Tag: Greg Cartwright

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Gonerfest Turns 21, Can Now Drink Legally

Derv Gordon and So What (Photo: Alex Greene)

It’s official: as of its closing moments this past Sunday, Gonerfest 21 has been successfully completed. Now it can drink in the state of Tennessee, the joke goes, and now it has fully embarked on its third decade. And, truth be told, it really did feel like our favorite fest had experienced some kind of growth spurt this year, even if some of its participants chose to go alcohol-free.

See interviews and more from the four-day weekend in this exclusive compilation on the Memphis Flyer YouTube channel.

In fact, the common sentiment seems to be, more than ever, an overwhelmingly head-spinning “What just happened?” Perhaps that vibe was amplified because Sunday, traditionally given over to Gonerfest’s rootsier, less distorted side, was instead dedicated to very much the opposite this year, as Oneida proceeded to forge a new approach to rock music before our eyes.

Taking in all their work as a whole, Oneida excels at musical world-building, blending synth sounds with their chugging rock band foundation in an approach that’s both sonic and harmonic, noise-laden and sing-song. And they bashed out one textured tune after another. “I wanna hold your hand/Between my teeth/I won’t draw blood/Don’t wanna stain the sheets,” as one song went. But it was their finale, “Sheets of Easter,” that really took the audience to a different plane.

Bobby Matador of Oneida (Photo: Tad Lauritzen Wright)

Kicking off with the phrase, “You’ve got to look into the LIGHT,” the song then consists of the band relentlessly, mercilessly repeating the last word, mantra-like, along with a single chord hammered out in eighth notes for approximately 19 minutes. “Light, light, light, light, light…” they sang, though the syllables began to morph after a while. Live stream viewers may have refreshed their connections, thinking the video was glitching. It wasn’t! Naïfs like me, unfamiliar with the song, were bewildered, amused, or offended, not knowing how or when it would end. Was it performance art? An MK-ULTRA-like experiment in which we, the audience, were lab rats? A sophomoric prank? Personally, I went through something not unlike the five stages of grief as I listened, from denial to anger, bargaining, depression, and, finally, acceptance.

It was truly one of the most surreal experiences I have had at any festival. As Zac Ives, co-owner of Goner Records, explains, the “song” is an old favorite by the band. “I don’t know how often they do it now, because it was on a record that they did 20 years ago, but it’s always insane. There’s not really much like it. Some listeners are horrified, and others are like, ‘Thank you for playing this amazing song.’ So yeah, it’s very divisive.”

Yet there weren’t many grumblers after it was done. Everyone, the band included, was too raw from the hypnotic onslaught. Finally, Eric Friedl, Goner’s founder, announced, “This concludes Gonerfest 21! After Oneida there is only light…go out into that light! Thanks to everyone who made this happen, the sound crew, the video crew. We made it through the rain, we made it through the not-rain.” And with that simple summation, the four-day roller coaster ride was over.

Looking back, then, one might well ask, “What just happened?” With too many bands to give every one of them a fair shake, one is left with only the most incendiary moments, burned into one’s brain.

The Pull Chains, a new collaboration between Greg Cartwright, Jesse Smith, Joseph Plunkett, and Eliza Hill, marked a refreshing return to harder rock territory for Cartwright, with echoes of the old Reigning Sound, but with all new material. And, as Cartwright notes, nearly every song was “a full four-way co-write from scratch, and they still seem to resonate with a single storyteller perspective. Such a joy to write songs with good people!”

Okmoniks (Photo: Anton Jackson)

Later that day, Okmoniks singer Helene Grotans was on a tear, perhaps trying to outdo the hurricane with which she shared a name, delighting the crowd with her Category 4 vocals and frenzied-yet-precise work on the Farfisa organ. “I usually play an Acetone,” she quipped, but nonetheless praised the beauty of the onstage instrument provided by Goner with an assist from Graham Winchester. Later, she raved about the Pull Chains, saying, “The Reigning Sound is my favorite band! Well, them and the Mummies!”

Revealing her classical training, Helene of Okmoniks demonstrated deft derrière technique on the Farfisa. (Photo: Alex Greene)

Regarding the opening night’s closer, local muso Jeremy Scott posted on social media that Derv Gordon and So What “killed it, just like they did seven years ago.” While the heavier, almost glam sound of So What contrasts with the old records by The Equals, they supplied solid backing for Gordon’s rich vocals, and, despite any audio issues Gordon encountered, had the crowd bouncing for the whole set.

Derv Gordon and So What (Photo: Alex Greene)

It’s Raining, It’s Streaming
Friday was marked by near-constant rainfall, but that did not slow down Gonerfest 21. As Ives notes of the move from the outdoor to the indoor stage, “We were able to deal with the rain really well on Friday, because of the team that we have with us, and GM Jeremy over at Railgarten and his staff. It took a whole lot of work from a bunch of people to be able to make all that stuff happen and pull it all off. And the community that we’re able to bring in, everybody just almost wills this thing to work well, you know? I think we’re really lucky that that it works that way.”

Railgarten, with both an outdoor and an indoor stage, offered a uniquely adaptable venue for such contingencies. And fans could also stay at home, given the reliability of the live streamed video, co-directed by Brent Shrewsbury and Alik Mackintire and executed by a crew of camera operators and other techs.

Availing myself of that option, I found the clarity of the videography and the brilliant online mix to be excellent, especially when running it through big speakers. Surprisingly, Ives himself watched some of the livestream on Sunday.

“I couldn’t be there [due to a mild case of Covid], and I was sort of crestfallen that I couldn’t. But the fact that I could sit there and watch from my quarantined house meant everything. I sent an email to Brent and Alik afterwards saying, ‘You completely saved my day.’ And not only that, that stream is an unbelievable way to watch everything. It is just on a different level now. They’re directing and cutting that stuff real time on a multi-camera shoot. The sound is unbelievable. The video is unbelievable. The real time editing is great. And then all of the in-between stuff that they’ve added in production this year, with Chris McCoy and Ryan [Haley] doing these interviews [see them in this exclusive compilation on the Memphis Flyer YouTube channel], and then taking footage that we’ve collected from the archive over the years and putting that all in, it’s amazing. It was the first time I’ve ever sat at home and watched that way. And I was completely blown away by our team.”

In retrospect, the weather for Gonerfest 21 was perfect. There was just enough bad weather to make comrades of us all, thankful we were spared the worst of it. No doubt the storm’s impact on festival-goers’ own kith and kin in the Carolinas, Georgia, and elsewhere was being felt, but Memphians were largely subject to mere rain (and the odd dead limb crashing down here and there).

L’Afrique, C’est Chic
Oneida wasn’t the only act to leave heads spinning. One of the festival’s most unpredictable moments was the triumphant return to Memphis of Niger’s finest Afro-beat groove band, Etran de L’Aïr. When Goner brought them here for the first time last summer, their show at Growlers was the talk of the town for weeks. This time around, they exceeded even those rave reviews.

Etran de L’Aïr (Photo: Anton Jackson)

While the two-guitar, bass, and drum lineup was conventional, the sounds that emerged as they layered cascades of electric notes over galloping rhythms were nigh otherworldly. Something about the weaving guitar arpeggios created a whole greater than the sum of the parts. After a while, the various overlapping overtones created a kind of aural illusion of other sounds, something several listeners commented on. “I thought I heard harmonicas,” exclaimed one friend, and I did too. Most importantly, the sweep of sound and rhythm proved irresistible to the crowd, who collectively threw their hands up after each tune and gave perhaps the weekend’s loudest roars of approval.

