Tag: Beale Street

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Music Music Features

The International Blues Challenge is Back

CREDIT: Roger Stephenson

It’s hard to imagine a massive annual music festival, one that brings thousands to Memphis every year, somehow taking place under the very noses of the unsuspecting locals. Yet that’s exactly what happens every January, when the International Blues Challenge (IBC) goes down. The 2019 version starts Tuesday this week in various clubs along Beale Street, Main Street, and Second Street, culminating with the finals at the Orpheum Theatre on Saturday, January 26th.

As Blues Foundation president Barbara Newman notes, “We did an economic impact study and learned that this event brings close to $4 million of fresh tourism money into Memphis every year. And that doesn’t even account for the peripheral stuff that happens when people stay after the event to visit Mississippi or spend extra time in Memphis. Everything takes a big bump up during IBC week. And it’s an otherwise quiet, almost dead time for Memphis. So it’s great that we’re here to energize the city every year.”

Roger Stephenson

Kevin Burt

And, Newman adds, the IBC affects every community that sends artists to compete. “One part of it is discovering that next great musician that’s ready to take a bigger stage. But another part is about offering the blues societies an opportunity to do something engaging in their local communities to keep the blues scene vibrant where they are.”

This year, blues societies worldwide, having staged their own mini-competitions, are sending local winners from as far away as South Korea. And for those who come, the experience can be life-changing.

“Susan Tedeschi was an IBC finalist,” says Newman. “Southern Avenue didn’t even make it into the top three, but they got a label deal. Then they won best emerging artist at the BMAs last year. Danielle Nichole and her brother won in 2008, and she’s up for a Grammy this year. [2018 winner] Kevin Burt went on to record his first CD, and he just got nominated for a Blues Music Award as best emerging artist.”

I tracked Burt down somewhere in his home state of Iowa to ask about the experience of winning best solo performer at the IBCs. “It’s created a lot of opportunities for me that I don’t think I would have been able to create on my own,” he said. “But, win, lose, or draw, I made some contacts, and I knew I was going to go some places that were outside of my reach, just having had the chance to network with people. There’s so much information and there’s so much opportunity, just walking around. The workshops they have, the different panel discussions that they do. It’s almost like getting a new set of keys. It’s a whole lot easier to get through certain doors if somebody gives you a key.”

Burt’s success is also an object lesson in how stylistically diverse contenders can be. One of the standout songs in his prize-winning set was a version of “Eleanor Rigby,” by the Beatles. “As I see it, I get to define my blues,” he says. “If I sing ‘Happy Birthday,’ I’m telling you I really want you to have a happy birthday. That emotional connection is to me what the blues is. There’s too many folks that get caught up in a specific sound.”

Paul Benjamin, who’s been an IBC judge many times over and now orients each year’s incoming judges, agrees. “Originality is important,” he says. “Judges don’t wanna hear ‘Mustang Sally’ or ‘I Got My Mojo Working.’ I go over the criteria with them. It’s broken down into the categories of originality, talent, vocals, and stage presence. Each is weighted, and originality’s weighted by three, whereas talent, vocals, and stage presence are weighted by two.”

For Burt, originality is tied to spontaneity. “I didn’t put together a set list for the IBC. Every experience I had while I was down there helped to shape my set list for the next show. That’s how I’ve always done this. I walk into the room, and I don’t know what I’m gonna do until I’m doing it. There’s something about that nervous energy that helps me connect. There’s a feeling that you get.”

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Music Music Features

Monterosso Meets Memphis: Italian Guitarist Finds a Home

CREDIT: Photographs by Billy Morris

With foreigners and asylum-seekers now becoming the objects of some folks’ daily two-minute hate, it’s worth noting the value of immigrants in the Memphis music scene. Guitarist Mario Monterosso has been in Memphis more than two years, but he’s not the first Italian to seek a fortune in the Bluff City. W.C. Handy wrote of another, “a ragged immigrant boy, a dark-browed Italian youngster called Pee Wee, [who] crept out from under one of the box cars. He had come all the way from New York on the rods.” Later, the youngster came into his own on Beale Street. As Handy recalled, “When I first visited the city as a boy, Pee Wee was running a saloon … and his place became almost a landmark and a legend. Moreover, it was a headquarters for musicians.”

