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Memphis Wins Big at 66th Annual Grammys

(L-R) Mason Williams, Michael Graves, Cheryl Pawelski, Deanie Parker, Michele Smith & Robert Gordon, winners of the "Best Historical Album" award at the 66th GRAMMY Awards.(Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

As the 66th Annual Grammy Awards unfolded over the weekend, many names associated with Memphis and the Mid-South were among the winners, including musicians, songwriters, producers, engineers, and writers.

If award-winning music creators are already a well-established Bluff City tradition, the music writing being done here is quickly becoming another of the city’s music industry exports. In 2021, the Commercial Appeal‘s Bob Mehr won the Best Album Notes award for the writings he penned for Dead Man’s Pop, a collection of music by The Replacements, and scored another win last year for his notes in the deluxe edition of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, co-produced by Cheryl Pawelski of Omnivore Recordings.

This year, it was Robert Gordon’s and Deanie Parker’s turn to take home the Best Album Notes prize — for yet another Pawelski project, Written in their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos, Craft Recordings’ seven-CD collection offering a glimpse into the the rare songwriting demos of Stax Records in its heyday. Profiled in the Memphis Flyer last summer, the collection is an intimate portrait of the men and women who wrote the songs of the pioneering soul label. The same box set, produced by Gordon, Parker, Pawelski, Michele Smith, and Mason Williams, also won the award for Best Historical Album.

It’s a subject that’s been thoroughly researched by Gordon, who also won a Grammy in 2011 for notes accompanying Big Star’s Keep An Eye on the Sky box set before penning the book Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion in 2013. But if Gordon knows Stax, co-writer Parker outdid him with her eyewitness accounts, having worked at Stax through most of its existence and even serving as a songwriter there herself.

Over the past 20 years, Parker has also championed the creation of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, the Stax Music Academy, and the Soulsville Foundation, as celebrated in this 2023 Memphis Flyer story. Thus her Grammy win was an important tribute to one of the label’s key behind-the-scenes players, and as the co-producers of the set gathered onstage to receive the award, they naturally deferred to Parker to speak on their behalf.

Album note writers Deanie Parker and Robert Gordon on the jumbotron, accepting their Grammy Award. (Credit: Pat Rainer).

“Stax founders Jim Stewart and his sister Estelle Axton gave the Stax songwriters a racially integrated paradise where they were encouraged to discover and develop their authentic talents by Al Bell,” Parker said while accepting the award. “This set highlights some of Stax’s and America’s most talented rhythm and blues songwriters: Eddie Floyd, William Bell, Steve Cropper, Homer Bates, Mack Rice, Bettye Crutcher, Bobby Manuel, and Henderson Thigpen.” After thanking the Recording Academy and her fellow co-producers, she also gave a nod to local artist Kerri Mahoney for designing the look and layout of the box set, before concluding with a warm acknowledgment of “the remarkable visionary and producer, Cheryl Pawelski.”

Another non-performing contributor to Grammy wins was Matt Ross-Spang, who engineered on Weathervanes, the Best Americana Album winner by Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, and who co-produced and mixed Echoes Of The South, the Best Roots Gospel Album winner by the Blind Boys Of Alabama, at his Southern Grooves studio in the Crosstown Concourse.

Beyond the scribes, historical producers, and knob-twiddlers, musical artists from Memphis also made a strong showing at this year’s ceremony. While Memphis has always loved native daughter Julien Baker, it seems all the world loves boygenius, her band with fellow singer-songwriters Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. Their 2023 album The Record garnered six nominations, and ended up winning Best Alternative Music Album, with the group also scoring Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song wins for the single “Not Strong Enough” — featured in this week’s Music Video Monday.

boygenius (Photo courtesy Chuffmedia)

When boygenius, decked out in matching white suits, accepted their second award, Baker wore her heart on her sleeve. “All I ever wanted to do in my life was be in a band,” she said, visibly shaken with emotion. “I feel like music is the language I used to find my family since I was a kid. I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who ever watched me play.”