With Etran de L’Aïr not being your typical Goner band (is there such a thing?), Ives was relieved to see them win over the crowd. “After seeing them completely destroy that Growlers stage, I was super excited to see what would happen,” he says. “And then when everybody just completely embraced it and was completely into it, it rejuvenated my whole sense of why we do this thing and how great the audience is at Gonerfest. And I had a whole funny conversation with with a friend about that, about how he was not a ‘world music’ fan. Now, he’s open to it. This was the first world music band that he likes.”

Ladies’ Night
Without any particular agenda in mind, many festival-goers independently singled out the amazing women in the various Gonerfest bands this year. It was a notable, if low-key, contrast to other festivals’ less diverse lineups. Many raved about Py Py‘s co-vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, Annie-Claude Deschênes, whose magnetic presence drew the crowd under her spell, especially when she had fans hold her mic cable aloft as she made her way from the stage to the bar and back.

Tube Alloys (Photo: Sean Davis)

There was also the charismatic charm of Okmoniks’ Helene, noted above. And one friend raved about “that woman playing the Guild SG [guitar]” in Tube Alloys, an L.A. band named after the U.K.’s secret World War II nuclear weapons development program. Given their mastery of fuzz/crunch, the name is appropriate, fueled by their co-ed lineup.

Meanwhile, Angel Face, Japan’s latest purveyors of classic punk sneer-and-shout riffs, were powered by the unrelenting attack of their female drummer, Reiko. With punk/D.I.Y./indie attitudes seemingly more inclusive than ever, strong women players would appear to be par for the course in today’s Gonerfest universe.

Angel Face (Photo: Sean Davis)

All this barely scratches the surface, of course. In answer to the query, “What just happened?” the best answer is likely, “You had to be there…” And, as Ives notes, right there at Railgarten is likely where Gonerfest will be for the foreseeable future. “We were slightly up in terms of ticket sales this year,” he says, “but there’s not really any room to grow. I think we’re basically at capacity for the space. But that feels like a good spot to be in. We were still able to offer day passes for all three nights. So it didn’t feel like we were leaving anybody out, but it also felt like we were maximizing the space and, you know, maximizing the good feelings from everybody there.”

The traditional Gonerfest “alley photo” was moved to Railgarten this year. (Photo: Sean Davis)



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Mark Edgar Stuart: Never Far Behind

Mark Edgar Stuart (Photo: Jamie Harmon)

Some artists ponder making albums, wondering if they have enough material, enough musicians, or enough money. But when you’re a player on the level of bassist Mark Edgar Stuart, always staying busy with one project or another and forever mingling with other musos at gigs and in studios, albums sometimes just fall together. One recording session here, another there, and eventually the whole thing snowballs.

That’s how Stuart’s latest release, Never Far Behind, came about, as the singer-songwriter himself admits. “I didn’t really mean to put out another record,” he says. “I thought I was done for a little bit. And then this record just sort of happened.” 

Things like that tend to occur when you’re part of a crack studio band, as Stuart is — in this case at Bruce Watson’s Delta-Sonic Sound studio, where Stuart, as a member of the Sacred Soul Sound Section, plays bass behind artists like Elizabeth King on the Bible & Tire Recording Co. He can also be heard on secular Watson-related projects, some of which end up on Big Legal Mess Records. There’s always music cooking over at Delta-Sonic. And at times Stuart would show up only to find his own material on the menu. 

“Over the past two years, my buddies and I would get in the studio — Will [Sexton] and Bruce and that whole crew. We just slowly recorded tracks,” Stuart says. “I kind of felt like the universe produced it, you know? Will was the official producer, but every session was just last minute. Will would say, ‘Hey, what are you doing tomorrow? Bruce is in town, I’m here, let’s record some songs!’ And I’m on the phone going, ‘Well, who’s going to be the band?’ So it was pretty much whoever was available at any given moment. Then three months would go by, and Will would go, ‘Hey, we’re in the studio now working on your record! What are you doing?’ I’d say, ‘Oh, shit, I guess I’d better get down there!’”

That approach made Never Far Behind one of Stuart’s most collaborative efforts, including songs he co-wrote with Sexton, Jed Zimmerman, and, perhaps most strikingly, Greg Cartwright. “That loose approach made for some cool combinations,” says Stuart, “like when we recorded a song that me and Greg wrote together [‘We Better Call It a Day’]. I was like, ‘Greg, you in town?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Come over!’ So he played guitar, and Amy [LaVere] played bass, and Krista [Wroten] played on it, and Shawn Zorn, and Will played the keyboards. In the studio, it wound up becoming a duet. It was just real loose and cool. Amy was going to sing backup, and all of a sudden she sang the first verse and it was like, ‘Fuck it, a duet it is! Keep rolling!’”

That track draws on the wit and musicality of Stuart and Cartwright, two of the city’s finest songwriters, to create a kind of Eastern European lament over a failed romance, made all the more haunting by LaVere’s and Stuart’s swapped vocal lines, wistful mandolin, and atmospheric, Tom Waits-esque percussion. 

Yet another track, “The Ballad of Jerry Phillips,” grew from a would-be collaboration between Stuart and the song’s titular hero, son of Sun Records’ Sam Phillips. “I was hanging out with Jerry about a year and a half ago,” says Stuart, “and he said, ‘Man we’re gonna write a song together, and it’s gonna be called “Don’t Block Your Blessings.”’ 

“You know, we’re always blocking our blessings,” explains Stuart. “It’s like God’s trying to bless us, but we get in our own way. We fuck it up sometimes! Sometimes you’ve just got to let it be and just open yourself up to all the goodness. And Jerry and I were supposed to write that song together, but we couldn’t get anywhere with it. So I just turned around and wrote him a silly song about his own biography, and used the blocked blessings idea for the chorus. It came out perfect, you know?” The party atmosphere of the track, a Memphis cousin to “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,” captures Phillips’ rock-and-roll spirit and epitomizes the loose recording style that shaped the entire album.

After many months of such hilarity, an album coalesced. As Stuart describes the process, “A year and a half later, Will was like, ‘Well, we’ve got 15 songs here. … Are you going to put a record out?’ And I was like, ‘I guess we should.’ It was really friendly, you know, and that was cool. I’m really happy with it, probably more so than anything I’ve done in a long time. Nothing against anything else I’ve done, but it’s just that cool! I think this could be it for a while. I think after this I’m just going to get into other things.” Could Stuart really mean it this time? We’ll believe it when we see it. 

Hear Mark Edgar Stuart at the 8750’ Barbecue and Music Festival in New Mexico on August 16th; the Fishstock Music Series in Wisconsin on August 25th; Thacker Mountain Radio Hour in Oxford, Mississippi, on September 5th; the Memphis Songwriter Series at the Halloran Centre in Memphis on September 12th; and the Mempho Music Festival on October 4th.

