Chuck D – Memphis Flyer

There are music festivals, and then there are Memphis music festivals. When artists big or small hear that the Bluff City is calling, it hits differently: The history here calls them as much as the prospect of playing to huge Mid-South crowds. And it’s striking just how many global artists have ties to this little corner of Tennessee, either through family or the city’s champion musicians playing in their bands — or simply a love of (sampling?) the city’s music.

That’s especially true for the RiverBeat Music Festival, happening from this Friday, May 2nd, through Sunday, May 4th, at Tom Lee Park. While it’s featuring headliners Missy Elliott, The Killers, and Anderson .Paak & the Free Nationals, the fest always starts with record numbers of local acts right out of the gate, built on a foundation of Memphis musicianship regardless of the marquee names. That’s especially true in the festival’s second year. Nearly 30 of the scheduled artists are local (and that’s not even counting all the students at the School of Rock).

But some of RiverBeat’s national touring acts not normally associated with the Bluff City also have strong ties here — none of them bigger than the hip-hop legends who first called on us to “Fight the Power,” who’ll be playing the prime time slot on Saturday night some 40 years after they started.

Public Enemy

It may seem absurd to associate the quintessential New York rappers of righteousness with Memphis, but it’s a deep connection that Public Enemy’s co-founder, Chuck D, is quick to point out. “I got roots in Memphis,” he says. “You know — with Stax. And I got roots in Memphis with Sun. I’m very knowledgeable about it, and Memphis has been great to me back in my past. You know, it’s like I had another lifetime in the Mid-South. Every time I step on that bluff, I mean, I feel like I’m like a cousin.”

He goes on to explain the city’s unique evolution as a distribution center and hub. “I’m a historian, and whenever you take geography and history away from a people, then you’ve got slavery all over again. So when I went into Memphis, I knew where I was going. I knew the history. I knew the history of the music, and I ended up learning even more. The music changed the world, from Beale Street down to Stax on McLemore, Sun Records with Sam Phillips and Elvis. My knowledge and appreciation and research is thorough and just doesn’t talk out of the side of my face, off the top of my head. It’s always with all due respect of my time in Memphis. My heroes are in Memphis.”

Astute readers will note that even Elvis Presley gets some respect, though Chuck D brought the King down a notch when he rapped that “he didn’t mean shit to me” in 1988’s “Fight the Power” — one of that era’s boldest lyrical moments.

“‘Fight the Power’ was a record that was made for the movie Do the Right Thing, which talked about the disparity of heroes. So therefore, in a half-joking type of way, in the third verse, I knock out American heroes like Elvis Presley and John Wayne, to say, like, ‘Hey, what the fuck? Move over,’ you know? I say, if you want to battle me on that, let’s battle. Once you’re going to rap and battle, make sure your words mean something.

“These were moving battles related to the film. How come there ain’t no brothers on the wall? If you never saw the movie, then you’re gonna miss the point of the third verse, where I talk about Elvis. One of the things that the song talks about is like, ‘Okay, no more than Elvis. No more than John Wayne.’ We’ve had other heroes, especially in Memphis. Sun Records starts out with a Black roster with Sam Phillips. What? I mean, what does the average person know until they learn some of these things? They need to teach the culture in the school systems. And that’s a beautiful thing about going over to the Stax [Music] Academy, which I intend to visit. Those are my people over there, and a big up and salute to Ms. Deanie Parker, as always. And my people over at Sun. I was over at Sun one time with some engineers — and Rufus Thomas. Also a big up to Boo Mitchell over at Royal.”

The rapper celebrates some of these Memphis icons in his latest “naphic grovel” (a play on “graphic novel”), Interficial ARTelligence: The Moments That Met Me on Akashic Books, in which he illustrates his encounter with several Stax legends during a panel discussion of the Wattstax film. “I’m part of the newer generation speaking up for them,” he writes.

