Tag: David Porter

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Sing All Kinds We Recommend

Stevie Wonder at the Cannon Center Saturday

“We have to be proud and start acting on that pride,” songwriter and performer David Porter says of Memphis and its soul music. “This music, and the brand value that soul music has for this city should be embraced and acted upon. I’m happy to see that many in this community are doing just that. That’s what I’m doing here.”

Porter, a fundamental Stax luminary whose songwriting with Isaac Hayes created the Memphis sound, founded Consortium MMT, a developmental effort to foster Memphis soul talent locally and to create connections with industry operators and performers at the national level. Porter partnered with the Memphis Chamber of Commerce and other sponsors to create the Consortium as a bridge between Memphis and big-time talent. There have been similar efforts. Where those lacked credibility, this effort is on another level. Witness the Consortium’s inaugural Epitome of Soul award ceremony honoring Stevie Wonder at the Cannon Center on Saturday, October 11th. Wonder will perform, along with Chaka Khan, Jordan Sparks, Sharon Jones, and others. The band will be led by Rickey Minor, bandleader for the Tonight Show and American Idol.

People may associate Wonder with Detroit and L.A. But he is an example of how Memphis soul reaches beyond the borders of Shelby County.

“Stevie loves what was being done at Stax Records,” Porter says. “About six years ago, when Stevie was in Memphis, he wanted to do a tour of the museum. Everybody knows who Stevie Wonder is. So the museum was closed down for a minute, and Isaac Hayes and I personally took Stevie Wonder through a tour of that museum. We explained to him everything that he was not able to see in such a way that it was an emotional experience for all of us.”

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Wonder will be the first recipient of the Epitome of Soul Award, an annual award to honor those who shaped soul music.

“The Epitome of Soul will be an award that we will present every year to someone of high credibility,” Porter says. “There is no greater example to launch this than Stevie Wonder. The fact that Stevie Wonder is the first recipient of this award sets the bar quite high. It also sets the bar for credibility of soul associated with Memphis. The award is the Epitome of Soul. Why not take it to Soulsville U.S.A.? Hi Records, Stax Records, American Studios, and all the great music that has out of this city, why not take it here?”

Memphis music once employed thousands of Memphians, and not just musicians, but recording, warehousing, pressing, and promotion folks as well. Industry consolidation and the Internet did a number on the music business. But Memphis’ identity is inextricably linked to music and influenced many musicians. Even Stevie Wonder.

Stevie Wonder at the Cannon Center Saturday

“We talk about what [ideas] we get from each other,” Porter says of Wonder. “He said, ‘Listen to ‘We Can Work It Out’ [from 1970s Signed Sealed & Delivered]. The bass pattern and the pattern of that was motivated from what I was listening to you guys do on Sam & Dave.’ He has a tremendous love for people. Anyone who knows Stevie knows that. Additionally, he loved the concept that I was putting together here in Memphis. So much so that he agreed to come here to support this. In order to appreciate that, you have to understand that Stevie Wonder does not work in 1800-seat venues. That’s not what he does.”

Well, he’s doing that for the Consortium MMT. And a Motowner isn’t the only counter-intuitive force behind Porter’s effort. The infamously private Southeastern Asset Management signed on as title sponsor of the Epitome of Soul Award. The Memphis Chamber of Commerce allocated office space in its building at 22 North Front to host the Consortium’s production and artist development tools. Those tools include audio-production equipment and another essential element: mentoring from those who have succeeded in the past. We are losing those eminences all too quickly, and the Consortium is working to preserve their insights and legacies with video interviews.

“Valerie Simpson, writer of ‘I’m Every Woman,’  and ‘Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing.’ She’s just one person who deals with the songwriting. Jimmy Jam, producer of Janet Jackson, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey … The list goes on and on. Recording artists: Earth, Wind & Fire, Phillip Bailey, Verdine White, Ralph Johnson, and Eric Benét. Bobby Womack. These are individuals we have on film. Even when Bobby was not well, he wanted to do this, and he filmed this. He gave some of his thoughts and ideas that we can use for as long as this program exists. So that is an example. We have 130-plus video vignettes of artists talking about the creative processes in songwriting, recording, and record production.”

Porter is aware of the earlier efforts to accomplish this and says he’d be on the golf course if he wasn’t convinced it would work.

