Tag: George Sluppick

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Music Video Monday: The City Champs

Music Video Monday IN SPACE!

Memphis instrumental researchers The City Champs are back with a spacey new single, “Luna 68.” Organist Al Gamble, guitarist Joe Restivo, and drummer George Sluppick reunited after years as hired guns for folks like St. Paul and the Broken Bones and The Bo-Keys to record a new album, and it’s unlike anything they’ve ever done before.

Filmmaker Andrew Trent Fleming created this far-out video for the song. “I’m incredibly humbled to get to direct a video for The City Champs. I love their music. I met them 10+ years ago as a huge fan, have annoyed them ever since, and will continue to do so. I always like to find a way to invest personally in a song and came up with the idea to contemplate and wrestle with my own perspective on the priorities of an artist, told visually through the paradox we all come to at some point as an artist in this city. This is for you, Memphis.”

Music Video Monday: The City Champs

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

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Music Music Features

“Scars” — John Kilzer’s New Record is Homespun and Philosophical

I first encountered singer/songwriter John Kilzer’s name while recording at Ardent Studios over 30 years ago. He had just released a record on Geffen Records, Memory in the Making, produced by the late, great John Hampton. But I knew of him because a tiny plaque had been mounted above the couch in Studio B, with the words “Kilzer’s Spot.” When I mention it to Kilzer today, the air fills with his hearty laughter. “Yeah, it’s still there!” he says. “That’s so funny. I’m sure that little plaque has plenty of verdigris on it by now. It’s probably more green than copper.”

Since then, much more has changed than the plaque’s patina. After releasing another record on Geffen in 1991, Kilzer’s musical career took a 20-year hiatus, as he wrestled with deeper questions of faith and personal growth. “I was going through the ordination process and getting my Masters of Divinity at Memphis Theological Seminary. And then I went straight into the Ph.D program at Middlesex University in England. During that time, I didn’t have time to do much music. But when I got back here and was appointed to the recovery ministry [at St. John’s United Methodist Church], I realized that music was going to be a foundation of that. Resuming that interest naturally prompted me writing. And so the songs came out, and I did the one album, Seven, with Madjack Records.”

John Kilzer

That 2011 release, recorded with Hi Rhythm’s Hodges brothers (Teenie, Charles, and Leroy) came out just a year after Kilzer had begun The Way, a Friday evening ministry at St. John’s that carries on today, featuring some of the city’s best musicians. “Our premise is that everybody’s in recovery. Everybody has experienced trauma, and there’s something about music that just calls out of each person’s spirit, whatever it is that’s keeping them bound. Music is kind of the language of heaven. But we don’t do church music. We do a lot of my material and some gospel standards, but it’s not contemporary Christian music. It’s just good music. And if, say, Jim Spake’s gonna be there, naturally, I’m gonna pick something that would suit him, but it doesn’t matter. They’re all so good, they can play anything from Bach to Chuck Berry.”

A similar appreciation for quality musicianship permeates his discussion of his latest work, Scars, just released on Archer Records. “When you know you’re gonna have Steve Potts, Steve Selvidge, Rick Steff, Dave Smith, George Sluppick, and Matt Ross-Spang, you feel more comfortable. You trust yourself, and you trust those guys.”

Kilzer, who was a college literature instructor before his Geffen days, brings an expansive melodic and lyrical imagination to these songs, which could be about himself or any number of the souls attending The Way, driven more by character and circumstance than any obvious theology. “Some say time’s a riddle/I say time’s a freight train shimmering in the rain,” he sings, before describing scenes in Lawrence, Kansas. And the new songs, effortlessly blending the homespun with the philosophical, are given plenty of space to breathe.

“It’s so understated, and I think a lot of that is because we were cutting live. When you know that you’re live and that’s gonna be it, you don’t try to say so much. It’s like you honor the spaces between the notes. On Scars, I think there’s a lot of creative space in it. It’s not filled with any unneeded stuff.

“Another thing that’s different about it is, I wrote on different instruments. I wrote a couple on a mandolin, a couple on ukulele, and several on the piano. I would have never, ever considered doing that earlier in my career. So that kind of creative tension manifests in the songs. To be real nervous and have all these conflicting emotions, but knowing you’ve got sort of a protective shield around you in these musicians, I think that’s why there’s something on Scars that I can’t quite articulate. You can hear it, but you just don’t know what it is.”

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Music Record Reviews

Mark Edgar Stuart Finds a Little Peace with Mad At Love.

Mark Edgar Stuart has been a busy man of late, jumping deeper into the music scene than ever. Expect to see a lot more of this young upstart in the near future, as he winds up to promote his new album on Madjack Records, Mad At Love.

The crack band assembled for the project helps the proceedings along, with Al Gamble on keys, Landon Moore on bass, John Argroves on drums, and John Whittemore on steel guitar. Along the way, you’ll also hear special guests Amy Lavere, Liz Brazer, Will Sexton, Jana Misener, Susan Marshall, Paul Taylor, George Sluppick, and Kait Lawson. And a host of musical movers and shakers in the scene have been praising it, hotly anticipating its eventual release into the world.