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The Hypos Debut Their Earthy Pop Perfection

The Hypos (Photo: Leann Cornelius)

People often speak of Memphis’ close connection to other music scenes in terms of the Memphis-Muscle Shoals axis, the Memphis-Mississippi axis, or the Memphis-Nashville axis, highlighting our city’s cross-fertilization and impact. Few speak of the Memphis-Asheville axis, however. That may soon change with the release of a stunning new album by an Asheville band, The Hypos, that has deep roots in Memphis.

Greg Cartwright now splits his time between the two cities, but even as a resident of Asheville for two decades he’s rightly been identified with his hometown of Memphis, where he first made a name for himself as a songwriter, singer, and guitarist for the Oblivians, the Compulsive Gamblers, and Reigning Sound. Having worked with and produced many other bands throughout his years in Asheville, he now meets and even attracts a lot of fellow musos there, and one such meeting led to a collaboration from which The Hypos were born.

Like Cartwright, guitarist and singer Scott McMicken already had an established musical backlog before The Hypos. His first major band, Dr. Dog, was founded in his native Philadelphia and celebrated to the point of making several late-night network television appearances in the mid-2000s. By the pandemic he and his wife, Leann Cornelius, were living in Arizona, but hoping to expand their horizons. Then, as Cartwright recalls, “around the end of ’21 or so, they came up to Asheville, looking to move from Tucson. Scott and I started getting together to write some songs, and just kind of organically, the band became a thing. First with just a bass player, Kevin Williams, and then Evan Martin came along to play drums. Both of those guys are in other bands in Asheville. And it just seemed to gel pretty well.”

McMicken’s relocation came right as both songwriters were looking to collaborate more. “It’s interesting,” says Cartwright, “I think he’s been in Dr. Dog for most of his life at this point. And I was in Reigning Sound for a very long time. So we’re both coming out of an identity, and bringing all of our favorite parts of that bag with us. But it’s also a totally open place where I’m not beholden to any of it. I don’t have to make anything that sounds like Reigning Sound. I’m not even thinking about Reigning Sound, to be honest. I’ve just done that.”

The talents of Cartwright and McMicken, who share writing credit on most Hypos songs, are perfectly complementary. If the Reigning Sound typically embodied a folk-rock/garage-soul approach, Dr. Dog reveled in the rich vocal harmonies and colorful arrangements more associated with Brian Wilson. Yet both admired the other’s qualities. “I always saw Greg as the guy who seemed to be still shooting from the hip and was actually soulful,” McMicken recently told Asheville Stages. “No filters, no decorations — just plug your guitar into the amp and do something amazing.”

And, while Cartwright admits that during Reigning Sound, “there was something about power pop that I was trying to avoid because it seemed more commercial than I wanted it to be,” he hastens to add that “of course I love pop music. I mean, I grew up on the Beatles and Harry Nilsson!” Now, with The Hypos’ debut having arrived on January 5th, the strength of combining those two approaches is revealed.

But the more colorful palette of The Hypos, ranging from doo-wop harmonies to gonzo organ (courtesy of bassist Williams) to Caribbean rhythms, doesn’t mean it’s so much sonic cotton candy. Case in point: the chilling portrait of violence in “Heartbroke Town,” a song by Cartwright and The Hypos’ latest member, Memphis violinist Krista Wroten. “Everybody’s gotta cry some/I gotta heart, it weighs two tons/I said a prayer for my own son/And the curse of a loaded gun,” goes the chorus, and it may be one of this era’s most powerful howls of pain, albeit wrapped in a chugging reggae-tinged rhythm. Wroten’s voice and violin add an earthiness to the song — and the whole album — that brings The Hypos’ sound into focus.

With Wroten and Cartwright’s deep involvement, and the album being mixed by the Bluff City’s own Matt Ross-Spang, The Hypos may be both the greatest Memphis-Asheville album ever made and the year’s most fruitful songwriting partnership. As Cartwright says, “That’s the best part of collaboration. You get to have a lot of fun and be playful, but you also get to learn.”

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Greg Cartwright Opens Up About Songwriting and His Hit Black Keys Co-Writer

Greg Cartwright appears Thursday at Halloran Centre (Photo courtesy Orpheum Theatre Group)

Fair warning: there’s an undeniable bias in my reportage here, being a frequent band mate and collaborator with the subject of the interview below, native Memphian Greg Cartwright. And yet a certain historical imperative compels me to document the details of this songwriter’s process when his work is deemed so notable by critics and fans alike. That became eminently clear this spring, when a song Cartwright co-wrote with the Black Keys, “Wild Child,” topped Billboard’s adult alternative airplay chart. It was a level of success that’s long eluded an artist who’s typically had more critical acclaim than financial windfall. Yet tomorrow, when the Black Keys appear at the Radians Amphitheater at Memphis Botanic Gardens for Mempho Fest, Cartwright will be able to hear the song echoing through the air from his back yard. Will he raise a toast to the Memphis night?

Moreover, this evening, Thursday, September 29th, Cartwright will join Don Bryant and Alicja Trout in the season opener of Mark Edgar Stuart’s Memphis Songwriters Series at the Halloran Centre, with all three artists performing examples of their craft without a band, in the round. At such a moment, how could I resist calling up my old pal Greg to ask him his thoughts on the songwriter’s craft, in all its intricacies and rewards?

Greg Cartwright (Credit: Graham Winchester)

Memphis Flyer: You’ll be appearing with a national treasure, soul singer Don Bryant, on Thursday. How do you relate to his work?

Greg Cartwright: Don’s got an amazing voice and range, and boy that guy can sell a song. It’s amazing! And I love that he and Scott Bomar have this cool relationship, where Scott is Don’s producer and bandleader, and I think that’s such a cool older guy/younger guy relationship. And it’s win/win both ways. Scott’s got great skills, too. And he’s going to be at the event, I think, playing guitar while Don sings his stuff.

Also, I’m a huge Lowman Pauling and “5” Royales fan, so for me, it’s cool to work with somebody who wrote a song for them. It’s as close as I’m ever gonna get to doing anything with somebody who was there when all that magical era of gospel and R&B was happening. And Don’s an amazing songwriter. I love all his songs, from the 50’s on, including the more recent stuff that Scott’s produced. And the Willie Mitchell stuff — all great. I know he’s going to really bring it. I’m a little bit intimidated, to be honest. I don’t know if I can sell a song quite as well as he can.

Don Bryant (Credit: Jacob Blickinstaff)

There’s a certain spirit in that older school of songwriting that you have really zeroed in on and emulated.

Yeah, I really have. A lot of Don’s generation is what inspired me, in a lot of ways, to write in the way that I write. So I take a lot more inspiration from that era of country and rhythm and blues as a songwriter. I’ve always tried, when I have an opportunity to perform with or alongside artists from that generation, because I know there’s something I can learn in person that I can’t glean from a record.

You can kind of see how they embody what they do.

Yeah. Listening to records is great. You can get a lot from that, like you can get a lot from reading a book. But to be able to have a conversation with Hemingway would be a lot different. I can talk to him and understand more where the person is coming from. I always find it interesting to meet performers from that era, because it’s a little more insight into what makes the magic happen.

That era of songwriting has influenced you going back at least as far as the Compulsive Gamblers, and even through your Oblivians work.

