Tag: Box Tops

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Music Record Reviews

Dan Penn’s Latest: Timeless Lyrics Skip Over the Placid Waters of the Soul

Dan Penn knows a bit about suffering and joy. Since he began writing songs and producing at Fame Studios in Florence, Alabama, in 1960, and through his long Memphis period at American Sound Studio, creating hit after hit for the Box Tops and others, he’s always had a way of cutting to the quick of an emotion. “The Dark End of the Street,” the Penn classic made famous by James Carr, is both an urban landscape and a mental geography, limned with a few deft strokes of the pen, and the beauty of such a song lies in its simplicity.

For such songs, it’s ideal for the music to be like water. Like a pristine lake over which lyrics skip like stones, you may barely register that it’s there at all. 

That’s the ideal, anyway, and it’s reassuring that such an approach informs Penn’s latest, Living on Mercy (Last Music Co.). The album, which was officially released two months ago, with a vinyl version coming out this Friday, is only his fifth collection of original songs, excluding live albums and compilations; and only his third fully produced record. And that may be because he takes his sweet time writing songs. Certainly, they all have an unhurried quality, where each word has been chosen and worked over carefully.

And the music fits this mood perfectly. There are no dramatic angles or sharp attacks, only resplendent beds over which Penn can pour his heart out. The recording sessions in Muscle Shoals and Nashville included Milton Sledge (drums), Michael Rhodes (bass), Will McFarlane (guitar) and Clayton Ivey (keyboards), along with a full horn section, and these players are clearly seasoned. Not a note is out of place.

The general approach is cosmopolitan soul, with smooth, church-like tones coloring even the more up-tempo numbers. Now, over a half-century after the innovations of soul were pioneered, those musical moves are well-practiced and flawless, yet heartfelt, and totally authentic. It feels reassuring to hear these sounds played with both heart and restraint.

And that allows Penn’s stories and moods to take center stage. To these ears, it’s a bit too reassuring when Penn is happy and grateful, as with the title track, but especially moving when he hints at something more grim. One standout track, “Blue Motel,” may be one of his most moving, simply by virtue of painting his dark portraits with such plainspoken honesty.

It’s a long and winding dusty road to the outskirts of hell
Where only losers find their way to this old run down motel
It’s a long way from paradise to the dark end of the street
From champagne to mad dog wine, it’s all so bittersweet
Here at the blue motel

There are many stories, many moods here, but something in this song cuts to the quick of them all. From champagne to mad dog wine, they’re all so bittersweet. 

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Music Music Blog

Musical Memorial Planned Sunday For Swain Schaefer

CREDIT: courtesy Swain Schaefer Memorial Page

Memphis native and journeyman musician Frederick Swain Schaefer passed away at his Nashville home on February 16, at the age of 70. Though his playing never made him a household name, he was beloved by many in the Memphis and Nashville music communities, and was one of those players who made the local rock, country and soul scenes hum. Many of his colleagues will gather on Sunday, March 3 at Huey’s Midtown to pay their respects and play music in his honor. 

courtesy Swain Schaefer Memorial Page

Swain Schaefer

Schaefer began his life in music with one foot in the big band era, having studied piano with Memphis bandleader and music store owner Berl Olswanger. But as a teen, he quickly jumped into the rock ‘n’ roll game, playing bass with the Scepters. By 1965, only a year after they’d formed, the group was in Royal Studios recording their first single. The A side, their version of Bobby Emmons’ “Little Girls Were Made to Love,” took off with regional DJs. As Ron Hall writes in Playing for a Piece of the Door, the single “did extremely well in the tri-state area and made the guys local celebrities.” 

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But the B side, written by Scepters guitarist John Wulff, offers more surprises:  

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Schaefer played with other groups from the same era, keeping his keyboard skills sharp with combos like the Memphis Blazers. His multi-instrumentalist talents culminated in his short tenure as the Box Tops’ bassist, starting in heavy touring year of 1969, when Alex Chilton and Gary Talley were the only original members left. Indeed, Schaefer was in London with the group when Chilton’s disenchantment with their management came to a head, partly due to a travesty of tour planning that left them stranded there with no gigs. Yet, as related in Holly George-Warren’s Chilton biography, when the singer announced he would leave the group while in London, Schaefer threatened “to beat him up and put him in the hospital.” 

The Memphis Blazers, ca. 1967, with Swain Schaefer on organ

Such incidents notwithstanding, after the inevitable collapse of the Box Tops, Schaefer was a regular visitor to Ardent Studios, often with Chilton, in those pre-Big Star days. “Alex and I’d get loaded and go into Ardent,” Schaefer told George-Warren. “I’d play organ, and he’d play piano. He liked Scott Joplin and played a couple Joplin tunes like ‘The Entertainer’ pretty well.”

From there, Schaefer built a life around music, rubbing shoulders with a number of greats. Here’s a song he co-wrote with Dan Penn, featured on Irma Thomas’ album My Heart’s In Memphis – The Songs Of Dan Penn, released in 2000.  

Musical Memorial Planned Sunday For Swain Schaefer

Indeed, Schaefer’s writing and arranging skills earned as much respect as his playing. As The Daily Memphian‘s H. Scott Prosterman writes:

Schaefer co-wrote the song “Happy Holidays” on Alabama’s double platinum 1985 “Christmas” album. Among the Memphis and Nashville musicians Schaefer worked with over the years were Delbert McClinton, Ronnie Millsap, Don Nix and Sid Selvidge. He collaborated with Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham, Jimmy Griffin and John Paul David, and performed with Tony Joe White, Levon Helm, The Pointer Sisters, and with Ed Bruce on Austin City Limits. He was a member of the bands Wind Mill and Brother Love.