It turns out that Chuck D admires some lesser-known hometown luminaries as well, including the rapper/producer Memphis Jelks, who’s announced that he’ll be making a cameo with the group this Saturday, and local bassist/guitarist Khari Wynn, who’s worked with Public Enemy since 2001. “There’s nothing like Khari Wynn,” says Chuck D. “He was our band leader for 20 years! And he still works on sessions. He plays on Public Enemy records when he’s called up and plays guitar on many songs, and has written a few songs.

“We moved away from the band concept when DJ Lord went to Cypress Hill and Khari went back home to Memphis,” Chuck D explains, “and now we have a more DJ-oriented sort of combination, but Khari’s been doing great things with his band in Memphis.”

When I speak to Wynn, who typically plays bass in (full disclosure) a band we’re both in, I ask him about his guitar work. “I kind of bounce back and forth between bass and guitar,” he says. “Most of the time I play bass, but I did do a lot of guitar work with Energy Disciples [another band Wynn founded]. And there’s actually an Energy Disciples record that Chuck added spoken word to, a track called ‘Eternity’s Promise.’”

Asked if Wynn might join Public Enemy at RiverBeat this weekend, Chuck D offers that it’s a distinct possibility. “We don’t have an open- or a closed-door policy,” he says. “We have a no-door policy. So if Khari wants to get up there with his guitar and play, you know we’re gonna be there.”

Bobby Rush

One RiverBeat appearance that’s guaranteed to have plenty of guitars will be the “Royal Studios Blues Experience” showcase on Friday night, which will bring together different generations of players who bear the blues deep in their bones: Duwayne, Garry, and Kent Burnside of the late R.L. Burnside’s extended family; Kinney Kimbrough, the late Junior Kimbrough’s son; and elder statesman of the blues Bobby Rush.

Originally from Arkansas, Rush now resides in Jackson, Mississippi, yet vividly recalls how all blues players were drawn to Memphis as he was getting started, including R.L. Burnside. “R.L., I knew him well from way back, the first time in 1954, I believe,” he says. “We were all just out there, eating what we could, when we could make $2 or $3 here and there, just playing music, man. He was a farmer, a country boy like myself. We both were young at the time, and I don’t know who was the oldest, me or him, but we were around the same age.

“I was from Arkansas, but we were all music players, looking for a place to eat, drink, and stay with some lady because you couldn’t go into a hotel. That’s when I first started coming through that area, even coming to Memphis, Tennessee. Now, you could go on Beale Street, but you couldn’t go on Peabody Street as a Black man. It just wouldn’t happen, man. Me and Rufus Thomas were working on Beale Street. I was doing what I had to do. Me and B.B. King were down in Helena, Arkansas, and I thought to come to Beale Street because of him and Rufus Thomas.”

Rush, for his part, is delighted to be playing with the “youngsters,” all middle-aged men themselves, and all hailing from North Mississippi. “I relate to them through the father and grandfather, and we’ve made good friends. I did a few things with them in the past. I make it happen, man. They’ve got everything to gain from being with me. I don’t have that much to gain with them, rather than being a friend with their parents. And I want to do something with them because it makes them look good. I’m like the grandfather now.”

Though all these bluesmen hail from Mississippi, their respective approaches to the blues actually contrast sharply. The showcase will be mashing up two different flavors of blues. Rush, rooted in an Arkansas Delta style, yet heavily influenced by his many decades on the electrified Chicago scene, notes the differences between his take on the blues and what’s found in the North Mississippi hill country. “They know about what they were taught in the area because most of them don’t play with changes. It’s just one straight beat. But they got a good beat, and it’s a style. That’s what they know. And it’s an old Mississippi style. I don’t think too many people know about this style, but it’s a good thing to keep it going, you know. It’s a good thing they’re doing it because not many guys around are still doing it.”