You know, Jack [Yarber/Oblivian] and I had already done rock and roll, folk, country, all kinds of R&B and all kinds of other stuff with the Gamblers. So when Eric [Friedl] joined us and we did the Oblivians, it was a pretty late-blooming punk band. We were already adults. It was kind of a fake punk band, is what it was. The idea was, “What is punk music? It’s discontent.” So there were a lot of songs about what you don’t want to do [laughs]. And we took a lot of inspiration from the Ramones. That was Joey’s thing: I don’t wanna do this, I don’t wanna go there, “I’m Against It.” Him telling you what he’s not going to do. And that was an inspiration for the Oblivians. A template, if you will.

You’ve mentioned before that you Oblivians thought of your band as both fun and funny. There was a sense of humor to it.

Yeah, there totally was. It was an opportunity to laugh at life. There are some things in life where you can either laugh or cry. And there’s some very dark material in the Oblivians’ catalog. We took a lot of inspiration from the Fugs, which is a very tongue in cheek critique of society, as well as the Last Poets, also with a heavy critique of society, particularly the racist society in the United States. And you might laugh, and then find yourself going, “God, I shouldn’t laugh at that. That’s horrible!” But it is part of looking at what’s going on around you and trying to find some way to think about it that’s not just sad. But yeah, there’s a lot of dark stuff in the Oblivians. And I’m glad I had a platform to do that stuff when I was younger, because I don’t think I have it in me to laugh at a lot of that stuff at this point in my life.

You’ve talked about how with the last Reigning Sound studio album, you were trying to write in a more positive way.

Yeah, that was a big goal for me; because the pandemic, for a lot of people and a lot of songwriters, was a reset button, where it’s one thing to gripe in songs, or complain, but when you’re faced with some kind of new reality where you don’t even get to be around people, well, you stop complaining and you want to find something to be appreciative about. And that’s a better way of putting it. I was looking to appreciate. There are many things out there that are obstacles, always, but if you’re curious about what is happening around you, and you’re appreciative of the good things that come your way…

For a lot of my life, I thought that the gift I had was that I was very good at emoting whatever pain I was experiencing, in a way that other people seemed to relate to. There are a lot of songwriters like that. They really know how to put that into words, and emote it in a way that elicits a response from other people, where they totally empathize. So a lot of times, I would just be in this kind of trance onstage, sort of crying in public, in a way, and people responded to that. And I can’t say I grew out of it. It wasn’t a natural thing. I would have stayed that way if I hadn’t done a lot of work. But on the back side of that work, I wondered if I could also be just as good at emoting appreciation.

A sense of curiosity is important to that kind of openness, isn’t it?

It really is.

I’ve talked to Don Bryant about this, and also William Bell. Certain writers have this curiosity and this empathy, listening to and absorbing others’ stories. William Bell described sitting in cafes, just people-watching and getting song ideas.

That’s very true a lot of times; it’s so important to be curious, listening to people’s stories, because that’s how you find new subject matter. If you were confined to your personal autobiography, that’s pretty limited. I remember that someone once asked Jack [Oblivian], “Where do you get ideas for your songs?” He was like, “Small talk in bars.” Local gossip! If you keep your ears open, there’s plenty out there to write about. There’s plenty of new ways to frame an age old story, if you’re curious enough to see all the options, all the twists and turns.

Alicja Trout (Photo courtesy Orpheum Theatre Group)

You’ve known and worked with Alicja Trout for decades now, haven’t you?

A long time! Yeah, so when Lorette Velvette left the Alluring Strange, Randy Reinke took her place. And then I took Randy’s place, and played with them for a couple years. Then I started the Oblivians and started to get busy with that, and Alicja Trout was learning guitar, and it was my job to teach her the Alluring Strange songs, so she could take my place. And that’s how we got to know each other: teaching her songs for Misty White’s band. So there you go, Misty White is the Kevin Bacon of Memphis! [laughs]

Alicja was just learning guitar, and it’s amazing that she’s come so far. It wasn’t that much later, maybe five years or so, that she was doing her own stuff and playing with Jay [Reatard]. But even before she played with Jay, she had a band called Girls on Fire, and that was her and Claudine, who played guitar with Tav [Falco]. They had a band together. And boy, when I saw them for the first time, I called Larry Hardy at In The Red the next day and said, “I found a band I want to record, send me some money!” But before I could make it happen, they broke up. [laughs].

And even at that time, I thought, “Wow, she has really come a long way.” And it really amazed me. She had surpassed me as a guitar player, as far as what she could do as a lead guitarist. Because I’m very limited. For me, I’m always accompanying myself so I can perform a song. I’m not a great lead player. I enjoy the challenge, but I would never say I’m very good at it. But there are just some people that really take to something. They’re really passionate about it, and just want to do it, so I guess she must have wanted it. It didn’t take her very long to become a very good guitar player.

You and Alicja both have one foot in the punk world, the heavier rock world…

Aggression.

Yeah! But you both also step back and write these very delicate songs. Like Alicja’s beautiful “Howlin'” on the album of the same name; it’s mostly just her vocals and quiet electric guitar.

I like a bigger palette, and I think she does, too. As for me, I’m so in love with songwriting. It’s been such a helpful tool for me in my life, in so many ways, to process things, that the bigger palette I have, the better I can express myself. And I’m not very concerned with commercial success. So that gives me even less limitations. I think a lot of artists become very limited stylistically because they’re trying to define themselves as a certain kind of performer, or a certain kind of artist. And there’s no shame in that, but you have to have one eye on the marketplace to do that.

The Black Keys appear at Mempho Fest on Friday, September 30. (Credit: Jim Herrington)

How did your collaboration with the Black Keys come about?

I met them a long time ago, probably about 15 years ago. They were traveling with The Hentchmen from Detroit. So when the Hentchmen played Asheville, they told me Dan Auerbach was a huge fan and wanted to meet me. So Esther and I went to the show and afterwards we had an impromptu jam session, with myself, the Black Keys, and the Hentchmen, and we had a great time and got to be pretty friendly. And I hesitate to say this, but he basically said to me how inspiring he found my work. And that’s a massive compliment. Whether it’s the Hives or the Black Keys or whoever — people who’ve actually had success — for them to say to me, “Wow, you’re a huge inspiration to me, a lot of my art comes from emulating some of the things I hear in your music.”

But it’s an even bigger compliment when someone gets to a successful point in their career, and they say “Hey, would you like to come help me work on these productions and songs?” Dan thought enough of my songwriting that he not only wanted it in the Black Keys, but wanted me to help him with other artists he was working with. I really appreciated that. It helped me in so many ways. It gave me a new income stream, just to have a song credit on a Black Keys record is no small thing, especially if it’s a hit. And “Wild Child” was a hit. The synch license requests are still coming in daily.

But also, I think it opened me up to the idea of collaboration in a way that I had not allowed myself before. So around the beginning of the pandemic, I said I tried to focus more on appreciation, and that was a huge moment of growth. But then doing all these co-writing sessions with Dan also represented a lot of growth for me.

Prior to that, being in so many rock bands … When you’re in a band together, you spend too much time together, and eventually some things end acrimoniously. It was definitely that way for me. Prior to the Reigning Sound, the Oblivians spent too much time together and started to get on each other’s nerves. Then Jack and I went back to the Gamblers for a while, and we thought we could do that, but we quickly found out that we still, underneath it all, needed to get away from each other.