“The thing that needs to be expressed is that there are a lot of wonderful people who want to support the arts. And I’m talking about private citizens, just people. They want there to be meaningful outcomes when they do support it. What I wanted to see happen was not just to come up with an organization that would encourage young folks and all of that, but also to come up with some deliverables at the end for all of their hard work. A component of what we are doing is putting together a pool of credible talents in songwriting, record producing, and recording and having that focused. So when we go talk to industry assets that are serious about looking for talent, we have at least one place that they can go to and hear and see a pool of vetted talent by credible industry professionals. That way, there is credibility in Memphis that they can easily see.”

Porter had a pivotal role in shaping Memphis’ musical legacy. But he is focused on the role he can play in shaping the future.

“You can’t keep living in the past,” he says. “You’ve got to deal with the future. My answer to that is that, one day, the future will be the past. If you are wise, you will take advantage of all that was in the past to set an even more solid foundation for your future. Having the energies that caused success to happen in years past, integrating that with young people who have ambitions was something that could be done. I felt that I could be one of the facilitators for that.” 

Stevie Wonder at the Cannon Center Saturday (2)

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Film Features Film/TV

Film: Take Me To The River

It is said that all art aspires toward musicality, and no form comes closer than film. The linear flow of moving images naturally mirrors the aural motion of music. When the sound era dawned, the very first thing filmmakers did was turn their cameras on Al Jolsen and let the music do the talking.

Perhaps because of the two media’s similarities, many directors are also musicians. Such is the case with Martin Shore, a drummer from San Diego who toured with Cody Dickinson’s Hill Country Revue. Shore’s day job is as a film producer, and Take Me To The River, his directorial debut, is the latest music documentary to take on the question, “What makes Memphis music so special?” Guided by North Mississippi Allstars’ guitarist and son of legendary Memphis music producer Jim Dickinson, Shore gathers a who’s who of Memphis music legends together to make a record while the cameras roll.

The problem facing the directors of all music documentaries is how to balance the story and the music. It’s a simple problem of arithmetic: Unless you’re Martin Scorsese and HBO gives you three hours to tell George Harrison’s story, you have a limited amount of time to work with. Without the music, it’s hard to care about the story; but give the story short shrift and you lose the reason the audience is there in the first place. In Take Me To The River, Shore errs on the side of the music, and this is probably wise. The epic sweep of the Stax story has already been told in Robert Gordon’s Respect Yourself, so Shore constructs a series of vignettes from footage of the recording sessions interspersed with interviews with the musicians.

This approach makes for some magical moments. Al Kapone chats with Booker T. Jones as the legendary keyboardist drives his van around town. The Hi Records backup singers the Rhodes Sisters recall how Willie Mitchell used to exclaim “God the glory!” when they hit a note he liked. Frayser Boy, who wrote the Academy Award-winning flow for “It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp” admits to Skip Pitts, who played guitar on Isaac Hayes Academy Award-winning “Theme From Shaft,” that he has never recorded with a live band before. Pitts refuses to even look at a chart before launching into the Rufus Thomas song “Push And Pull.” The magnetic and eternally young Mavis Staples changes the song at the last minute, and then soothes her collaborators’ nerves with a few well-placed smiles and a stunning vocal performance. William Bell tells the story of David Porter writing “Hold On I’m Comin” while an amused Porter looks on. Narrator and Hustle and Flow star Terrence Howard becomes completely overwhelmed by emotion after recording with the Hodges brothers, including a frail looking Teenie. Bobby Blue Bland teaches Lil P-Nut to sing “I Got A Woman.” And finally, Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads produces a session with Snoop Dogg and the Stax Academy Band pulling together more than a dozen musicians to cut “I Forgot To Be Your Lover” in less than 30 minutes.

It’s fun to be a fly on the wall in these recording sessions held in historic spaces, and the camaraderie and respect between the players is evident. The talent, discipline, and instincts on display are amazing, because, as the indomitable Deanne Parker says, these musicians came of age in a time when “we didn’t have any technology to make you sound better.”

Take Me To The River never answers the question of why this city produces so much great music. But then again, no one else has ever been able to put a finger on what Charlie Musselwhite calls “that secret Memphis ingredient you can’t write in a book.”