Bobby Rush, based in Mississippi but with longstanding ties to Memphis (and awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities by Rhodes College), also saw his latest work celebrated, with his 2023 album All My Love For You winning Best Traditional Blues Album. He too was eloquent in his gratitude. “I treasure this, and honor Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Tyrone Davis, Johnnie Taylor, all the guys coming before me that I looked up to…thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Finally, while not winning as a performing artist, the legendary DJ Paul was a towering presence onstage as Killer Mike accepted awards for, Best Rap Album, Best Rap Performance, and Best Rap Song. He co-wrote his track, “SCIENTISTS & ENGINEERS,” with DJ Paul (aka Paul Beauregard), Andre Benjamin, James Blake, Tim Moore, and Dion Wilson. In winning the latter category, Killer Mike and his collaborators edged out another Memphis talent, producer Tay Keith, who was among the songwriters for the Grammy-nominated track “Rich Flex” by Drake and 21 Savage.

Right out of the gate, Killer Mike acknowledged his colleague from Memphis as they stood together at the podium. “I’m from the Southeast,” he said. “Like DJ Paul, I’m a Black man in America. And as a kid, I had a dream to become a part of music, and that nine-year-old is excitedly dancing inside of me right now… I want that thank everyone who dares to believe that art can change the world.”

DJ Paul, of course, has long been an integral player in the Oscar-winning Three 6 Mafia, and is an active solo artist and producer to this day, as profiled by the Memphis Flyer here. His old crew included the late Gangsta Boo, who was honored during the In Memoriam segment of the ceremony. Wayne Kramer of Detroit’s MC5, whose appearance on Joecephus & the George Jonestown Massacre’s Call Me Animal album was likely his last released recording before his death on February 2nd, was also remembered in the segment.

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Film Features Film/TV

Music Video Monday: “Not Strong Enough” by boygenius (Plus Other Grammy Winners)

Memphis was well-represented at last night’s Grammy Awards. The album of long lost Stax demos, Written In Their Soul, won for Best Liner Notes, an award which was accepted by Stax’s PR person turned champion Deanie Parker and Memphis writer/director Robert Gordon.

Bobby Rush, now entering his ninth decade, won Best Traditional Blues Album for All Of My Love For You.

Supergroup boygenius—Pheobe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and former Memphis punk rocker Julien Baker—won three Grammys, including Best Alternative Album for The Record. “Not Strong Enough” won both Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance. Watch Baker get emotional while accepting the group’s third award of the evening.

The music video for “Not Strong Enough” was shot by the band themselves while hanging out in Southern California, and edited by Jackson Bridgers. The video shows off the group’s low-key appeal, which charmed the nation on the summer’s blockbuster tour which climaxed with a sold-out Halloween show at the Hollywood Bowl. The visuals may be unassuming, but the music is powerful.

You don’t have to win a Grammy to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday. All you have to do is email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.

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Music Music Features

Top 10 Memphis Albums of 2023

boygenius – the record (Interscope Records)

Memphian Julien Baker first teamed up with Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus back in 2018, but the 2023 version finds the trio mapping grander horizons. With a sound big enough and produced enough to conquer the world, it still retains much of Baker’s intimacy, as all three artists offer confessions of love and transgression. The new album encapsulates a Gen Z zeitgeist: “You were born in July, ’95, in a deadly heat …”

Cloudland Canyon – Cloudland Canyon (Medical Records)

This latest from Memphis’ best kept synth secret is becoming a sleeper hit of sorts, especially the bubbling, burbling “Two Point Zero,” pairing pounding beats with wistful melodies like classic New Order. Chris McCoy called one track “a bouncy castle of ’80s synth pop,” saying another “drips with the narcotized seduction of Warhol-era Velvet Underground.” Extra points for Elyssa Worley’s guest vocals on “LV MCHNS” and others.