The now-defunct Reigning Sound in 2003 (cover photo by Dan Ball)

So when I started the Reigning Sound, my idea was that I would start a band where I would be the benevolent dictator, and everybody would have to do what I said. And I would be good to everybody, I would pay everybody fairly and be equal, but it would just be my songs and the covers I picked. I had never been the boss before, but at that point in my life, I needed that level of total control. Because I didn’t trust people. I had been burnt, I had had relationships that crumbled. And this kind of happens in romantic relationships, too, where you get to the point where you think, “I just need to be in control. I can’t relinquish any control because I might get hurt”. If you can’t be vulnerable, being in control is kind of the obvious option. And luckily I met you and Greg [Roberson] and Jeremy [Scott], and you guys were cool with that. You’re all great songwriters, so to find a bunch of talented people who understand music and get where you’re coming from, who aren’t going to be angry that you don’t want to consider their songs, that’s tricky. And for that same reason, it can’t last forever.

And I came to a point where, when I wrote this last record [A Little More Time with Reigning Sound], I thought, this is a much more positive side of my songwriting, but it’s also the last great burst, for a while, of me needing to have a band where it’s just me and my vision all the time. Now what I really want is to learn how to be vulnerable with other people, and to open up to other people’s ideas. Right now, I really want to do that. You have to tread lightly, and pick people that you trust. You have to pick people that feel safe, and then you can be vulnerable, and then you can be playful.

Did your collaboration with Dan Auerbach begin during the pandemic?

It did. His engineer Alan called and said, “Dan would really like you to come and write. Are you available these days?” So I went, and I had no idea what we would be doing, or who I’d be writing with or for. I assumed it was Dan; I thought maybe it was a solo record or something.

So I got there, and Dan said, this guy Marcus King is going to be here in a half hour and we’re going to write. And it kind of scared me! But as soon as Marcus got there, he was so friendly and open and funny that we had a great time. We got right to it and had four songs in a day. And a little while later, Dan called me back to work with another guy he’d signed, Early James. And we ended up doing two writing sessions together.

And after that, Dan said, ‘I’ve got another one.’ I asked him who it would be with, and he said, ‘It’s the Black Keys.’ [laughs]. So I went and we talked about some song ideas. He played me some jams that he and Pat [Carney] had recorded, with some hooks and stuff. So I went home, sat with them for a couple ideas, thought about lyric ideas, song ideas, chord changes that might be beneficial to the riffs that they had. And I went back and we sat around that day and wrote the rest of the songs. And I wasn’t sure what was going to happen at that point, but they just walked into the other room immediately and started recording. It was instantaneous. They recorded them just as we had worked it out together, then Dan put down a vocal, and that was it, we were done.

I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life! Usually you write a song and there’s weeks or months in between that moment of inspiration and when it gets laid down on tape. But Dan loves the idea of catching something when it’s fresh. There’s some kind of magic there that you might lose if you continue to play and record it. And I think that’s what makes the Black Keys work, especially when you listen back to their earliest stuff, that’s kind of raw and live, like the early Oblivians stuff. There’s not a lot of production going on, and not a lot of adjusting it after the fact. It is what it is.

It also speaks to how carefully you crafted it right out of the gate.

Right, you did all your thinking already. And I think Dan’s very much like the early Billy Sherrill and Rick Hall and all those people. They’re his heroes. And back in their heyday, pre-production was everything, because you couldn’t do much once it was on the tape. It was so limited, track-wise. So pre-production was everything. Where are the mics gonna go? Are you gonna play loud or soft? How are you going to sing it? Everything had to be figured out before the tape rolled. And then you got what you got. And I think Dan appreciates that way of thinking. He tracks live to one inch 8-track, the same as the last few records I’ve made. I’m enamored with it as well. I love the idea of planning everything out on the front and then just recording it.

With something like “Wild Child,” some people may not associate it with ‘great songwriting,’ because it’s more primitive. It’s not, say, Leonard Cohen-style lyrics or whatever, but a lot of craftsmanship really goes into riff-oriented songs as well, doesn’t it?

Yeah. The song is two chords. It’s about as simple as a song can be. To me, that requires even more work. How do you build all these dynamics and cliffhangers and hooks and everything if it’s just the same two chords over and over? So it’s almost more challenging to make a really fun ride out of those two and half minutes. And I think that’s how people used to work back in the day. Now artists and musicians have the option of, “Well, you can lay down the basic track and continue to tweak it and add things and take things away, ad nauseam.” That is definitely a way to build a song. But it doesn’t really speak to me. And also, it’s exhausting. Because you’re never really sure when you’re done. If you’re doing all this stuff after you record it, editing and stuff, where do you stop? The way people used to do it, when you stopped was when it was recorded, and then you just mixed it.

It must have been very gratifying to go through that process in a day or two, and have one of those songs become a hit.

Yeah, it’s been a real experience, to say the least. I knew the date it was coming out, and I was really anticipating it, almost voyeuristically, like, “Boy, nobody knows I’m part of this, and I get to just watch it all happen.” But then it came out and all this press came out, and there was my name in every interview, talking about the process and my songwriting. So I felt a little bit vulnerable in a way I wasn’t anticipating, which was a little scary. I thought I was just gonna be a name in a credit on a record label. I didn’t think they’d actually talk about me. But I was also really appreciative of that, once I became comfortable with it. They were trying to tell the world I’m a good songwriter. What a nice thing to do.

I always enjoyed the feeling of sitting in the audience at a Big Ass Truck show, say, watching my songs be performed by others.

I know what you mean. There is that feeling of like, “This will stand!” This will stand on its own. I don’t have to be there animating it. It’s not me, it’s the song. And that is a great, great feeling. You’ve built something that will last, and that other people can inhabit. People will empathize so much with the lyric that they want to deliver it themselves.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Music Video Monday: “Let’s Do It Again” by Reigning Sound

Music Video Monday is at it again!

Reigning Sound is currently on a high note. Since Greg Cartwright reunited his original Memphis lineup of Jeremy Scott, Greg Roberson, and the Memphis Flyer‘s own Alex Greene, and added in drummer Graham Winchester for spice, they’ve cracked the Billboard charts with their album A Little More Time, played a sold-out show at the River Series, and announced as GonerFest 2021 headliners (which is also sold out, so grab a streaming ticket instead).

The music video for the lead single “Let’s Do It Again” shows the rockers in full flight It’s the Monday kickoff you need right now.

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

Categories
Music Music Features

Reigning Sound Come Home

Reigning Sound (photo by Jamie Harmon)

In “Oh Christine” from the new album A Little More Time With Reigning Sound, Greg Cartwright sings, “Amber strands / on my face / lay in wait for the tears that flow / some for you / and some for me.”

The song, which songwriter Cartwright says is his favorite of the album’s 11 tracks, is about a sailor remembering a love left on the shore. “It was a story that popped into my head about letting go of people when you need to let go, trying to move on and be happy for the other person, and not base your life around whether somebody else loves you or not.”

That’s a far cry from the kind of songs the screamer known as Greg Oblivian spat out in the wild Memphis of the 1990s, but the truth is the Oblivians’ apocalyptic lo-fi sonic blasts were always more sophisticated than they appeared on the surface. Plus, Cartwright has done a lot of growing up. “For the longest time, since I was a teenager, music was the main outlet for me to work out whatever’s going on inside of me,” he says. “If you listen to Oblivian stuff, or even some of the Compulsive Gamblers stuff, there’s a squeal in my voice. When there’s so much emotion trying to get out of you, and it’s so intense, and you’re kind of choking on it because you’re so wound up. That had a place, and I was glad that I found music and was able to use it in that way. But in the long term, I don’t think it’s really healthy to continue to do that when you could explore some other ways to work it out. And maybe in the process, I can be a better, more varied songwriter.”

