Tag: Julien Baker

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Music Music Blog

Memphis Wins Big at 66th Annual Grammys

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

boygenius (Photo courtesy Chuffmedia)

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

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

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

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

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

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Music Music Features

Top 10 Memphis Albums of 2023

boygenius – the record (Interscope Records)

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

Cloudland Canyon – Cloudland Canyon (Medical Records)

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

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

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

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

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

Tyler Keith – Hell to Pay (Black and Wyatt)

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

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

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

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

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

Optic Sink – Glass Blocks (Feel It Records)

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

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

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

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

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

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Film Features Film/TV

Music Video Monday: “The Film” by boygenius

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

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

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

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

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Music Music Features

Memphis Music: 10 from ’21

Here’s a roundup of your faithful Flyer music editor’s favorite Memphis music from the year that felt far too much like the year before.

Julien Baker

Little Oblivions (Matador)

Opening with the crass tones of a broken organ, this is an enervating shot across the bow from an artist typically associated with delicate guitar lines. Here, the production has widened. The constant is the hushed-to-frantic intimacy of her voice, and, as the album develops, she sings from darker, grittier depths than she’s ever plumbed before, propelled by a full-on rock band.

Cedric Burnside

I Be Trying (Single Lock)

With a new dryness and sparseness, Burnside has crafted a unique approach to the blues that sidesteps preconceived riffs or licks; even those you’ve heard take on a new urgency and gravitas. Made with only guitar, drums, the occasional light touch of a second guitar (including Luther Dickinson), or cello, it’s the hushed vocals that cut to one’s soul.

The City Champs

Luna ’68 (Big Legal Mess)

In which the instrumental boogaloo trio evokes the space-bedazzled sounds of yesteryear. In this group’s hands, even cymbal rolls and an organ can sound futuristic. Sitting comfortably in this minimalist mix is a new sound for the Champs: a synthesizer. Superbly composed like their earlier works, the grooves are peppered with stinging guitar and growling organ.

IMAKEMADBEATS

MAD Songs, Vol. 1 (Unapologetic)

The founder of Unapologetic gets personal: The beats are atmospheric, the chords are a little odd, the lyrics, whether MAD’s or his guests’, skew to the philosophical. MAD’s trademark slippery bass and beats in space underpin stellar guest artists, from deft raps by PreauXX, R.U.D.Y., Austyn Michael, and others, to silky melodies from Cameron Bethany and U’niQ.

John Paul Keith

The Rhythm of the City (Wild Honey)

“There’s little Easter eggs all over the record,” says Keith, meaning the hints of Memphis music history that litter the tracks. With Box Tops-like jet, stray Stax licks, electric sitar, or two saxes cut live, the sound of a live-tracked band really pays off with Keith’s one-take guitar playing, some of the finest of his career.

Elizabeth King

Living in the Last Days (Bible & Tire Recording Co.)

King’s voice is as indomitable as a mountain, as many have known for decades. Bible & Tire released King’s tracks from the ’70s in 2019, but label owner Bruce Watson wanted to capture her voice now. The band, relative youngsters compared to King, evokes classic gospel, and it gives her work a unique stamp in a genre now deeply shaped by jazz fusion and funk.

Don Lifted

325i (Fat Possum)

Don Lifted’s music has always been rooted in hip hop’s rhythmic rhyming, while including elements of shoegaze rock and even smooth R&B. His third album ramps up the artist’s sonic craftsmanship, with lyrics mixing the dread of quarantine with the determination to unpack one’s self. This solidifies the artist’s reputation as a performer with staying power, with a surer sense of sonic hooks than ever.

Loveland Duren

Any Such Thing (Edgewood Recordings)

The duo’s third album is the Platonic ideal of pop. Exquisite arrangements for the material include strings, French horn, flute, and a perfectly Memphian horn section. And while there are some flourishes of classic rock guitar on the stompers, the album as a whole is a keyboard-lover’s dream. But the heart of this album is the songwriting, with lyrics and melodies you can chew on for years.

MonoNeon

Supermane (self-released)

Known as a bass virtuoso, this album presents the songwriter’s most focused material ever. The result is his idiosyncratic, yet more disciplined, take on the classic early George Clinton sound. Still, he makes it his own with the strongest singing of his career. “Supermane,” the song, also features the sax playing of Kirk Whalum. Its classic gospel feel is made more universal by MonoNeon’s pop instincts.

Young Dolph

Paper Route Illuminati (Paper Route Empire)

The artist/label svengali’s horrific murder last month robbed us of future creations, but his swan song captures his spirit. “My office is a traphouse in South Memphis” tells you where his heart lived, as he and featured artists (including Gucci Mane) drop witty boasts of money and women. When he spits, “Have you ever seen a dead body?” a chill comes over the album, but when he raps, “I go so hard, make ’em hate me, my whole life a movie — HD,” it’s pure truth.