Chad Fowler, George Cartwright, Kelley Hurt, Christopher Parker, Luke Stewart, Steve Hirsh, Zoh Amba – Miserere (Mahakala Music)

Chad Fowler’s unique Mahakala imprint, focusing on sonically unrestrained music, is both composed and freely improvised, and here he’s joined by onetime Memphian Cartwright and others, including Tennessee’s rising “free jazz star” Zoh Amba. The dynamics and emotional arcs that develop, with Hurt’s haunting vocalizations matched by piano, saxes, flutes, guitar, and rhythms, are deeply moving for deep listeners.

Candice Ivory – When the Levee Breaks: The Music of Memphis Minnie (Little Village Foundation)

Ivory’s found the perfect producer in guitarist/bassist Charlie Hunter. Both regularly push back against jazz orthodoxies, and this ostensible roots album is really a work of alchemy, conjuring Afro-Caribbean rhythms, virtuoso blues guitar, and gospel pedal steel in a seance with Memphis Minnie. Some are stripped-down acoustic blues, some are stomping jams, but all are dominated by Ivory’s powerful and nuanced voice.

Tyler Keith – Hell to Pay (Black and Wyatt)

Keith has a way with a phrase: The words of the title song roll off the tongue like fallen fruit. That’s just what these big, pile-driving rock songs need. And pairing steamy Southern tones with the primitivism of the Ramones allows the words’ meanings to breathe. Most importantly, you get plenty of chant-worthy choruses over ace guitar riffs.

MEM_MODS – MEM_MODS Vol. 1 (Peabody Recording Co.)

Sounding like a lost ’70s soundtrack, this album ranges from Augustus Pablo-like dub to funk bangers to smoldering Isaac Hayes-like ballads. Ear-catching synth sounds abound. Naturally, a trio of veterans like childhood friends Luther Dickinson, Steve Selvidge, and Paul Taylor are adept at “studio painting,” but this also finds these players pushing themselves, especially Dickinson, who focuses on bass and keyboards. Peabody’s first release in decades.

Moneybagg Yo – Hard To Love (CMG/N-Less/Interscope Records)

This Memphis icon continues to pull apart at the seams of his own myth. While the hit “Ocean Spray” celebrates the joys of being out of it in a world of botheration, he checks himself with tracks like “No Show” with the words “I fill my body up with drugs ’fore I even eat/Percocets, Xans, codeine, you don’t wanna see what I see.”

Optic Sink – Glass Blocks (Feel It Records)

Unlike many synth artists who construct tracks “in the box” of a computer screen, Optic Sink composes and performs on actual hardware in the moment, as three post-punk humans recording their basic tracks live. This sophomore album adds bass to drum machine beats from Ben Bauermeister, as Natalie Hoffmann’s dry, disaffected vocals, old-school synth lines, and guitar flourishes add richer soundscapes than the group’s debut.

Rising Stars Fife and Drum Band – Evolution of Fife and Drum Music (Rising Stars Records)

Sharde Thomas (playing, singing, and co-producing with Chris Mallory) takes her grandfather Otha Turner’s music to new heights with this rhythmic tour de force. Mixing tuneful choruses, heavy beats, deep funk, and even touches of Afrobeat’s cascading guitars with their fundamental “drum corps in the yard” sound, this group is forging a whole new genre right in our backyard.

Elder Jack Ward – The Storm (Bible & Tire Recording Co.)

When Memphis’ longtime pastor passed away this April, he had just left this masterpiece in his wake. In true Bible & Tire style, the gritty, swinging “Sacred Soul Sound Section” backs his original songs, but the most captivating sounds come from Ward’s own family, especially when Johnny Ward steps out with “Payday After While” — the track suggesting that his kin will carry his message on.

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Film Features Film/TV

Music Video Monday: “The Film” by boygenius

Two acts with Bluff City roots made big impressions at the Coachella music festival this weekend. The first was Memphis meteor GloRilla whose Sunday afternoon set got buck. We’ll see her in a couple of weeks at the Beale Street Music Festival.