Cartwright formed Reigning Sound after the Oblivians flamed out in the late ’90s. The original lineup of drummer Greg Roberson, bassist Jeremy Scott (who these days fronts the Toy Trucks), and organist Alex Greene, still has a reputation as one of the hottest bands to come out of Memphis. Their two albums, 2001’s Break Up, Break Down and 2002’s Time Bomb High School, expanded the borders of garage rock to include country, pop, and even rocked-up standards like “Stormy Weather.” Greene — who is now the music editor of the Memphis Flyer — left the band in 2004. Cartwright got back to his punk roots with Too Much Guitar before leaving his native Memphis for Asheville, North Carolina.

Reigning Sound went through personnel changes over the years, but when the pandemic hit last year, Cartwright says an opportunity opened up to get the original lineup back together. A Little More Time was recorded at Electraphonic Recording with Scott Bomar, another veteran of the Memphis punk scene, behind the boards. Recorded analog on Bomar’s vintage equipment, the songs span far beyond the overdriven guitars and punishing drums of the band’s Midtown rock roots. The sounds range from the steel guitar-driven balladeering of “Moving & Shaking” to the ’60s garage rock rave-up “I Don’t Need That Kind of Lovin’,” a longtime live favorite captured in the studio for the first time. “A Little More Time” brings Greene’s organ to the forefront, showing off the harmonic talents of Scott. “They’re a really good band,” says Cartwright. “The one addition we had to make for this record was Graham Winchester on drums. That was just because of an injury that Greg [Roberson] had to his hand many years ago that limits the dynamics of what he can do. They are both are on every song, with one playing drums, and the other guy playing extra percussion.”

What shines through A Little More Time is the depth of the songwriting. Cartwright’s newfound comfort with vulnerability elevates album closer “On and On” into a country-soul symphony of love and loss. Like all Cartwright’s songs, it is deceptively simple on the surface, with a river of emotion underneath. “That’s why a song is a great vehicle,” he says. “You say it with a few words and a lot of melody, then let people chew on it, and they’ll figure it out.”
Reigning Sound plays the River Series at Harbor Town Amphitheater on Saturday, June 5th.

Categories
Music Music Blog

Have a Punky Xmas with the Goner TV Holiday Special

This happens on the Goner TV Holiday Special.

It’s that time of year when you ask yourself, “How many more versions of A Christmas Carol do I have to watch?” Well friends, liberation is available if you want it. It’s called the “Goner TV Holiday Special,” and it’s happening tonight.

Memphis’ pioneering garage/punk label and beloved record store Goner’s pivot from live shows to streaming has been one of the rare success stories of the pandemic. Their weekly webcasts have become wacko variety shows combining live music, comedy, art, talk, and whatever else they can put in front of their cameras.

Now, the variety show format reaches its final form with the Holiday Special. Goner honchoes Eric Friedl and Zac Ives will be joined by Friedl’s Oblivians bandmate Greg Cartwright, Christmas music from Robby Grant (joined by Memphis Flyer Music Editor Alex Greene), Shannon Shaw & Cody Blanchard, and Detroit’s Human Eye madman Timmy Vulgar. You’ll also get to see the world premiere of The Sheik’s new “Christmas in Space” video, which is absolutely bonkers. There’s also new art by ex-Nots keyboardist Alexandra Eastburn, a cooking segment, and a bunch of other cool stuff that you’re just going to have to tune in to believe.

The Goner TV Holiday Special streams tonight at 8 p.m. CST on Twitch or GonerTV.com.  

Categories
Music Music Blog

Reigning Sound Live from the Stream

This Saturday, Memphis garage-rock gurus Reigning Sound will perform live (streamed to your computer or device via Twitch and Facebook Live) from the stage of B-Side, presented by Goner Records, to celebrate the upcoming Merge Records rerelease of the band’s 2005 album Home for Orphans.

The Home for Orphans reissue isn’t Reigning Sound’s first association with Merge. Their excellent 2014 LP Shattered was released on Merge Records, as was last year’s reissue of Abdication … for Your Love. “Featuring,” Merge’s website boasts, “the original Memphis lineup of singer-guitarist [Greg] Cartwright, bassist Jeremy Scott, drummer Greg Roberson, and [Flyer Music Editor] organist Alex Greene, Home for Orphans presents Reigning Sound’s classic sonic blueprint.”

Home for Orphans

That the record is made up of outtakes, demos, and rarities makes it feel like a glimpse of something elusive and wild. The songs are moody and raw, oozing atmosphere and warbling organ chords. “It was a record almost by accident,” says bassist Jeremy Scott. “We had a whole third record pretty much ready to go when Alex left. (He had a youngun’ to raise, and probably didn’t need to hang with us heathens so much anyway.) The more rockin’ material was lifted for what became Too Much Guitar, along with some newer things we developed as a trio; the moodier stuff, which contains some of Greg’s best songs in my opinion, formed the basis of this record.”

Scott adds, “Great to see it available again, in a jacket which features not one but two pictures of us! We were ugly then and we’re uglier now!”

“Love is a funny thing,” Cartwright sings over a bed of acoustic guitars, slide, and burbling bass. “Don’t know it’s real till it’s caused you pain.” The drums are unobtrusive for most of the song — a light tok! on the snare, shimmery cymbals and hi-hat to keep the beat — until the fills come in, big and dramatic as anything drummer Howard Wyeth played on Bob Dylan’s Desire.

Reigning Sound: (left to right) Jeremy Scott, Greg Cartwright, Greg Roberson, and Alex Greene

“If Christmas Can’t Bring You Home” is plaintive. Shakers and whining electric guitars that riff off of the melody of “Joy to the World” are almost too maudlin, but in the end, it works wonderfully, the sound of a lonely, drunken holiday distilled. And of course, the woeful organ chords work wonders as well. “Medication Blues #1” swirls with Byrds-like chiming guitars and an uptempo drum shuffle. The format for many of the songs — acoustic guitars, swirling organs, electric guitars played crisp and clean, bass and drums high in the mix, and harmonies galore — represents a particular sound Memphis seems to do so well in any genre, be it garage, soul, or power-pop.

“The out of town shows we did in March demonstrated that we can still bring it,” Scott says, obviously amped about the upcoming full-band performance. (Scott, like many musicians in the age of coronavirus, has streamed solo performances from his couch.) “I’m looking forward to having another opportunity to play with these guys, who are like brothers two through four to me.”

The folks at Goner have this to say about Goner TV: “We are all bummed out and we can’t get out and see a show. See our friends. Hang out and have some laughs late into the night in a dark dingy bar. Remember those days? So we wanted to do something about it. Goner TV is our attempt to bring the good times to you.”