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Music Music Blog

Julien Baker’s Triumphant Return: A Mempho Moment

Julien Baker at Mempho (Credit: Keith Griner)

Though intermittent sprinkles of rain graced this past weekend’s Mempho Music Festival here and there, the event marched onward like the musical juggernaut it is. And only a few drops marred what may have been the most impressive Mempho moment of all, a homecoming show by Julien Baker, her first here with a five-piece band.

And that band was in fine form, alternately pounding out jams or spinning the arrangements like silk. That was partly due to the many dates they’d played already, in a tour that began in Birmingham on September 3, then took them to Atlanta, Asheville, Washington D.C., New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Toronto, Chicago, Minneapolis, Madison, Detroit, Columbus, and Pittsburgh.

By Saturday, October 2, they were a well-seasoned unit, and the stop-and-start dynamics of the material were delivered with an easy grace. Moreover, they played with an energy that belied their sheer enthusiasm at playing this city in particular.

Julien Baker and band (Credit: Keith Griner)

“It feels so good to be in Memphis. A lot of us grew up here. Thank you for coming out in the rain. And the heat. It’s both, right?” quipped Baker early in the set, speaking as one who has internalized the Bluff City’s mercurial weather into their very being. “Most of these songs are from the new album, and I’m so glad to be playing them for the first time here with all my friends.”

That album, of course, would be Little Oblivians, covered in depth in our profile of the singer/songwriter earlier this year. Crafted piecemeal by Baker, Calvin Lauber, and Matt Gilliam at Young Avenue Sound, it created the blueprint for a full-band approach that marks a new direction for Baker. And with Baker’s own guitar and keyboard playing augmented by a keyboardist, guitarist, bassist, and drummer, that blueprint was fully realized Saturday.

The sound was huge, arena-sized event, often turning from a whisper to a scream in a heartbeat. The song “Highlight Reel” had its quiet moments, with one passage ending with her words, “tell me how you feel.” At that, the drums revved up several notches, as the crowd seemed to levitate, and from there the band only got more intense, culminating in Baker’s guitar solo over a soaring finale.

Julien Baker at Mempho (Credit: Keith Griner)

Such moments came more frequently as the set went on, featuring Baker’s fine guitar playing at key moments. But towards the end, the band stepped off to the side and she announced “two older songs.” Still, as she launched into the first, alone on the stage, there was a minor hiccup. Playing distractedly, she noted, “I’m super nervous.” With that, she stopped playing altogether.

Was she skipping the song entirely? No, as it turned out. She merely began again. Someone in the audience yelled “We got you!” and, not missing a beat, she replied, “Thank you, that’s really sweet,” adding, “I feel really uncomfortable.”

Actually, see seemed the picture of nonchalance throughout, her admissions of nervousness only adding to her unassuming charm. “I love you!” yelled one audience member, as she paused between numbers.

“Oh wow. But we’ve only just met,” she deadpanned with perfect timing. Clearly, the solid month of touring paid off in more ways than tightening up the band: Her stage banter skills were on point. “I like it when people sing at my shows,” she noted encouragingly. “But if you don’t remember the lyrics, that’s fine. I actually don’t remember them either.”

Perhaps flubbed lyrics were behind the occasional broad grins she would flash to the crowd or the band, but the result was to reveal her utter joy in playing. “I’m feeling great!” she announced. “It’s the last show of this leg of the tour.” Scanning the crowd in apparent disbelief, she added, “Aren’t you so glad concerts are happening again?”

Cheering, the crowd clearly was delighted, and so it was with complete sincerity and warmth that her final words rang out over our heads. “Thank you so much, Memphis! I love you!”

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Music Music Features

Mempho Mingles Memphis Music with Megastars

Panic at the Garden — Widespread Panic headline Mempho Music Fest (Photo: Josh Timmermans | Noble Visions)

With Memphis in May having canceled the 2021 Beale Street Music Festival entirely, back in those uncertain days of spring, concertgoers are thanking their stars that the city has a fall alternative. This Friday, the Mempho Music Festival launches its fourth iteration with a lineup that, true to form, mixes local luminaries with national acts. This year, it will be more convenient than ever, setting up shop in the Memphis Botanic Garden rather than Shelby Farms.

Everyone is pinning their hopes on their favorites. One friend is focused on Austin’s Black Pumas, described by some as “Wu-Tang Clan meets James Brown”; another lights up at the thought of seeing Memphis native Julien Baker; still others are dead set on hearing the gritty, soulful stomp of Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats. Mempho is sure to have all tastes covered, though there are markedly fewer hip-hop acts than ever relative to previous years, when such artists as Anderson .Paak, Nas, or Wu-Tang Clan were featured.