Unlike Pee Wee, Monterosso came to Memphis wielding a guitar, but like Pee Wee, he found a home on Beale. Many have marveled at this newcomer’s playing with the likes of Dale Watson or John Paul Keith and wondered what his story could be. It’s a tale of the fascination a boy had with the music of the American South.

Hailing from the ancient port of Catania, on Sicily’s eastern shore, Monterosso recalls that “music was part of my family. My great aunt was a very important opera singer in Italy. And my sister was a classical pianist. My father used to write about the opera.”

Photographs by Billy Morris

Mario Monterosso, an Italian guitarist in Memphis

But for the young Monterosso, the muses of the Old World were no match for those of the New. “When I was 10, my sister had a rockabilly boyfriend. My father died in the same period, so this guy became a kind of role model. And the first time I went with them to a concert, I saw this guy named Vince Mannino. With this big quiff and sideburns, and a rockabilly drape. A real Teddy Boy. He was singing ‘Boogie Woogie Country Girl,’ and I said ‘Wow, what is this? I wanna learn to play!’ And little by little, I started.”

He found more enlightenment via cassettes. “My first tape ever was of a British radio show named Radio Memphis — a compilation of Sun records and rock-and-roll. So rockabilly was my first imprint. And that’s when I discovered Tav Falco. A friend gave me this tape, and I was like ‘Wow, what is this?’ The first time I saw Tav was in Catania, in 1989.” Throwing himself into guitar, he played in bands and expanded his musical horizons into jazz, blues, funk, and country. Yet by the time he was 30, Monterosso had never left Catania.

“I was a clerk at the court,” he recalls. “So I asked for a transfer to Rome, just to have a formal excuse for my family: ‘I’m moving to Rome because of my job.’ But the truth was that I wanted to do more in the music scene.” He made a name for himself as one of Rome’s go-to roots-rock guitarists, when the fates struck once more. “A friend sent me a message, ‘Would you like to work with an American guy? His name is Tav Falco.’ I said, ‘What? You mean Tav Falco and the Panther Burns?’ She said, ‘Yes. He wants to record an album in Rome and then tour around Europe.’ I said yes immediately.”

Falco sent him a message: “Hey, I’m not a rockabilly or rock-and-roll or blues cover band. I’m something else.” Finding that “something else” to his liking, Monterosso embarked on the European tour, and then a U.S. jaunt. It was a game-changer.

“After the tour, when I came back to Rome, I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ That’s when I dedicated my life to music.” And to Memphis.

“During the tour, when I arrived in Memphis, I said, ‘I would love to live here.’ I saw New York … I saw Chicago. Very important cities, very cool. But people are always running. Here, there’s still something between people. And when I find myself at Sun Records or Sam Phillips, recording albums, it’s something special. It’s like if you love art and you find yourself in Florence or Rome, working at the Colosseum or the Cappella Sistina. Wow.”

He pauses a moment, then adds, “And it’s pretty cheap, too.”

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News News Blog

State Suspended Purple Haze’s Liquor License

CREDIT: Purple Haze/Facebook

Purple Haze/Facebook

The Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) yanked Purple Haze’s liquor license on the same day owners of the nightclub said they were closing to “evaluate best practices.”

A statement from the state agency Monday said the decision came after a review of incidents at the club over the last two years, “including the sales of narcotics within the establishment, multiple assaults, and the recent shooting.” TABC Executive Director Clayton Byrd said the suspension was to ensure that “additional members of the public are not hurt.”

“We are very concerned about the recent shooting and the information that we have obtained from the Memphis Police Department which outlined multiple criminal violations that have occurred on or about the licensee’s premise,” Clayton said in a statement.

A shooting at Purple Haze last Monday sent four to hospitals. Club owners said the shooters somehow manage to sneak firearms past its security protocols.