Expat Julien Baker’s arrival was announced in these pages in 2015. Three albums and an ink barrel’s worth of critical acclaim later, Baker is supplying Memphis muscle to the supergroup boygenius. Baker joined bandmates Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus on stage with MUNA to guest on her song “Silk Chffon” before playing an epic set that debuted selections from their new record, which is called The Record. It’s probably not a coincidence that the album just debuted at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The lead music video from The Record is, perhaps predictably, called “The Film.” Unpredictably, it is directed by superstar actor Kristen Stewart, who weaves three boygenius songs, each with a different lead singer, together into three intertwining short stories. It’s beautiful, complex, and generally shoots much higher than your average promo clip. It’s also 15 minutes long, so watch it on your lunch break.

If you would like to see your video on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.

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Music Music Features

Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridges, and Lucy Dacus: boygenius

CREDIT: Lera Pentelute

Julien Baker, the Memphis-bred phenomenon behind 2015’s Sprained Ankle and 2017’s Turn Out the Lights, is touring in support of a new project with fellow indie-rock sensations Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. Bridgers’ Stranger in the Alps was released last year and features a duet with Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst as well as the enormously infectious “Motion Sickness,” and Dacus has been carving out a place for herself in the indie-rock pantheon with a duo of lyrically resonant and grunge-guitar-laden albums, 2016’s No Burden and this year’s Historian. All three artists are relatively new on the scene, with Baker’s Sprained Ankle having the oldest vintage of their solo releases, but their collaborative boygenius EP project feels, both lyrically and sonically, like something put together by artists wise beyond their years.

Lera Pentelute

boygenius

On the EP, the trio give the songs room to breathe, making their harmonies feel precious, like moments of connection in lives ruled by distance and grueling touring schedules. The collaboration, initially born of an email thread and shared demos, began to coalesce once the trio booked a tour together. Baker says she knew they would team up onstage somehow. “I like to find ways to make the live set special and different. It seemed obvious to all of us that we would collaborate in some way,” Baker says. “If we’re going to write one song, we might as well write as many songs as we can.” So the trio blocked out a week and wrote and recorded their six-song boygenius EP at Sound City Studios in L.A. The EP is set to be released on Matador Records this Friday, November 9th.

The three entertainers differ somewhat in style and genre. Dacus’ music feels more classically rock-and-roll, while Bridgers’ is the most folk-tinged of the group; she’s drawn comparisons to the late Elliott Smith. Their differences work to their credit on the boygenius EP. The songs, with all three vocalists taking turns on lead and harmony duties, feel like something universal accessed via different routes. Unlike so many collaborations, the songwriters behind boygenius are united by common experiences and shared friendship rather than a strict adherence to any genre or a crass cash grab. These are three friends letting down their guard with each other and writing about how it feels to be themselves, even as they discover who they want to be.

“Those are two people that, now looking back on it, are two of my earliest, closest friends from the quote, unquote ‘music industry,'” Baker says. “I don’t feel like I know the first thing about the music industry. Especially now, living in Nashville, there’s such a world of cogs and mechanisms that I’m just not privy to.”

Perhaps owing to the speed with which the project was put together, or maybe because no one in the group is really an industry insider, nothing feels calculated on the boygenius EP. “Writing with Phoebe and Lucy opened me up in a lot of ways,” Baker says. “Now that I’m engaging with music constantly, I’ve become so much more meticulous about how I create music. And I wonder sometimes if the magic is in what’s automatic. And getting to write with them, especially in this very limited time allotment, was really amazing. It challenged me to rely more on instincts.

“I think Lucy and I are used to making records very fast, just going into the studio and grinding for a week or two weeks, but Phoebe approaches records in the ‘leave it alone’ way. [Phoebe] will not rush a song.”

There must be something to letting a composition breathe and relying on instinct, because the songs on boygenius sound like something infused with a little bit of magic. On “Ketchum, ID,” an acoustic lament about youth spent on the road on tour, one can almost hear the buzzing of fluorescent lights and echoing hallways backstage. Baker and her band mates conjure a moment of respite — with harmonies enough to bridge their distances and keep dissonance at bay.