Goner Presents: Reigning Sound Live From B-Side Saturday, June 20th, at 8 p.m. Catch it on Facebook Live or on the Goner Twitch channel: twitch.tv/gonerrecords.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Memphis: City of Song … and Songwriters

CREDIT: Chris Paul Thompson

Jocelyn “Jozzy” Donald is recalling her mother’s glory days in the recording industry. “She was a singer with Hi Records, with Willie Mitchell producing. She had a group called Janet and the Jays, back in the day. Boo Mitchell knows my whole family.”

It’s the kind of memory a family can treasure, a brush with greatness, a bit of immortality on vinyl. The group not only worked with a producer who became legendary, they recorded songs by writers like Don Bryant and William Bell, masters of their craft. They too have become legendary, though Janet and the Jays fans would only have seen their names in the very small print below the songs’ titles. That’s just how songwriters were credited. In the age of streaming, the people who composed the music are often completely unacknowledged (though the Sound Credit platform designed by Memphis’ own Soundways is trying to change that).

Chris Paul Thompson

Jocelyn “Jozzy” Donald

The lack of public credit given songwriters is all too apparent when I ask Boo Mitchell if he remembers Jozzy and her family. “Sure!” he says. “She writes music herself. I recorded some of her first stuff in the four-track room at Royal Studios.” It’s yet another moment in the big small town of Memphis, where everyone seems to know everyone else. But he’s not ready when I toss out another factoid: that a song she co-wrote is currently the No. 1 song in the nation — a little number called “Old Town Road.”

Matt White

Don Bryant

“Really?” he exclaims. “Good for her!”

It’s a Memphis thing. Great songwriters are crawling out of the woodwork, and most of us don’t even realize it.

Jamie Harmon

William Bell

In the case of Jozzy, it’s a tale many years in the making. “My brother became a recording artist but got locked up. So I pretty much took his whole love of music and just ran with it. That’s what happened with me falling in love with music. I started working at this studio called Traphouse, with DJ Larry Live. He’s actually Yo Gotti’s right-hand man now. He had a studio on Highland, right near the University of Memphis, and I used to go over there and write. That was where I got my start. I was still at Germantown High School then. All the rappers in the city knew me as the girl who wrote hooks. I was just the hook girl.”

Word of her prolific creativity got around, and before long she was working with famed producer Timbaland in Miami. Then came a move to Los Angeles and being signed to Columbia Records as an artist in her own right. It was then that her label mate, Lil Nas X, found he needed a hand supplementing a song he’d already written and released.

“Old Town Road,” his song of determination in the face of alienation, made use of the old pop trope of the African-American cowboy, which dates at least as far back as the Coasters or Jamaican dub legends the Upsetters. But having a banjo-driven track with Western themes wasn’t enough for the Nashville establishment to recognize the song as a legitimate entry on the country charts. So Lil Nas X upped the ante and actually featured a country star in a remix of the song. That’s where Jozzy came in to write an extra verse for the cameo.

“I just love that Billy Ray Cyrus really stood behind us,” says Jozzy of the star she ended up writing a passage for in the remix. “Because Billy Ray went through the same thing with ‘Achy Breaky Heart,’ which they also took off the country charts. So he could relate to it. And really, the controversy added to the greatness of the song, but I hate that the country music industry had to act like that. Still, new country artists like Keith Urban are supporting this song.”

Indeed, country fans even love it. When Cyrus brought Lil Nas X out for the song at the recent Country Music Association Music Festival, the crowd went crazy.

Now dropping her debut single as an artist, “Sucka Free,” featuring Lil Wayne, Jozzy is poised for something most songwriters never receive: public acclaim. It’s almost a tradition in Memphis, which does not always get the same credit as Nashville as a font of song creation. The absurdity of that is apparent if one simply reflects on the songwriting legacy of the Bluff City. Of course, Memphis looms large in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, where notable inductees include Al Green, Isaac Hayes, David Porter, Otis Redding, Maurice White, and W.C. Handy. Keith Sykes, now managing Ardent Recording Studios after a lifetime of songwriting for himself and other artists like Jimmy Buffett, recently attended this year’s induction ceremony for the New York-based institution and saw fellow Memphian Justin Timberlake receive the Contemporary Icon Award. “He also closed the show. Fantastic, man! And he gave a huge shout-out to Memphis, several times,” Sykes says. His friend and erstwhile collaborator John Prine, who is rightfully honored as the gold standard of songwriters, also was inducted, causing Sykes to ponder Prine’s longtime connection with Memphis.

Keith Sykes

“He did his first album here, with Don Nix at American,” recalls Sykes. “He did Common Sense here and Pink Cadillac here. He’s done a bunch of stuff in Memphis. And he loves it down here.” Beyond working in the city so often, Prine has influenced a whole crop of songwriters based here, who took his template of finely honed, detail-rich narratives to heart. The great John Kilzer, whose recent death is still being mourned, was one such practitioner of the narrative songwriter’s craft. “John Kilzer, I signed in 1986,” says Sykes. “His songs, you could just tell there was something there.”

Beyond his natural talents of observation, Kilzer studied creative writing at then-Memphis State University. It’s a path that other songwriting greats have taken as well, including local writer and performer Cory Branan, whose tightly woven tales are gems of song construction. (I should know; I sometimes play bass for the guy.) English hitmaker Frank Turner recently quipped, “The thing about Cory for me is, almost every songwriter I know is slightly embarrassed by his existence, in the sense that he’s just better than all of us. And should be more successful than any of us.”

Cory Branan

Branan says studying creative writing and literature can indeed enhance this approach to songwriting. “I didn’t write songs until I was 24 or so, but I wouldn’t be doing this if I hadn’t tested into the right classes when I was in school in Mississippi. My teacher, Ms. Evelyn Simms, went off the curriculum, let’s just say that. She would see what we were interested in and then steer us toward things that technically she couldn’t assign.”

From wider reading, Branan learned to take in the wider world. “Keats called it ‘negative capability.’ The idea of not having a persona or a personality, to be able to pursue another one. Basically, not getting your fingerprints all over shit.” (Playing with him and seeing rooms full of fans singing along to “The Prettiest Waitress in Memphis” and others attests to the power of evoking characters that may or may not reflect the songwriter himself.)

It’s an approach that befits almost any style of songwriting, revealing a basic attitude toward the craft that transcends any genre or timely trends. Producer IMAKEMADBEATS, reflecting on songs he’s cowritten with singer Cameron Bethany, puts it this way: “The thing about stepping out of the world of hip-hop, whether it’s for a Cameron Bethany record or an Aaron James record, is that you get to just shamelessly become somebody else. You get to really take on the perspectives of another person. And try to tell that story. With that, songwriting is fun to me because it becomes infinite. I’ve heard songs by people from the perspective of being a gun. I’ve heard songs from the perspecitve of what they thought it was like to be their parents. You can take on any and all perspectives.” Memphis native William Bell, one of the first hitmakers for Stax Records and a 2017 Grammy winner, would agree. “I started singing with the Phineas Newborn Orchestra when I was 14, and I was always a people watcher. At that age, I couldn’t go out in the club, so I had to sit backstage and peek out at the audience. And I would just watch people as they’d come into the club, and after a couple drinks, how they were acting. All of that stuff just kinda hit home, and I wrote about a lot of that just from observation.”