TABC Special Agents were sent to the club to investigate. They conducted interviews, reviewed surveillance video footage, and collected evidence, according to the TABC.

“They worked closely with Memphis Police Department investigators who provided TABC with reports that had been used to obtain indictments for felony narcotics violations that stemmed from undercover operations not related to the recent shooting,” TABC said.

The suspension becomes permanent unless Purple Haze owners can persuade TABC officials against it during a hearing on November 4th.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Breakfast on Beale?

CREDIT: Sean Pavone | Dreamstime.com

Beale Street is unique. That isn’t rose-tinted boosterism or uncultured naivete, it’s true. Exempt from both city and state open-container laws, Beale Street is part of a special coterie of places where folks can openly booze it up in the middle of the street. If there’s anything we Memphians and the kind of tourists we attract love, it’s drinking al fresco. Such an amenity is bound to draw a crowd. And it does, so much so that a cover charge is now a perennial discussion — despite the corny name, layers of questionable optics, and uncertainty whether the program even worked last time.

A fact-finding mission to the French Quarter must have come up empty, otherwise we’d have strip clubs and video poker by now. According to the Beale Street Task Force’s study, there have been eight “stampedes” since April. There’s no denying that crowd control is an issue. So the city hired a consultant to tell the mayor and merchants what they want to hear: Beale Street Bucks are a good idea.

Nowhere else is such a fee necessary. But Beale Street is unique. Other more practical recommendations included setting crowd capacity at 20,000 and reconfiguring the entry points to alleviate crowding at Second Street.

Sean Pavone | Dreamstime.com

Beale Street

Assessments of the situation and their costly fixes seem to overlook the encompassing reality that Beale Street’s biggest problem is that it’s not very big. The distance from Blues City to the New Daisy is less than a quarter-mile. When something outgrows its container, you don’t discard the excess, you get a bigger container. Expanding the perimeter would make sense. This was the intent behind a resolution earlier this year that would have expanded the open-container zone to include South Main. Unwilling to yield their dominion on street-booze enjoyers, stampedes be damned, Beale Street’s merchants bristled.

As long as the primary source of entertainment in the entertainment district comes from a bottle, with thousands of sweaty people up in others’ personal space well past bedtime, there will be issues — cover charge or no. Whodini was right: The freaks do, indeed, come out at night.

So I’d like to propose some alternative solutions designed to lure people off the street. I’m happy to offer my consulting expertise to anyone who wishes to put these ideas into action in exchange for a commemorative plaque or unlimited mozzarella sticks.

Visit a pro sports arena in any other city. On your way, you’ll pass at least one sports bar filled with eager pregamers gorging on jalapeño poppers and cheap beer before they move on to $9 drafts at the stadium. With AutoZone Park and FedExForum yards away and locals’ enthusiasm for basketball, football, and now soccer, the area is overdue for a real sports bar. The Liberty Bowl brings thousands of college football fans in December, and Memphis in May always coincides with the NBA Playoffs. So hang some old growl towels, Memphis State gear, and a couple dozen monster televisions. Whip up a few flavors of wing sauce, ice down some beer buckets and watch the cash pour in. Call it Hop City — like Hoop City, but with beer, get it?

As companies consider making the move Downtown, surely their representatives have noticed a lack of options for grabbing a sausage biscuit on the way to work. This is essential to economic development. A 24-hour diner on Beale would meet this need and fulfill revelers’ need for 4 a.m. sober-up eggs. Lives will be saved. Plus, it would help bridge that weird identity gap between the historic, family-friendly Beale Street tourists enjoy during the day and the boisterous playground it becomes at sundown. It doesn’t have to be blues-themed or have a pig logo and 901 in the name. Call it whatever, as long as it serves jet-fuel coffee and thick-cut bacon on demand.

One of the liveliest spots on Bourbon Street is a Krystal. Surrounded by some of the best food in the world, the restaurant with the square hamburgers and the hot dog carts stays busy. Drunk people need to eat, and “Kitchen Open Late” is bar-speak for “Kitchen Open Until We Send the Fry Cook Home.”

