Tag: Anniversary

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Crosstown Calls for Your Memories for Third Anniversary

CREDIT: Crosstown Concourse/Facebook


Crosstown Concourse opened to much fanfare in 2017 with tours and live music events dominating the day and night. The same was true for 2018 and 2019.

But this year, thanks to COVID-19, Crosstown is calling for a more muted celebration.

With the Concourse unable to safely host a celebration, they have asked for the community to share their favorite Crosstown photos on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter with the hashtags #yourconcourse and #bettertogether for a chance to win a $50 Concourse gift card.

“Three years ago, when Concourse welcomed thousands of Memphians from all walks of life at the opening celebration, we were finally able to experience the vertical urban village dream of ‘better together’ in action,” said Todd Richardson, president of the Crosstown Redevelopment Cooperative. “If absence makes the heart grow fonder, Crosstown Concourse’s third anniversary this week has given us the opportunity to reminisce about our favorite memories and events over the last three years, and, as a result, cherish more than ever all the people and arts programming we miss so much.”

Memphians have until 5 p.m. on Friday, August 21st to make posts. Three winners will be randomly selected and announced on Concourse social media channels on Monday, August 24th.

Crosstown Concourse/Facebook

Crosstown Concourse’s opening day in 2017.

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News

Machine Gun Kelly Arrested in Memphis 74 Years Ago This Week

As anniversaries go, it’s an odd one. But it’s still one of Memphis’ most spectacular crime stories.

Just before dawn on September 26, 1933, Memphis police officers and federal agents crept up to a quiet bungalow off South Parkway. Inside was their quarry, a man known throughout the country as “Public Enemy Number One,” and a killer so skilled with a tommygun that he could stitch his name in .45-caliber slugs.

The police crept up to the front porch, slowly opened the front door, and stepped inside. Just coming out of the bathroom was George Kelly Barnes, who raised his hands and meekly surrendered. Without firing a shot, the officers had arrested the notorious gangster known as Machine Gun Kelly, the Central High graduate who would end his days in Leavenworth and Alcatraz.

For the real story of the dramatic life of one of America’s most famous criminals, read the Flyer’s story.

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Music Music Features

Willie Hall’s Journey

While the official 50th anniversary celebration of Stax Records might be winding down, several of the label’s alumni are getting together for a group show Wednesday, August 8th.

Bar-Kays trumpeter Ben Cauley and Soul Children vocalist J. Blackfoot will join Queen Ann Hines, The Total Package Band, and others for Willie Hall‘s birthday blowout at the Executive Inn.

“I’m turning 57,” says Hall, a former Stax session drummer who will also perform with The Bo-Keys on Wednesday night.

After developing his chops in the marching band at Hamilton High School, Hall contributed to Isaac Hayes‘ Oscar-winning “Theme From ‘Shaft'” and provided the backbeat for The Blues Brothers.

“We were in the studio, with everyone squeezed in front of a small monitor,” Hall says of working on Hayes’ trademark song. “Isaac said, ‘Watch Richard Roundtree‘s steps and give me those 16th notes.’ That gave us the tempo for ‘Shaft’.”

The job offer from John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd — aka Jake and Elwood Blues — came at an admitted low point in the otherwise unflappable drummer’s career.

“It was the summer of ’79,” remembers Hall. “Stax had closed, and Hot Buttered Soul, Isaac’s studio, had closed, so I was driving a popsicle truck. After I got off work one night, I picked up my kids and, with what little money I had, I took them to McDonald’s. Paul Compton, who worked as an engineer for Shoe Productions, lived around the corner, and I decided to stop by. He said, ‘Hollywood’s looking for you.'”

Universal Studios was ready to begin filming The Blues Brothers, but the original band (Tom Scott, Paul Schaeffer, and Steve Jordan) was tied up with a Gilda Radner project, so Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn — who’d just wrapped up a tour of Japan with Levon Helm — were hired instead.

“Duck said, ‘I know a son-of-a-bitch we can get on drums,’ and as fate would have it, I just happened to pull into Paul’s house, and he gave me the message,” Hall says.

Ironically, he didn’t approve of the act at first. “I thought it was a farce. Even though they were playing Stax songs, I’d turn the TV off because I thought they were mimicking us in a bad way,” he says of the Blues Brothers’ Saturday Night Live appearances. “Little did I know. During the nine months of filming the first movie, I got a chance to hang out with John and Danny in their camper. They had a Rock-Ola jukebox with every soul and R&B record I’d ever heard in my life. That’s when I knew they were serious about music.

“I didn’t have to pretend. We just had fun,” Hall claims of his work in the 1980 film and its ’98 follow-up, Blues Brothers 2000. “When John was sober, he was one of the greatest people to be around. Everything he did was funny. And because I knew Duck and Steve personally, John and Dan took me in and made me feel welcome.”

After relocating to Atlanta for several years, Hall and his wife Deborah (she’s a veteran of the Isaac Hayes Movement and KC and the Sunshine Band and a current minister of music at Eastern Star Baptist Church) moved back to Memphis in October 2000. He signed on as a teacher at The Stax Music Academy and joined the Bo-Keys soon after, returning to the silver screen with Craig Brewer‘s Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan.