Mark Edgar Stuart

For us locals, that time has come today. (The national release is October 12). On Sunday, he’ll lead a band through a record release party at the Railgarten, and today marks the release of the album’s first video (see below). 

As cool weather settles in, it’s a good record for autumn, a smorgasbord of musical comfort food, due to the naturalness of Stuart’s songwriting. The changes flow like country water, at times like the river of soul music, all led by Stuart’s trademark “What if Willie Nelson sang baritone?” twang.

It’s familiar territory, yet all done with Stuart’s unique stamp. The lyrics reward deeper listening, gliding over Stuart’s impeccable folk picking. John Prine is the obvious reference point (and Stuart’s lyrics rise to the occassion), but at times he steps up with a stinging solo on electric guitar. And his ventures into country soul territory (“Something New”, “I’ll Be Me”) echo classic Charlie Rich. Indeed, with Gamble’s tasteful work on organ and electric piano, there is a deep current of soul through the whole album. Hear it for yourself, in the  video released today:

Mark Edgar Stuart Finds a Little Peace with Mad At Love. (2)

But listeners beware: the overarching theme of the album would seem to be the opposite of its title. Far from being “mad at love,” our hero is determined to not give up on it. “Give me one more chance/to prove that I’m not a lush,” he sings in “Stuck in a Rut.” And, given the recurring themes of reconciliation and responsibility, it seems that he got that chance. “Being high ain’t enough,” he sings, and one comes away from this album feeling that he found something better.

Here’s a track from the record, which Stuart says is “Inspired by a friend who’s brother died in the Middle-East, and the attachment we seem to have to the material things loved ones leave behind. This song is about a soldier, his sister and an upright bass.”

Mark Edgar Stuart Finds a Little Peace with Mad At Love.

 

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Music Music Features

Return of the Champs

Fans of local trio The City Champs rejoiced last week when the group’s guitarist, Memphis native Joe Restivo, announced on social media that the original lineup was rehearsing again. Having gained popularity between 2008 and 2010, the group’s subsequent appearances were limited after drummer George Sluppick left town. With his recent return, the group has been woodshedding, writing new material, and making plans for bigger things.

The City Champs were distinguished by primarily being an instrumental group. This arose naturally from the group members’ passion for organ trios and quartets of the 1950s and 1960s, as featured on classic records by Jimmy Smith, Brother Jack McDuff, or guitarist Grant Green. Early on, Restivo found kindred souls in brothers Al and Chad Gamble (on organ and drums, respectively), Muscle Shoals-area natives who had relocated to Memphis. “It was a jam situation,” says Restivo. “In the late ’90s, Al was in town as well as his brother. … And we would just get together at Al’s house.”

Soon after, Restivo left Memphis. His return in 2006 also marked the return of Sluppick, another Memphis native, whose life in New Orleans had been disrupted by Hurricane Katrina. Al Gamble, Restivo, and Sluppick began playing together, and when not on the road, saxophonist Art Edmaiston would join them. They formed The Grip, mixing 1960s Latin-tinged boogaloo sounds with Memphis roots, as with their cover of the Mar-Keys’ “Grab This Thing.” When Edmaiston hit the road again, The City Champs were born.

The City Champs

The new group focused squarely on the stripped-down, funky organ trio sound. Notes Restivo, “We were all fans of that music before we met each other. And so it was a natural fit.” The new combo soon was honing its sound on the road in 2008, opening for the North Mississippi Allstars.

The Champs’ debut album, The Safecracker, was released on Scott Bomar’s Electraphonic label in 2009 to glowing reviews. It was marked by their eclectic approach to the organ trio sound, with inventive versions of “Ol’ Man River” and Amy Winehouse’s “Love Is a Losing Game.” Their 2010 sophomore release, The Set-Up, further expanded their palette, adding horns, Latin percussion, and a cameo from Motown legend Jack Ashford on percussion.

The combo developed a devoted local following, but Sluppick was lured to Los Angeles by the Chris Robinson Brotherhood. The Champs would continue to play Memphis occasionally when Sluppick was in town, but these appearances were rare. Restivo began working with The Bo-Keys and his own quartet, and Gamble began touring and recording with soul revivalists St. Paul and the Broken Bones. While these affiliations remain, things changed last year when Sluppick settled in his home town once again.

Now the group is once more developing new material, with an even more eclectic bent. Restivo notes the influence of “Willie Mitchell Dance Party records … a little bit of that honky-tonkish Memphis instrumental thing.” He adds that they’re perfecting their own take on the 1971 classic Blackrock “Yeah Yeah” and exploring more psychedelic flavors as well. The Champs are itching to record their third album, planned for later this year.

“Since we started this project, it’s been 10 years,” Restivo says. “We’ve all played in a ton of different groups and played a ton of shows with a lot of different artists. So, there’s a lot there to add. I know I’m a much more seasoned musician than I was when I started this thing. I think we’re just a better band. But at the end of the day, it’s a labor of love. More than any band I’ve ever been in, we have more fun just going over to Al Gamble’s house and just cooking up songs and arrangements. And we try to present that in our shows and our records.”