Take Me To The River
Playing Friday, September 12th
The Paradiso

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Cover Feature News

Party like it’s 1989

CREDIT: Arenaphotouk | Dreamstime.com

The year 1989 saw incredible change. Revolution swept the Eastern bloc nations culminating in the fall of the Berlin Wall, collapse of the Soviet Union, and end of the Cold War. In China, protests in Tiananmen Square ended in tragedy. On the technology front, personal computers were getting smaller and smarter, and the first internet service providers launched in Australia, setting the stage for the modern internet.

In the Bluff City things were changing, too. “The Big Dig” was the city’s defining public spectacle, in which a giant illuminated shovel was dropped from a helicopter, piercing the earth on the north side of downtown, where “The Great American Pyramid” would soon be erected, charged with all the occult power of Isaac Tigrett’s crystal skull, soon abandoned, and ultimately designated as the future site of the world’s pointiest sporting goods store. A massive  fireworks display was set to the music of Elvis Presley, Al Green, B.B. King, and Otis Redding, climaxing with David Porter’s 10-minute, synth-funk-meets-New-Age oddity, “Power of the Pyramid,” which you’ve never heard of — for a reason.

Meanwhile, on the south side of town (I’d say the other end of the trolley line, but there was no trolley line), MM Corporation, then the parent company of Memphis magazine, launched a cheeky urban tabloid called the Memphis Flyer, to considerably less fanfare.

What was Memphis like in 1989, as described in the pages of a young Memphis Flyer? It was a city filled with fear, corruption, pollution, urban blight, and plenty of school system controversies. It was also a city full of artists, entrepreneurs, oddballs, and all kinds of music. And best of all, according to advertisements featuring a rainbow-striped superhero, for only seven yankee dollars Memphis Cablevision would “fully cablize” your home, including your choice of “high tech home improvements” like HBO or the installation of cable converters for non-cable-ready TVs.

Hustle & Flow director Craig Brewer was 18 years old and living in California in 1989, but the foundation of Memphis’ modern film community was already being laid. A list of Memphians to watch, compiled for a pre-launch sample issue of the Flyer, encouraged readers to “thank Linn Sitler the next time you bump into Dennis Quaid at the Cupboard.” The actor was in town with Winona Ryder filming the Jerry Lee Lewis biopic, Great Balls of Fire. Sitler, who’d been tapped to head the Memphis Film and Tape (now Film and Television) Commission in 1987, had been instrumental in bringing Great Balls to town. She was also praised for her lesser-known work with a Japanese-produced independent film identified in the Flyer‘s preview issue as Tuesday Night in Memphis. It was a languid, lovingly-shot ghost story shot in Memphis’ empty and dilapidated South Main district. It was released to critical acclaim in the summer of ’89 under the new title, Mystery Train.  

The sample issue’s list of up-and-coming Memphians also included grammy-winning sax player Kirk Whalum who went on to become the President and CEO of the Soulsville Foundation in 2010, as well as Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway, a 6′ 6″ junior at Treadwell High School who was averaging 34.5 points a game.

Although the initial “who’s who” column may have missed a few of Memphis’ future notables, many could be found lurking elsewhere within the early Flyer‘s 20-odd pages, sometimes behind bylines. Robert Gordon, documentarian and author of It Came From Memphis, and Respect Yourself, the story of Stax Records, penned a misty cover-length goodbye to jazzman Phineas Newborn Jr. The paper’s first official issue also included a column by humorist Lydel Sims that was topped by a striking caricature of Memphis Mayor Dick Hackett depicted as a bespectacled,  Nixon-nosed Egyptian pharaoh. The artwork was created by Frayser-raised actor Chris Ellis, notable for appearing in films like My Cousin Vinnie, Apollo 13, and The Dark Knight Rises.

That was also the year Memphis City Councilman Rickey Peete went to jail for the first time, and the Flyer asked if it was really the councilman’s fault that “he was out of the room when all the other politicos were learning to play the game?”

Although its focus was Memphis, the Flyer also localized national issues and stories that would define the coming decades. The Christian Right and the hyper-conservative forces that would eventually become the Tea Party were in their ascendancy; ongoing national political dialogue was captured in a pull quote from Jackson Baker’s profile of Memphian Ed McAteer, who founded the Religious Roundtable, a conservative Christian group that did much to secure the Christian right’s influence on American politics. “Liberalism in a politician,” McAteer said, “must be the consequence of either ignorance or deceit.”