Cage the Elephant

At first glance, the ties between the indie rock hitmakers Cage the Elephant and Memphis may not be obvious. Some have compared their sound, justifiably, to the Pixies or other bands of that era, but really their approach has always been to break out from any one style. As guitarist and producer Brad Shultz notes, “We will always go into a record trying to really come to the table with a mindset of genre-blending, pulling different things from different genres that don’t necessarily go together. When you smash them together, something special happens.”

Aside from the band’s reverence for the eclecticism of both the first and second “British Invasions,” from the Beatles to Blur, Shultz says, “We attribute that to our ADHD, which I think is more of a blessing than a curse. It’s always suited us well to have our minds go in five different directions.”

Speaking of the British, that culture has always figured heavily into the band’s evolution, especially when all the members moved en masse from their hometown of Bowling Green, Kentucky, to London, England, around 2008. “It was a big eye-opening and learning experience for us,” Shultz says. But before that, Memphis loomed large in their world.

“Memphis definitely had a big kind of blues influence on us, especially very early in our career,” he notes. “And Memphis was in our regional tours. We would play a show in Nashville, one in our hometown of Bowling Green, one in Memphis, one in Chattanooga, one in Knoxville, and in Louisville as well. We would pick a week out and just hit every one of those spots. So, you know, it’s another full-circle moment to go back to Memphis, where we played tiny, tiny clubs and come back and do these festivals.”

The sounds of the Bluff City also impacted the band, Shultz says. “We were always big fans of Otis Redding — our father kind of raised us on that. And Bill Withers [produced by Booker T. Jones], who I don’t think was a Stax artist but definitely had a huge impact on us.”

This will be a watershed year for the band, as they’ll be connecting with their influences from both sides of the Atlantic, playing in Memphis and then opening on the American leg of the Oasis reunion tour this summer. “It’s such an incredible honor,” says Shultz. “You know, they’re a band that had a huge influence on us, so it’s just kind of crazy that we’re opening up for them. A real full-circle moment.”

DJ Zirk

Perhaps RiverBeat’s ultimate full-circle moment will come when seven rap innovators from the 1990s will take to the stage Friday evening as the “Memphis Rap OGz,” featuring La Chat, Crunchy Black, Al Kapone, Skinny Pimp, DJ Zirk, Gangsta Pat, and DJ Spanish Fly. While Al Kapone has kept up a steady supply of releases in over the years, lately melding his unique rap style with some heavy blues flavors, others on the bill have not had such a high profile. DJ Zirk, for one, bowed out of the spotlight in favor of doing production work for years, before resuming his release of new material around 2018.

“I was very honored that I was one of the ones that was picked,” says Zirk. “I mean, I would have done it for free. I really want to do it for my city, my hometown, and, you know, just let them experience the Memphis sound.”

That would be the new Memphis sound, the sound of crunk, that’s been ruling the airwaves for the past 20 years, from Three 6 Mafia to Yo Gotti to the late Young Dolph. It all began with the mixtapes created by the OGs back in the ’90s, a Southern alternative to the dominant West Coast or East Coast hip-hop of the time.

“When me and DJ Squeeky came out,” says Zirk, speaking of the pioneering producer of 8Ball & MJG and Young Dolph, “we had a totally different, unique sound. You know what I’m saying? We were driven by bass, you know? It’s Boom Boom in the trunk! All our stuff had that bass in it. But people loved it! And we came up in the age of hip-hop, where hip-hop wasn’t about bass. So we got so much criticism, you know, because Memphis was hip-hop at a certain point in time.”

Zirk’s enthusiasm is contagious as he recalls those years. “We were like, ‘We’ve gotta invent ourselves,’ and that’s when we started producing and doing more records together. And since then, our music has never stopped. The only time we had it on hold was somewhere in the late ’90s, really, or maybe 2000, because it was like everybody was taking a piece of our sound. When we were starting it, nobody was really doing what we were doing.”