Am I suggesting more — or at least different — businesses on Beale would disperse crowds and prevent fights from breaking out? Hardly. But open containers and walk-up drink service encourage loitering, and more reasons to get people out of the street and into the businesses couldn’t hurt. A cover charge perpetuates the perception of danger, and that iconic street deserves so much better.

Jen Clarke is an unapologetic Memphian and digital marketing specialist.

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News News Blog

City Council Brings Back Beale Street Entrance Fee

Beale Street

The Memphis City Council voted Tuesday to reinstate the fee to enter Beale Street based on “needs-based determination.”

Bringing back the entrance fee was one of the 24 recommendations made by the group, Event Risk Management Solutions (ERMS), which was hired by the Beale Street Task Force earlier this year to assess crowd control and safety on Beale.

After a long debate between the council Tuesday evening, they approved the fee 7-4, but on a temporary, needs-based basis that is to be determined by the Downtown Memphis Commission and the Memphis Police Department.

The original resolution, sponsored by Councilman Kemp Conrad, called for implementing an attendance-based entrance fee when the crowd is expected to exceed 10,000.

But, Council Chairman Berlin Boyd, who chaired the Beale Street Task Force said even an attendance-based charge could “look discriminatory.”

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“Hypothetically, what if we have 10,000 African-American male and females on the street and you put Beale Street Bucks in place, what does that look like?” Boyd asked. “ What if we have 10,000 African Americans on Saturday and 10,000 African Americans on Sunday night and we put Beale Street Bucks in place? If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck.”

Boyd said public safety is important, but “we cannot have something that looks sketchy. I’m not voting for anything that’s going to looks like it’s discriminatory toward any person in the city of Memphis or any tourist.”

Councilman Worth Morgan told Boyd and colleagues that public safety shouldn’t be compromised for optics. Morgan also emphasized the importance of taking action, after an early morning shooting at the Purple Haze night club Monday.

To that, Boyd, joined by Councilman Martavius Jones, said an entrance fee would not have prevented that situation, as the night club is outside of the Beale Street Entertainment district. 

Continuing, Boyd reiterated that the program “has to be fair and equitable” for those who patronize and visit Beale Street. He said he wants to make sure that the city isn’t putting itself in the position to get sued.

Council attorney Allan Wade agreed, saying that there may be some risks with setting the number at 10,000, as the study found there was no correlation between crowd size and incidents on Beale. In the case of ligation, he said the court could see the number as “arbitrary.” He suggests adopting some “further objective criteria” for determining the number.

“I do believe that a court would look at MPD’s determination as being needs-based on safety and could be more defensible in court,” Wade said. “That’s just my humble opinion.”

So, Councilman Bill Morrison proposed the idea of allowing MPD and the DMC decide what elements call for implementing a fee or other security measures like wanding patrons.

“Let’s let the experts have this conversation,” Morrison said. “Let’s let the folks that get paid to protect and manage decide.”


The council concurred that the Beale Street Merchants Association should have an input on determining safety precautions as well.

[pullquote-2]

The $5 fee to enter the street on Saturday nights during peak seasons was eliminated by the council last November. Looking for an alternative to the fee, the Beale Street Task Force hired the crowd control consultant, ERMS earlier this year to study ways to keep the crowds on Beale orderly.

The group produced 24 recommendations in all. Some of which include setting the maximum capacity on the street to 20,000 people, restricting Beale Street to pedestrian traffic only, and redesigning the street’s entry points.

The study also concluded that there wasn’t enough regulation and monitoring of those entering the street.

Two weeks ago, the council made the first move toward new safety precautions, voting to spend a little under $800,000 for bollards — barriers keeping cars from driving onto the street. The bollards will be placed alongside Second protecting people lining up to enter the street, as well as at the ends of the entertainment portion of the street at Beale and Second and at Beale and Fourth.

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News News Blog

Early Morning Shooting Comes After Club Allowed to Extend Hours

CREDIT: Purple Haze/Facebook

Purple Haze/Facebook

Four people were shot early Monday morning at the Purple Haze nightclub close to Beale Street, according to WREG, and the incident comes about two weeks after the club was legally allowed to stay open until 5 a.m.