If Flyer readers weren’t surprised by 2008’s “too big to fail” economic meltdown, it may be because of reporters like the Flyer‘s Penni Crabtree, who penned this prescient line in 1989: “Banks aren’t going out of business because they give loans to low-income folks — it’s because they are doing speculative real estate deals with their buddies. … Now we as taxpayers will have to bail the bastards out to the tune of $100-billion.”

Future Flyer editor Dennis Freeland was primarily a sportswriter in 1989, but he was also concerned with urban decay. While other reporters focused on the new Pyramid and the proposed Peabody Place development, Freeland turned his attention to Sears Crosstown, a “monumental” building and neighborhood lynchpin that was listed for sale for a mere $10,000. A quarter-century later, Sears Crosstown is being redeveloped, as if in accordance with Freeland’s vision.

The Dixon Gallery & Gardens opened an eye-popping exhibit featuring the lithography of French innovator Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in 1989, but the more interesting homegrown action was happening in the weedy, rusty ruins of South Main, where the Center for Contemporary Art (now defunct), and the original TheatreWorks, an experimental venue for performing artists (now in Overton Square), were establishing the area as a viable arts district. The trolley line wasn’t proposed until 1990, and the fate of the area’s “Lorraine Civil Rights Museum,” was still in question. But something was clearly happening in the crumbling, artist-friendly ruins around the corner from the Flyer‘s Tennessee Street offices.

The Flyer‘s first food writers raved about the smoked salmon pizza with dill and razorback caviar being served at Hemming’s in Saddle Creek Mall and saw a lot of potential in Harry’s on Teur, a tiny Midtown dive with big flavor. They were less impressed by the Russian-inspired finger food at the Handy-Stop Deli and the side dishes at the Western Steakhouse, which was decorated with murals by Memphis wrestler Jerry Lawler.

 In music, Tav Falco’s Panther Burns were still bringing the psychobilly punks out to the Antenna Club, the famed alt-rock bar that, at the dawn of the 1990’s, seemed to present as many Widespread Panic-like jam bands as it did hardcore acts. Falco’s outspoken drummer Ross Johnson underscored the city’s musical diversity by writing an early Flyer feature titled “Saturday Night in Frayser,” about the Lucy Opry, a long-running country and bluegrass venue.

What did Memphis sound like at the dawn of the “Alternative” era? The college rock influence of bands like REM and Echo & the Bunnymen were carried on locally by the ubiquitous 5 That Killed Elvis. Dave Shouse of The Grifters, Easley/McCain studio engineer Davis McCain, and NTJ/Afghan Whigs drummer Paul Buchignani were playing Midtown clubs in a transitional art-pop band called Think as Incas. Shangri-La, the record store/indie label that employed Goner Records founder Eric “Oblivian” Friedl, while releasing singles and CDs by local artists like The Grifters and Man With Gun Lives Here, was one year old.

The biggest Memphis Flyer story of 1989 had to have been Leonard Gill’s “Read ‘Em and Wipe,” a cover story that collected Memphis’ best bathroom stall graffiti, including this probing question from the men’s room of the P&H Cafe: “A generation stoned. Who will do the cooking?” I am happy to report that 25 years later, the author of this brilliant line was a newly-minted Rhodes College graduate named Chris Davis who, having majored in theater and media arts, was stoned, hungry, and wondering what on earth he might do with such a silly degree.

It would be eight more years before I’d get an official Flyer byline, reviewing the Broadway production Phantom of the Opera, prior to the tour’s first visit to the Orpheum in Memphis.

You’ve got to start somewhere, am I right?

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Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

There’s a new exhibit at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music titled “The Grammy Goes to Memphis” that is both interesting and revealing. The actual Grammy statues presented to Elvis, Otis Redding, Bobby “Blue” Bland, and others are collected and displayed for the first time. A highlight film of Memphis-area Grammy winning moments is featured, along with a wall listing all the great artists from the Memphis area who have received the coveted award.