In Zirk’s reckoning, the challenges to hip-hop’s sound taking place in the South weren’t uniform by any means. But the power of the Memphis sound was undeniable. “When we went to places like Mississippi, Texas, or Georgia, people would look at us and be like, ‘Who are they?’” he says. “Nobody had that sound. And think about it: It was dark; it was funk; it was bass-y. It wasn’t like Miami or people in Atlanta. And in Texas, they would take somebody else’s record and slow it down, right? With the Squeeky thing, we were producing our own stuff. And our style was deep and slow. So when people heard us, it was like, ‘Wow, that’s it!’ Because you can DJ, you can play it in the club, and people will dance off it. It’s like people that got a whiff of this sound and, man, it was like, copied, copied, copied, re-copied. Now it’ll turn into funk; it’ll turn into trap; it’ll turn into a lot of different stuff. And that’s the thing: Now it means we can sit and talk and say, ‘Wow, what we did transformed so many styles.’”

Memphis and, it seemed, the whole world were watching when American Idol judge Randy Jackson stepped onto The Orpheum stage and asked, “Are you ready for some heat?”

Jackson and rap pioneer Chuck D. were co-hosting Stax Records’ 50th Anniversary Concert June 22nd, a local coming-out party for the Concord Music Group, which purchased the Memphis-founded label in 2004 and initiated its relaunch earlier this year.

Even before the house lights went down, however, confusion about Concord’s motivations made for a hot topic with some disgruntled Stax alumni, who have felt, at best, slighted by programming for the anniversary celebration, which was broadcast live over XM Radio. Case in point: The Commercial Appeal‘s interview with Marvell Thomas, Stax organist and son of legendary performer Rufus Thomas, who, with Marvell’s sister Carla, put the label on the map in 1960. The article cited the “marginalization” of the Thomas family’s contributions to the Stax legacy, yet on Friday night, when the house band took the stage, there was Marvell, sitting on his organ bench, stage right.

Stax songwriter-turned-powerhouse performer Eddie Floyd started off the revue-style concert with “I’ve Never Found a Girl,” getting everyone to their feet after tossing roses to fans in the first few rows. Looking, in local parlance, as clean as the Board of Health, William Bell followed with a searing take on “Private Number,” his late-’60s Stax hit (originally a duet with Judy Clay, who has since passed away), while Mable John simmered, then percolated, with the sassy “Your Good Thing Is About To End.”

When the Soul Children’s Norman West asked, “Can I get down tonight?” it was merely a rhetorical question; the homegrown talent that took turns onstage kept the crowd moving all night. The Soul Children’s take on “Hearsay,” off their ’72 album Genesis, was the first old-school theatrical, extended jam of the evening. Next, West’s co-vocalist J. Blackfoot introduced “The Sweeter He Is” by noting, “David Porter and Isaac Hayes wrote this song — let’s give ’em some applause,” setting the pace for the label’s original performers, who consistently gave credit where it was due.

Yet the canned banter between Jackson and Chuck D. threatened to derail the momentum between every act. WWRD (What Would Rufus Do?), I wondered, as I listened to them mumble through another round of accolades read from the TelePrompters, wishing that someone had done their homework and hired a real MC, someone who could have fun and get funky like in the WDIA Goodwill Revues of yore.

Jackson’s missteps were numerous. To the audience’s dismay, he squeezed Idol references into nearly every sentence, and, at one point, the co-hosts incorrectly announced that Stax co-founder Jim Stewart and Al Bell, the label’s final owner, were in the audience. No big deal, unless you consider that Stewart’s a recluse who has never stepped foot in the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and who was a no-show for his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Had Stewart chosen to attend the anniversary concert, it would’ve made a fine moment for the current stewards of the Stax legacy, but sadly, that wasn’t the case.

As for Bell, he explained by phone from his North Little Rock home on Sunday night, “I knew about [the concert], but there was no formal communication as to whether I was invited or expected to be there until three days before, and by that time, I’d committed to something else.”