The club and the area around it has been the site of numerous shootings, fights, and more, mostly in the early-morning hours. Monday’s shooters were able to sneak their guns through what Purple Haze owners called “strict security procedures.”

City officials and the Downtown Memphis Commission argued in court against the club being allowed to stay open until 5 a.m., like Beale Street clubs. They argued Purple Haze was not inside the Beale Street Historic District.

Club owners said they are “cooperating fully in the ongoing investigation into this unfortunate incident.”

“We offer our deepest sympathies and prayers for quick healing to those that were injured, including one of our very own security officers, in the altercation that happened at Purple Haze Nightclub early this morning.

“While measures were in place to detect the possession of firearms as patrons enter the club we are unsure at this time how those that discharged firearms were able to do so despite our strict security procedures.

“As the safety and security of our guests and employees are our utmost concern we are temporarily closing for two weeks to review operations.”

Categories
Music Record Reviews

Robert Allen Parker Drops a Record with Blues Giants

Album art by Tom Foster

Robert Allen Parker is a patient man. Some fifteen years ago, the local guitar ringer recorded his dream album with a cast of players to die for, including Hi Rhythm’s Leroy Hodges on bass and Howard Grimes on drums. But as time passed, he came to feel dissatisfied with the record. The years flew by, and he became even more embedded in the Beale Street scene, working at Memphis Music Store there for nearly 20 years, and often playing all night at nearby clubs. He came to feel he could revisit and improve upon the concept of his original collaborative album, but bided his time.

Nan Hackman and Robert Allen Parker

Perhaps best known as the guitarist for Hope Clayburn and Soul Scrimmage, Parker can also be seen accompanying Beale Street stalwart Earl “The Pearl” Banks and others. Beyond that, you may know him by the documentary he worked on for a decade, Meanwhile in Memphis: The Sound of a Revolution, released in 2016. As he worked on that project, co-director Nan Hackman encouraged him to follow his instincts and re-cut that album of his dreams. He recently did just that, and the fruit of that labor will soon drop. Like the first album, Parker has assembled an all star cast, but, eschewing vocals himself, he’s content to let his guitar lead the players through this collection. And, with each song performed by a different combo, Parker’s guitar is a welcome thread of continuity, tying the tracks together. It helps that his tone is a perfect combination of growl and grit, nailing the sweet spot between choogle and boogie.

Preston Shannon

But, to his credit, Parker also stays out of the way, the more to let his guest stars shine. Perhaps the most poignant cameo here is that of Preston Shannon, who passed away this January. His three performances here are the last he ever recorded, and they bear witness to his vocal chops. And while most of the band on Shannon’s tracks creates a seamless funk/soul stew, Parker’s guitar adds a welcome bit of heaviness that one might not otherwise hear paired with Shannon.

Speaking of the seamless funk/soul stew, some of it is cooked up by the Hi Rhythm core of Hodges and Grimes, who play on tracks sung by both Shannon and Daddy Mack. And, as always, it’s stunning how the bass and drums lock together on these numbers, bearing down like some relentless bulldozer, much in the way we’ve heard them on classic Hi records, not to mention their Grammy-nominated album with Robert Cray.

The material here is mostly comprised of chiefly Beale Street chestnuts, but there are many surprises, including several numbers by Parker himself, including the amusing “Belly Dancing Woman,” sung by Daddy Mack. But even the chestnuts are molded by each artist, in true blues tradition. Among the singers, besides Shannon and Mack, we hear performances by Chris Stephenson, “Dr. Feelgood” Potts, daughter Sheba Potts-Wright on the classic “Crazy ‘Bout You Baby” (popularized by Tina Turner, and more locally by the Hellcats), and Smokey Yates narrating “The Story of the Blues.” Billy Gibson, Robert Nighthawk Tooms, and Malcom Burt contribute harp licks, and Randy Westbrook adds some piano and organ here and there.

