‘Wow, how’d we pull that off?’”
In August 2020, Gretchen McLennon became the CEO of Ballet Memphis. “I think from a strategic standpoint, it made coming into leadership a little more compelling because all the rules go out the window in a global pandemic,” she says. “Dorothy Gunther Pugh left a wonderful legacy. Ballet is a very traditional art form, but it’s time to pivot, and the world was in the midst of a pivot. We just didn’t know where we were going.”
With grants and a PPP loan keeping dancers on staff, Ballet Memphis started streaming shows as an outreach, including an elaborate holiday production of The Nutcracker. Learning a new medium on the fly was difficult, but rewarding. “We had to be thoughtful about the moment in time we were in,” she says. “We successfully filmed over the course of two weeks, but we had to do daily testing of the crew in our professional company and all the staff that was going to be on set. … We wanted that to be a gift to the city of Memphis.”
Held last October, the 2020 Indie Memphis Film Festival was a hybrid of drive-in screenings and streaming offerings. “It was a huge success, without a doubt,” says Director of Artist Development Joseph Carr. “There was no existing infrastructure because no one was doing this prior to the pandemic. It was actually very frowned upon in the film festival world to have films online. Everybody kind of stepped up and rallied around each other in the community and really created a sense that we can all learn from each other. It brought a lot of the festivals much closer together.”
Carr says the virtual format allowed Indie Memphis to expand its audience. “We had filmmakers from as far away as South Korea and Jerusalem, but also we had audiences from those regions. That is impossible to get in any other way.”
Melanie Addington is one of very few people who have led two film festivals during the pandemic. The 2020 Oxford Film Festival was one of the first to go virtual, and by the time 2021 rolled around, the winter wave had subsided enough to allow for some limited in-person and outdoor screenings. “It was, for so many people, literally the first time they’ve been around other people again. And so all those awkward post-vaccine conversations. Like, do we hug? We don’t know what to do with each other anymore when we’re physically in the same space.”
Addington just accepted a new position as director of the Tallgrass Film Festival in Kansas, which means she will be throwing her third pandemic-era festival this fall. “A lot of us have learned there’s a larger market out there who can’t just drop everything for five days and watch a hundred movies. It’s going to allow for a bigger audience.”
McLennon says Ballet Memphis has a full, in-person season planned next year and sees a future for streaming shows. “In our virtual content, we can be more exploratory at low-risk to see, does it resonate? Does it work?”
LaVere sees signs of life in the live music world. “Who knows what the future will hold in the winter, but we’re full steam ahead right now. My calendar is filling up. It seems like every day, the phone is ringing with a new show.”
The week brings many unique delights, in addition to the stalwarts who have helped us through these many months of quarantine. Amy LaVere and Will Sexton present a live-streamed show from St. Croix, where they’ve landed after a very conscientious flight. South Main Sounds offers up another installment in its occasional series, this time featuring Scott Southworth and Mark Lavey. And finally, the great Memphis native Charles Lloyd offers up a virtual concert from UCLA that promises to be stellar. D. Darr
Charles Lloyd
REMINDER: The Memphis Flyer supports social distancing in these uncertain times. Please live-stream responsibly. We remind all players that even a small gathering could recklessly spread the coronavirus and endanger others. If you must gather as a band, please keep all players six feet apart, preferably outside, and remind viewers to do the same.
ALL TIMES CDT
Thursday, January 14
5:30 p.m. Amy LaVere & Will Sexton Facebook
Friday, January 15
6:30 p.m. Scott Southworth and Mark Lavey – at South Main Sounds Facebook
Saturday, January 16 10 a.m. Richard Wilson Facebook
This week is front-loaded with several dynamite live-streamed shows, in honor of 2020’s demise. Ring in a new year and a new you with your favorite local boppers, including Dale Watson, Tyler Keith, Spank!, the MD’s, and the Risky Whiskey Boys. For those shut-ins who typically stay at home for New Year’s Eve anyway, this pandemic could be a real boon to your entertainment options tonight!
REMINDER: The Memphis Flyer supports social distancing in these uncertain times. Please live-stream responsibly. We remind all players that even a small gathering could recklessly spread the coronavirus and endanger others. If you must gather as a band, please keep all players six feet apart, preferably outside, and remind viewers to do the same.
ALL TIMES CDT
Thursday, December 31
6 p.m. Juke Joint AllStars – at Wild Bill’s Facebook
If you don’t have a fireplace, or forgot to order your 12-hour fireplace Blu-ray disc, never fear! The Memphis music scene has plenty in store to help these wintry nights pass merrily. Break out the nog and settle into listening mode, safely at home. In between Zoom reunions and toasting those in your safety pod, there’s plenty to keep you entertained!
REMINDER: The Memphis Flyer supports social distancing in these uncertain times. Please live-stream responsibly. We remind all players that even a small gathering could recklessly spread the coronavirus and endanger others. If you must gather as a band, please keep all players six feet apart, preferably outside, and remind viewers to do the same.
ALL TIMES CDT
Thursday, December 24
3 p.m. and 5 p.m.
Christmas Eve Service – Bellevue Baptist Church Facebook
7 p.m.
Christmas Eve Concert – Union Grove M.B. Church Facebook
Friday, December 25
No scheduled live-streamed events
Saturday, December 26
10 a.m. Richard Wilson Facebook
5 p.m. Turnt & The KLiTZ Sisters – at B-Side Facebook
7 p.m. Led Zep’n – at Lafayette’s Music Room Facebook
Just this week, a neighbor mentioned how important live-streamed shows were to him these days, and how he always reads The Flow, for that reason. It gave us a happy glow here at The Flow. This week, the volume is down a notch, but Memphis stalwarts keep it moving. And they are doing Memphis a great service. Support their virtual tip jars generously!
REMINDER: The Memphis Flyer supports social distancing in these uncertain times. Please live-stream responsibly. We remind all players that even a small gathering could recklessly spread the coronavirus and endanger others. If you must gather as a band, please keep all players six feet apart, preferably outside, and remind viewers to do the same.
ALL TIMES CDT
Thursday, August 6
Noon Amy LaVere & Will Sexton Facebook
Noon
Live DJ – Downtown Memphis Virtual Carry Out Concert Facebook
D. Darr 
Ebet Roberts 