Since returning to Memphis, Hall also has reconnected with his eldest son Patrick, better known as rap pioneer Gangsta Pat.

“I remember when he was just 3 years old, and we were living in Whitehaven,” Hall says. “Patrick had fallen in love with KISS, and he’d put on a wig and pantomime in the mirror. Then I came home one day, and he was playing the drums. I’d take him on the road and to recording sessions. His mother and I separated when he was 9, and I didn’t see him again ’til he was 16.

“He grew up in the business,” Hall says, “although I was frightened for him in his early days as a rapper. I thought that style of music would lead to his ruin, but he’s prolific and an excellent musician and producer. Patrick’s been working with Eric Gales and David Banner, but we haven’t had the chance to get into the studio together. I hope we get to do that this fall.”

Willie Hall’s Birthday Party

The Executive Inn, 3222 Airways Blvd.

Wednesday, August 8th

7-11 p.m., $10

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News

NAACP Branch Celebrates 90 Years

The local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) will begin a series of events celebrating its 90th anniversary Tuesday, June 26th at 7 p.m. at the Greater Middle Baptist Church at 4982 Knight Arnold Road.

Former NAACP executive director Julian Bond will deliver the evening’s keynote address. Local NAACP leader Johnnie Turner says that past presidents of the local chapter will be recognized.

Turners adds that Tuesday’s ceremony begins a series of events that will culminate in January of next year.

The NAACP was founded in 1909. Robert Church Jr. helped begin the Memphis chapter in response to the lynching of black laborer Ell Persons in May 1917.

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Music Music Features

Stax Homecoming

CREDIT: Andrea Zucker

Memphis’ year-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of Stax Records culminates this week with the “50 Years of Stax” concert at The Orpheum on Friday, June 22nd. The lineup is shaping up to be a super-sized version of the revue that highlighted this spring’s South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas.

In Austin, Booker T. & the MGs played a sizzling set then settled in as the backing band for classic Stax vocal stars Eddie Floyd and William Bell. Isaac Hayes introduced the show and then returned at the end for a group rendition of Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay.”

This week’s local celebration will duplicate that lineup and add to it: Vintage Stax stars such as Mavis Staples, The Soul Children, and Mable John will provide some gender balance. Otis Redding will be represented by his sons via their band The Reddings. And a new generation of soul stars will pay homage with performances by Angie Stone, N’dambi, Soulive, and Lalah Hathaway.

This last group of young neo-soul acts will join Hayes as the first slate of artists who will record for the new incarnation of Stax, relaunched by the California-based Concord Music Group, which acquired the rights to the Stax name (and much of the back catalog) a few years ago.

Concord is putting on this week’s concert, in conjunction with the Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau and Soulsville, which operates the Stax Music Academy and the Stax Museum of American Soul Music.

Public Enemy rapper and hip-hop activist Chuck D. and American Idol judge and music producer Randy Jackson will host the concert. Proceeds will benefit the Stax Museum. Tickets are $25, $50, and $100, available through Ticketmaster. There are also “Golden Circle” tickets available for $1,000 each. These tickets include VIP orchestra seating, parking, and a pre-show party at the Orpheum Broadway Club, admittance to the after-party at the Gibson Music Showcase, a private celebrity tour of the museum, and a copy of the two-disc 50th-anniversary Stax compilation that Concord released earlier this year. For information on Golden Circle tickets, call Deanie Parker of Soulsville at 261-6385.

Following the “50 Years of Stax” concert Friday will be an after-party at the Gibson Music Showcase, which promises further performances by Stax artists. The after-party starts at 11 p.m. Tickets are $27 and are available at the Gibson. See Gibson.com for more information.

Hopefully, this week’s activities will focus more attention on the museum as well. In addition to the museum’s fine permanent exhibits, current visitors can take in The Art of Stax: Essential Album Cover Photographs by Stax Photographer Joel Brodsky. To extend your Stax experience past the weekend, return for the museum’s Last Mondays in Studio A series, which will host soul singer Toni Green on Monday, June 25th. The concert is from 7 to 9 p.m. Admission is $20, or $5 for museum members.

As for Stax on wax: Concord is well into a rich reissue campaign and will get into the full relaunch of Stax as an active label later this year.

In the meantime, Concord is producing a series of digital-only releases exclusively through iTunes. These include a series of “Short Stax” EPs, which pair two of the best-known tracks by individual artists with a “lost gem.” The 10 “Short Stax” releases are for the following artists: Booker T. & the MGs, The Dramatics, The Emotions, Floyd, Hayes, Albert King, The Soul Children, The Staple Singers, Johnnie Taylor, Carla Thomas, and Rufus Thomas.

A second series of “Short Stax” releases will follow next month. In addition, Concord is offering digital releases of full Stax albums that have never gotten CD releases, including Floyd’s 1969 album You’ve Got To Have Eddie and David Porter‘s 1970 solo album Gritty, Groovin’ & Getting’ It.

Look for much more on this week’s Stax concert in next week’s edition of the Flyer. And for more information, go to Memphissoul50.com or Soulsvilleusa.com.

Correction: Last week’s Local Beat column cited Kat Gore as a producer on the new album from local band Giant Bear. It should have been Kat Sage.