Jim Stewart

Full disclosure requires me to tell you that the Stax Museum is also my place of employment, but it  explains why I’ve had the chance to sit and stare at that wall for several hours at a time. All the names you would expect are there: Sam Phillips, Johnny Cash, Al Green, even Sheryl Crow from Sikeston, Missouri. An impressive number of Grammy awards have been bestowed upon the Stax family of artists, including Isaac Hayes, Booker T. & the MGs, The Staples Singers, and Sam and Dave. The prestigious Grammy Trustees’ Award has gone to Stax President Al Bell and company co-founder Estelle Axton. There is one glaring omission, however: Jim Stewart. I first thought it was an oversight and hastened to try and correct the error, but the co-founder and contributor of the first two letters of the name “Stax,” has never been recognized or celebrated by the Recording Academy.

Perhaps Stewart prefers it that way, since I understand that he is a private person, but it seems odd that his sister, Estelle, and his partner, Bell, would each receive one of the Academy’s highest awards, and he wouldn’t.

I don’t know Stewart personally and have only met him once, so I have no axe to grind here for anyone, but if not for Stewart, all those famous names on that Grammy wall would have never been known. Stewart and Axton’s leasing of the Capitol Theatre in South Memphis in 1958 and opening the doors to the talent in the neighborhood began a renaissance in soul music that still reverberates in popular culture. The former banker and country fiddler who fell in love with Ray Charles’ music, supervised and produced some of the most unique sounding recordings of the 20th century. And he did it by working with musicians, singers, talent, and administrators who were white and black, right in the middle of the Jim Crow era in the South.

For people like me, who grew up under segregation but never understood it, this rich and untried collaborative effort was and is a source of great pride. Watching films of the MGs and the Memphis Horns backing up the Stax stars and driving audiences crazy all over the world is still a thrilling experience. It’s not just the Recording Academy that owes Stewart long overdue accolades and appreciation; the city of Memphis does too.

Stewart’s contributions to popular music have not gone unrecognized. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, but sent two granddaughters to receive the award on his behalf. This may be of great interest to visitors of the Cleveland museum, but what about the old hometown? Along with Sun Records scion Knox Phillips, Stewart’s efforts were instrumental in bringing the chapter of the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) to Memphis, which celebrated its 20th anniversary last year. The local organization also recognizes its most vibrant and vital contributors to what has become known as the “Memphis Sound.” In annual programs and ceremonies over the years, NARAS Memphis has paid special tribute to Rufus and Carla Thomas, Eddie Floyd, Albert King, and the legacies of both Sun and Hi Records. It’s highest honor, the Governor’s Award, has been presented to Rufus Thomas and Axton, but not Stewart. The man who produced Otis Redding’s ”Respect,” can’t seem to get any from the same chapter he helped establish. Either Stewart called and personally insisted that he not be further involved in these awards, or somebody’s asleep at the switch.

In Robert Gordon’s perfectly pitched, new Stax biography, “Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion,” he describes Stewart’s selling his interest in Stax to Bell in 1972. Yet two years later, when the company began feeling a financial squeeze from all quarters, Stewart reinvested his assets in an attempt to save what he had helped create. In the resulting bankruptcy and padlocking of Stax by the same bank for which Stewart once worked, he lost his fortune and his home. Stewart has remained retired from the music business and semi-reclusive in his private life, yet he attended the opening of the Stax Music Academy and has generously advised and assisted the young musical talents who were not yet born during Stax’s heyday.

I have always believed in sending flowers to the living, because afterward, they can’t smell them. Axton’s Trustee’s Award from the Recording Academy was given posthumously. Stewart is 84 years old. A man who has touched so many lives and literally altered the social fabric of the cosmos deserves at least an “attaboy” from his acolytes. Can I get a witness?

Randy Haspel writes the Born-Again Hippies blog, where a version of this column first appeared.

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Special Sections

David Porter

During the breakout of Stax Records in the ’60s, David Porter and Isaac Hayes worked as the studio’s “house composers.” The two wrote and produced 200 songs together, including many of Sam & Dave’s chart-toppers such as “I Thank You,” “When Something Is Wrong With My Baby,” and “Hold On I’m Comin’.” Porter’s honorary brass note on Beale includes the title “Soul Man,” one of Stax’s most successful singles. The song, inspired by the civil rights movement, won a Grammy award in 1968. In the ’70s, Porter began a solo career, recording under the names Little David and Kenny Cain.