Earl ‘The Pearl’ Banks

But the standout tracks, to these ears, are those by Banks, whose voice ranges from a vulnerable Skip James falsetto to a weathered growl that well suits his 80-odd years. His “Floodin’ Down in Memphis,” a reworking of Larry Davis’ “Texas Flood,” combines ominous lyrics of disaster with a shrug-it-off blues shuffle. And two other numbers, featuring just the guitars of Parker and/or Banks, are all the more powerful for their sparseness, giving “You Don’t Have to Go” and “Key To the Highway” new life, and capturing this local legend’s voice in all its time-worn glory.

Robert Allen Parker leads an all-star band in a record release party for this album on Saturday, August 11th, at Blues City Cafe, 2-4:30 pm.

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Rassle Me Sports

5 Facts About Dana White’s Pro Wrestling Debut in Memphis

CREDIT: Dreadhead Kev

Dreadhead Kev

UFC president Dana White ringside on Beale Street.

Last weekend in front of Jerry “The King” Lawler’s Hall of Fame Bar & Grille on Beale Street, UFC president Dana White was involved in a professional wrestling match for the first time ever. White’s debut in the squared circle was another historic wrestling moment in city know for its wrestling history. 

Here are five facts about the UFC boss’s “Beale Street Brawl”:

1) White was in the corner of Derrick King and Matt Serra in a tag match featuring one wrester and one MMA fighter on each team and one WWE Hall of Famer as a special enforcer outside the ring.

2) White entered the ring towards the end of the match and played an important role in the finish before getting attacked from behind by Maria Starr.

5 Facts About Dana White’s Pro Wrestling Debut in Memphis (5)

3) All of the action was filmed for the reality show Dana White: Lookin’ for a Fight.

[slideshow-1] 4) White picked Memphis over Mania.

5 Facts About Dana White’s Pro Wrestling Debut in Memphis

5) Mr. Belding was there.

5 Facts About Dana White’s Pro Wrestling Debut in Memphis (2)

5 Facts About Dana White’s Pro Wrestling Debut in Memphis (3)

Listen to Kevin Cerrito talk about pro wrestling on the radio every Saturday from 11-noon CT on Sports 56/87.7 FM in Memphis. Subscribe to Cerrito Live on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, tunein, PlayerFM or Sticher. Find out about his upcoming wrestling trivia events at cerritotrivia.com. Follow him on Twitter @cerrito.

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Music Music Blog

Dr. Herman Green: 88 Years Young, Still Blowing the Blues

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Justin Fox Burks

Herman Green

Dr. Herman Green, the saxophonist supreme who started out on Beale Street in the 1940s, and who, after travelling the world playing his horn with giants from John Coltrane to Lionel Hampton to Stevie Wonder, became a Beale Street institution in his own right for the past 40 years, turns 88 on May 27th. It’s a Sunday, a day when, for over three decades, he’s been reliably playing with the funk/soul/jam outfit FreeWorld on Beale. So naturally, it’s party time!

“It just so happens,” says FreeWorld co-founder Richard Cushing, “that we play Blues City Cafe every Sunday anyway. It really dovetailed together nicely.” Cushing adds that, although Green’s health has been less than ideal lately, he’ll be there and “he’s really looking forward to spending this special birthday evening with all his friends, family, fans & loved ones.”

Cushing adds that “we have a bunch of special musical guests lined up to join us on stage to honor Herman that night,” hinting that the guests may include super fans such as Jim Dandy or Carla Thomas. Seeing the Queen of Memphis Soul will no doubt resonate deeply with Green, who got his start in show business thanks to her father, the late Rufus Thomas.

Such a celebration also resonates with the location, which had a specific mission under its previous name. “Blues City Cafe used to be Doe’s Eat Place,” notes Cushing. “And they envisioned the band box there to be kind of like Preservation Hall in New Orleans: a place where the old players always had a home, at least once a week.” Certainly it has served that mission well with Green, who’s been a fixture there. But, Cushing adds, “Under doctors orders, Herman hasn’t had a thing to drink in over six months, so please refrain from buying him his formerly beloved shots of vodka.”