Catherine Elizabeth

Cameron Bethony

Don Bryant, who started in the same era and for a time put off his own performing career to become a staff writer for Hi Records (penning “I Can’t Stand the Rain” for wife Ann Peebles), is similarly inspired by the everyday tales he hears around him to this day. “I had six brothers,” Bryant recalls, “and they always came home with something, or I’d be out in the neighborhood and you hear little things. After a period of time, you visit back on those days and you see a whole lot of things. I pull stories from anywhere I can.”

While much younger than pioneers like Bell or Bryant, Greg Cartwright is universally admired in Memphis as a writer whose songs might have been written in their heyday. As such, his recorded work (on which I’ve played in the past) stands as a kind of bridge between the classic songwriting that emerged from studios like Stax, Royal, or American and the edgier, punk-infused style of bands like the Oblivians or the Reigning Sound.

Kyel Dean Reinford

Greg Cartwright

“I write about things that I’m familiar with,” he says, “so I can speak with authenticity when I say it. But that doesn’t mean necessarily that it happened to me. It just means that I can empathize with the idea. Even though it may not be purely autobiographical, it’s certainly something that I can understand and empathize with. I’m not saying it’s about me so much as to say, ‘I empathize with you if you feel this.'”

But if not autobiographical, Cartwright feels it’s imperative to find one’s authentic voice, something he did through a longtime bandmate. “When I met Jack [Oblivian], he was the first person I met who didn’t sound like anybody I’d ever heard. He wasn’t trying to sound like anybody I could put my finger on. Sure, he had lots of influences, and he would tell you right away what they were, but in my early 20s, most people were very taken with whatever the music of the time was or whatever their social scene was into. And he just seemed like he was just flying his own flag.” In the end, this willingness to buck prevailing trends and pursue a personal vision may be the hallmark of all the city’s great songwriters. “What I look for is something fresh and original,” says Sykes. “And I can never put my finger on what that is.” Some toil at length to build that quality into their songs. “I work hard at making things sound off the cuff,” Branan told one interviewer. Others, like Jo’zzy, take another route. “Your first mind is everything,” she says. “Your first melody that comes into your head, normally that’s the right melody. I tell my manager all the time, ‘Never play me a beat before I go in the studio.’ I’d much rather go freestyle.”

Yet another approach to forging individuality is to be overwhelmingly prolific. Kirby Dockery, a graduate of the Stax Music Academy, left Berklee College of Music to pursue her music career, but was having trouble getting recognition. Her resolve led her to post a song a day on YouTube — eventually culminating in 200 compositions and being signed to Jay-Z’s Roc Nation Publishing. There, she ascended to what is surely the songwriter’s mountaintop, co-writing “Only One” with Kanye West and Paul McCartney, and “FourFiveSeconds” with West, McCartney, and Rihanna.

Josiah Roberto

Kirby

Working under the name Kirby, she reflects on the role of the Stax legacy in her achievements. “The Stax Music Academy [SMA] was one of the first catalysts that helped me believe that songwriting wasn’t just a dream. It was there where I first heard my lyrics and melodies put to music. If it wasn’t for SMA I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of meeting my future publisher years before I even knew how to be signed as a songwriter. SMA planted seeds that are still blooming in my life today. I am forever grateful.”

To that end, she’s now giving back to the institution. As SMA executive director Pat Mitchell-Worley notes, “Kirby offered four scholarships to students in the program, based on the students creating original material. And she listened to every song that was offered. And not only did she pick the best ones, she gave them feedback on their songs. So her scholarship reinforced our songwriting focus.” In fact, the SMA is now promoting the importance of songwriting more than ever.

“For the upcoming regular school year,” says Mitchell-Worley, “we have a full songwriting track. Songwriting and music business. And the two go hand in hand. If you’re gonna pursue a career as an artist, you need to have every form of revenue that you can grasp, and songwriting is a very important part of how you get paid. Students have come to understand more that owning the material that they record and perform affects their revenue streams.” Beyond that, they’re thriving on the creativity that such an emphasis fosters.

Perhaps an old tune by Youmans, Rose, and Eliscu from 1929 puts it best, reeling off the reasons we should be grateful for the craft that has shaped the city’s history for so long:

Without a song, the day would never end

Without a song, the road would never bend

When things go wrong, a man ain’t got a friend …Without a song.

Categories
Music Record Reviews

The Sore Losers: A Monstrous Mash-Up Rises From The Grave

One of the highlights of last year’s Gonerfest 15 was the screening of director Mike McCarthy’s The Sore Losers at Studio on the Square. Having received the full remastering treatment, it jumped off the screen as never before, combining the best of modern digital clarity with the richness of its original analog film stock. The film, first released in 1997, is an often hilarious Zippin’ Pippin ride through exploitation, low budget sci-fi, and B-movie tropes. But it also provided a portal into the (then) unheralded underground music scene of the era.

Last November, the soundtrack was released on vinyl via Goner Records and Portugal’s Chaputa! Records. It’s barely left the turntable since. For what this double LP offers is nothing less than a reanimated, full-strength Frankenstein’s monster of ’90s garage rock, retro rock, and lo-fi experimentalism.

If the movie itself is a brilliant hodge-podge of styles, so is the album. The tracks are not just lo-fi, they are different varieties of lo-fi, from the late Jack Taylor’s bashed-out title song, to the terrifying/thrilling onslaught of Guitar Wolf, to the quavering homespun charm of Poli Sci Clone. Satisfyingly snotty vocals and chugging/chopping guitars abound, as in contributions by the Makers, the Drags, Gasoline, and Los Diablos del Sol, but many artists you might think you have pegged defy formula altogether.

People were already nostalgic for the Gories by 1997, but Mick Collins avoids that familiar territory with a kind of minimalist crime jazz built on the prominent sax work of Jim Spake. Nick Diablo’s track is reminiscent of Can’s “Ethnographic Forgery” series, with Diablo channeling a lost field recording of some aged Delta harp player. Tracks from ’68 Comeback and Jack Oblivian are littered with wah-wah guitar, organ, and synth hiccups that are true to the flick’s sci-fi universe. Or, in the case of Jack Oblivian’s back-shed funk “Vice Party,” the flick’s soft porn universe. 

Dan Ball

The Clears

One gem, highlighted at the film’s Gonerfest 15 premiere in the form of a 1997 music video that was never released, is “We Are a Rock & Roll Band” by synth pop trio the Clears. Also known as “Rock & Roll Band” to fans of the Clears’ standalone album, the different title may be appropriate, as either a remix or a remastering has given the soundtrack version considerably more snap and crackle. Jack O and Chris Clarity also mine that back corner of the garage where grandpa stores his synthesizers.

Mingled in with all these sonic adventures, we also hear some first rate songwriting. The closer, of course is the 1953 chestnut, “Look Me Over Closely,” (later popularized by the White Stripes), but we also hear the neo-classic swamp pop of the Royal Pendletons, whose “I’m a Sore Loser” is perhaps even more a definitive track than Taylor’s. 

The Royal Pendletons

And finally, in stark contrast with so much clamor, side three closes with the simple, haunting “Bad Man” by Greg Oblivian/Greg Cartwright, all mellow guitar, toy piano, and disembodied, over-the-phone vocals. The recurrence of that track through the film anchors it in a seemingly incongruous mood of regret and heartache. Though it no doubt surprised many Oblivians fans at the time (for this was well before the Reigning Sound), it’s an especially fitting cornerstone for a film built on, and reveling in, incongruities.