With or without Stewart and Bell, the show went on. Memphis Horns trumpeter Wayne Jackson stepped into the spotlight for a splendid version of the Mar-Keys’ “Last Night,” the instrumental single that started it all for Stax Records, although it was actually released on the label’s predecessor, Satellite.

Justin Fox Burks

All-star lineup: Stax Records’ 50th Anniversary Concert at The Orpheum

“It’s a pleasure and honor to perform the record that put me at Stax Records,” the trumpeter announced, dedicating the number to his “best friend,” Memphis Horn saxophonist Andrew Love. “Put us all here,” retorted a distinctively Memphis voice, causing a mighty chuckle from the crowd. Other poignant moments followed, including Dexter Redding and Otis Redding III’s performances of “Try a Little Tenderness” and “Hard To Handle” and Mavis Staples’ renditions of “Respect Yourself” and “If You’re Ready (Come and Go With Me).”

Midway through the evening, when Booker T. & the MGs suddenly appeared to play “Green Onions,” the audience collectively and audibly exhaled, then rose to its feet with a roar. Flanked by bassist Duck Dunn, guitarist Steve Cropper, and drummer Steve Potts (who’s stood in for Al Jackson Jr., since his murder in 1975), Booker T. Jones, the group’s organist, began a moody vamp that took the audience to church, before erupting into the frenzied dance number “Time Is Tight.” The MGs, Stax’ legendary house band, performed not as showmen but as earthy studio players with their feet firmly planted onstage as their music swirled upward to the Orpheum’s ceiling and beyond.

The pompadour-sporting Rance Allen — who looks and sings like a Motor City Solomon Burke — rode out the MGs’ swell, preaching in a falsetto that brought down the house and declaring, “I don’t think I would be out of place if I asked everybody to praise the Lord” during “That Will Be Good Enough For Me,” his hit for the Gospel Truth, Stax’ religious-themed arm.

In the shadow of such greatness, new Stax signee Angie Stone still shined with her version of Shirley Brown’s “Woman to Woman,” showcasing the work of the house band, which included Stax session guitarists Skip Pitts and Bobby Manuel.

Rising neo-soul singer N’Dambi dazzled the audience with her version of Luther Ingram’s “If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don’t Wanna Be Right)” and her Barbarella wardrobe, which consisted of turquoise knee-high boots and a matching mini dress.

On “Mr. Big Stuff,” Lalah (daughter of Donny) Hathaway hit the right notes but lacked the punch that Jean Knight utilized to make the song a number-one hit. And Soulive, a New York-based organ-heavy quartet which had the duty of re-creating Sam & Dave’s “I Thank You,” sent most of the audience out to the lobby for drinks.

Collectively described as “21st- century Stax recording artists,” most of the younger acts were short of the grit that made stars out of performers like Staples, Bell, and Floyd, and only time will tell who possesses the chops to make it in the music biz. Granted, Memphis makes for a tough audience — particularly when a California-based record label is messing with its hometown legacy and when material is pillaged from artists like Shirley Brown, Sam Moore, and Jean Knight, who are still alive and well and performing at events like the Ponderosa Stomp and on the chitlin circuit.

The mellifluous Isaac Hayes, the first of the old Stax artists to sign a deal with the reinvigorated label, hit a home run with “Walk On By” and “(Theme From) Shaft,” demonstrating that he’s made a full recovery from last year’s stroke. Then, in a closing reminiscent of the local Recording Academy’s recent musical salutes, the whole gang came back out for sing-alongs of “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” and “I’ll Take You There.”

“I know a place/I’ll take you there,” Staples sang, a promise she’s continued to fulfill since cutting the powerhouse anthem 35 years ago.

With so many expectations from so many different people, there’s simply no way that the concert could’ve pleased everyone, but the originators of the Stax sound never failed to satisfy — and in the end, that’s what counts.