Jimmy Crosthwait, a bandmate and surviving member of Mudboy and the Neutrons, created marionette shows at Memphis’ Pink Palace Museum with Schaefer’s help. “Swain and I worked together recording the music and narration of several productions that I performed through many of those years,” Crosthwait said. “He did so without monetary compensation, and for very little recognition.”

A service was held Monday at the Church of Hope in Nashville, where Schaefer was the organist and musical director. In Memphis, a musical tribute hosted by Jimmy Crosthwait and Jimmy Newman will take place at Huey’s Midtown, on Sunday, March 3, 3-7 p.m. 

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Music Music Blog

Memphis Music Hall of Fame Announces 2018 Inductees

Eddie Floyd


The Memphis Music Hall of Fame just announced this year’s inductees, who officially enter the ranks of honorees at the induction ceremony this November. The Hall of Fame, a nonprofit set up in 2012 and administered by the  Memphis Rock N’ Soul Museum, now celebrates the works of over seventy artists or groups, and shows no signs of lacking local talent for future recognition.

This year’s inductees are, as usual, giants in their respective genres. We pay tribute to them here with clips of them working their magic onstage. Towering over them all is the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, who died just last month. She will be paid a special tribute in November’s ceremony, as the Hall of Fame honors a legend who called Memphis her birthplace.

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Another soul giant, Eddie Floyd, will also be inducted this year. The writer and hit performer behind “Knock on Wood” and many other Stax hits, Floyd’s songs were interpreted by nearly every Stax artist. Naturally, not a year has gone by without at least one artist from the label being inducted.

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O’Landa Draper, the Grammy Award-winning gospel singer and director of the Associates Choir, was considered one of the top gospel artists of the 1990s. He too will join the ranks of honorees this year. Though not born in Memphis, Draper moved to Memphis at the age of 13 and attended Overton High School and the University of Memphis.

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At today’s announcement event, there was some light-hearted discussion of whether Draper could be honored in the same program as fellow 2018 inductees, 8 Ball & MJG. They will be, we were assured, but the musical numbers won’t be juxtaposed. The rap duo are on a roll lately, ramping up their live appearances and continuing to drop new albums. (See our recent profile of them below).

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In keeping with the Hall of Fame’s tradition of inducting groups as well as solo artists, the Box Tops were also added this year. With Big Star having been inducted in 2014, this makes for two groups associated with Alex Chilton getting the nod. Could he be recognized as a solo artist in his own right one day? In any case, the announcement also named checked original members Danny Smythe, Bill Cunningham, and Gary Talley, as well as 1968 additions Rick Allen and Thomas Boggs. The fabulous guitar in this video clip was not mentioned by name.

Memphis Music Hall of Fame Announces 2018 Inductees

Another group, arguably far more groundbreaking than the Box Tops, was also recognized: The Rock and Roll Trio, responsible for the groundbreaking “Train Kept A-Rollin'” and other rockabilly masterpieces. Driven by the savvy guitar attack of Paul Burlison, brothers and Memphis natives Dorsey and Johnny Burnette took the world by storm, once upon a time. Here they are from 1956.

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And finally, another legend from the first days of Elvis, who most certainly has not left the building, is George Klein, the pioneering DJ and rock ‘n’ roll television host who was critical to giving regional bands exposure via his programming. He was also an early friend to the King, and had the honor of inducting Elvis into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He’ll be honored with the other performers above (for he, in his own way, was an artist as well) at the induction ceremony, scheduled for November 1st at the Cannon Center. Here’s George sharing a strange moment with the great Sam Phillips.

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Bailey Wilkinson and the OSO Club

Bailey Wilkinson

  • Bailey Wilkerson

If you can bear it, look carefully at the drug-addled, LSD-selling hippie in this photo.

Not exactly the kind of person you want your kids hanging around, is it? Not with his tangled, shoulder-length hair, menacing tattoos, and weirdo Carnaby Street fashions! And Lord only knows the eardrum-bursting psychedelic music he played on that guitar, cranked up to “11”. Why, he makes Marilyn Manson look like a choir boy!

Wait a minute. Something’s not right here. This is Bailey Wilkinson, one of the nicest fellows you could hope to meet, a clean-cut fellow with short hair and — good grief, I think he’s even wearing white socks with his penny loafers!

But in the mid-1960s, when he opened his oddly named OSO club for teenagers on North Highland, just a few blocks from Treadwell High School, you would have thought that Satan himself had moved into the community. The OSO was the first of the so-called “coffeehouses” that opened around Memphis, and neighbors (meaning = adults) were NOT happy. They fretted about the music, the musicians, the food, even the decor of the OSO and other clubs that followed: The Bitter Lemon, the Pastime, the Roaring 60s. They were especially concerned because so many of these places were — horrors! — painted black inside. Good children, it seems, didn’t hang out in places with black walls.

Even ones, like the OSO, that clearly posted NO DRINKING signs on the front doors.

But this was Memphis in the 1960s — or trying to catch up to the 1960s — and the OSO and the other little clubs around town provided a new kind of place for teens to hang out, and managed to attract an astonishing number of talented performers: The Box-Tops, The Groupe, The Tribesmen, The Hombres, Even the all-girl band, The Goodees.

Then, before you could play “Purple Haze” on air guitar, the whole “beatnik/hippie/club scene” kind of faded away here. All these old places have been demolished or converted into other businesses.

And Wilkinson himself? I was told he died in a car wreck, sometime in the 1970s, long after the OSO closes. Does anybody know for sure?

PHOTO COURTESY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS LIBRARIES