While Green has not been playing as much lately, he still blows on occasion, and on May 12th, he carried out a tradition of 25 years by playing at the Memphis College of Art graduation commencement, marching the new graduates in to the ringing sounds of his saxophone. It was MCA that granted Green his honorary doctorate. (Read more about Green’s life in our 2017 profile of him, below).

So it’s likely you’ll hear his legendary tone at some point, depending on the doctor’s health. Either way, it’s a perfect way to ring in Memorial Day, honoring one of Memphis’ greatest living players, who’s held his own among the titans of jazz, blues and soul for nearly a century.

Dr. Herman Green’s 88th Birthday Party, Blues City Cafe, Sunday, May 27, 9 pm – 2 am.

Categories
Art Art Feature

Art by Art

Art Covington began selling his artwork when he was five years old.

He copied cartoon characters. “I did Popeye and Mighty Mouse, and I would take them to my dad,” he says. “I would leave them on his chair.

“I would come back to get it maybe later that evening. I got through playing. There would be a nickel or a quarter.”

Covington, 61, who now shows his art locally at Center for Southern Folklore, Gallery 56, and Painted Planet, credits his dad for encouraging him to pursue art. “He saw that talent in me. As a matter of fact, later on, I guess around my junior high years, he and my sister enrolled me into this mail art course.”

They discovered the Famous Artists School art course on a matchbook. It said “Draw Me.” “And when you open it up [it’ll have] a little bulldog or something there. I think mine was a boxer. I drew the boxer and they sent it in. They’re supposed to let you know if you have talent or not.”

It was costly, Covington says. “I think it’s like $800. Back then, that was a lot of money. Norman Rockwell was one of the faculty members there.”

He stuck with it for a year. “I was too young. I eventually started missing my classes.”

Covington’s parents said, “We’re not going to be wasting our money on you. You’re not committed enough right now.”

“Draw Me” wasn’t a total waste of money; Covington learned “the foundation of how to project images. I never had anyone showing me that. How to make the foreground darker and, as you get closer, make the images lighter. And how to do the lines. The perspective.”

Noted Memphis artist George Hunt was Covington’s next inspiration. Hunt was Covington’s art teacher at Carver High School. “I would watch over his shoulder and see how he applied the paint to his artwork.”

But, Covington says, “I did not know that he was such a phenomenal artist because he didn’t put it out there. He didn’t brag about his stuff.”

Covington got away from painting after he got a full-time job. “I would paint just to get a few dollars here and there. When I got inspired to do something I would do it, but it was just every now and then.”

Hunt invited him to paint at Carver. “He said, ‘Why don’t you come on back? I got a little extra room. You want to use it for your studio?'”

Covington, who had married, also was encouraged by his wife, Vanessa, who said he should participate in a fine arts competition sponsored by Church of God in Christ.

He won the “Visual Artist’ category and went on to win a partial scholarship, which he used to attend Memphis College of Art.

Over the years Covington’s subjects have ranged from landscapes to “country stuff” — barns and outhouses — to Rockwell-ish “expressions of life.” He now paints a lot of music-themed works.

Covington discovered Center for Southern Folklore about 15 years ago when he was trying to find someplace to hang his artwork. “I noticed they had some artwork on the wall and met Judy [Peiser, Center for Southern Folklore founder and executive producer]. I’ve been with them ever since.”

Covington began selling his paintings at the Center’s Memphis Music & Heritage Festival. “Most of the people buying my artwork are people from out of town.”

“Art Covington uses his art to tell us about the people and places he knows,” Peiser says. “From someone talking on the phone to the Pyramid at Memphis, Art’s work allows us to know more about this place we call home.”

One of Covington’s popular works is “Kings of Beale” — his Memphis take on the Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover. Instead of the Beatles, he painted W. C. Handy, Elvis, Isaac Hayes, and B. B. King.

And instead of Abbey Road, the men are crossing Beale Street. “It’s such a beautiful place,” Covington says. “Especially at nighttime when it’s all lit up. I wish I had time to put it all in there, but I just wanted enough so people would know, ‘Hey. This is Beale Street.'”