Black Pumas (Photo: Courtesy Chris Duncan)

Still, the diversity is impressive, and audience members can seamlessly see every artist on the bill. In addition to the Garden’s permanent Radians Amphitheater, a second stage will be set up. As one act performs, the next can set up in the other space, ready to hit it soon after the previous act’s finale. And then there’s the Incendia Dome, sponsored by Whatever, complete with pyrotechnics and DJs playing to wireless headsets issued to everyone who steps inside. Onlookers peeking in will see only a throng of dancers gyrating in complete silence.

One thing is clear: With all due respect to co-headliners The Avett Brothers, the kings of this event are Widespread Panic, who cap off both the sold-out Friday and Saturday slates. Mike Smith, the festival’s head of production, who’s also worked for years as Widespread Panic’s production manager, says that’s not unusual, especially with everyone’s favorite jam band.

“They almost never do just one night in a location,” he says. “They always play at least two nights everywhere they go. Usually three. Widespread Panic realizes that they’re creating music destinations for people, making it easier for ticket buyers who might say, ‘Hey, let’s go to Chicago for the weekend, or Memphis.’”

Indeed, for Panic fans, the uniqueness of each performance makes multiple shows a real draw. “One of the things with Widespread Panic is, they never repeat a song night to night,” says Smith. “Their repertoire is so large that it may be three or four or five shows before you hear the same song repeated in a set list. And there are literally songs that they may not play for two or three years at a time. There are fans out there ‘chasing that song.’ They come to every show, just hoping that that’s the night their song is going to get played.”

The band’s devoted following also brings a different demographic to bear on this year’s Mempho Festival. As Smith points out, “The Widespread Panic crowd is a very mobile crowd. If you look at our ticket sales, we’ve got a lot of people coming in from Georgia and the Carolinas. And a lot from Colorado. I think Denver’s one of our top three markets that tickets are sold in right now. Typically for any festival, you get some travelers, but this year, because of this lineup, we’re getting a lot more people from out of town.”

That also helps bring a fresh audience to Memphis-based groups, always an important ingredient in the festival bearing the city’s name. “We always try to incorporate what we consider to be some of the local stars that we have to offer,” Smith notes. “Memphis has some of the best talent in the world playing in our backyard. That’s definitely one of the missions of Mempho, to introduce those talents to new people.”

Mempho Music Festival takes place October 1st-3rd at the Memphis Botanic Garden. Gates open at 3 p.m. Proof of vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test is required. Covid testing available on site. Visit memphofest.com for details.

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News The Fly-By

MEMernet: Sunset, Baker/Isbell, and a Neon Grammy

Stunner

Photographer Russ Schaffer took and posted these amazing photos of a Memphis sunset last week, which he tweeted “stayed for six minutes.”

Posted to Twitter by @russtoday

Baker/Isbell

Posted to Twitter by @julienrbaker and @JasonIsbell

Memphis-based singer-songwriter Julien Baker had a “massive honor” of singing “some Georgia music” with icon Jason Isbell last week. In a tweeted photo, “You can’t see how hard I’m cheesin’ but trust,” Baker said.

Neon Grammy

Memphis bassist and true original MonoNeon got big ups last week for playing on two Grammy-recognized songs. King’s Disease by Nas won and Djesse Vol. 3 by Jacob Collier was nominated.

Posted to Instagram by @unapologetic901

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Cover Feature News

Little Oblivions: Julien Baker on Ugly Beauty and the Glories of Rocking Out

CREDIT: Alysse Gafkjen

When I pull up Julien Baker’s new album, Little Oblivions, and hit play for the first time, I am jolted out of my expectations by the crass tones of a cheap, possibly broken organ or Mellotron blasting blocks of chords like a fanfare. It’s an ennervating shot across the bow from an artist more typically associated with delicate guitar lines that hypnotically draw listeners in to the hushed-to-frantic intimacy of her voice. As the song develops, those chord blasts are joined by mellower synth-strings, and you can hear echoes of her past work more clearly, even as she begins to sing words from darker, grittier depths than she’s ever plumbed before.

Blacked out on a weekday; is there something that I’m trying to avoid?

Start asking for forgiveness in advance for all the future things I will destroy.

Alysse Gafkjen

Listeners won over by Baker’s bare bones debut, 2015’s Sprained Ankle, or her first album on Matador, 2017’s slightly less minimalist Turn Out the Lights, may expect more of her trademark romanticism-cut-with-blunt-realism approach, and that’s in evidence here, but it’s soon apparent that she’s taking the bluntness several steps further, mixing intimations of anguish with wry observations on the prosaic fumblings of everyday life. As she sings on the second track, “Heatwave”:

It’s worse than death, that life, compressed to fill

A page in the Sunday paper; and I had the shuddering thought:

“This was gonna make me late for work”

Everyday tragedies that make you late for work: such are the impressions of an artist who’s confronting reality, from the mundane to the spiritual, on whole new levels. And, as the world saw when she appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last month, this time she’s got backup: a full-on rock band. And yet, despite such world-conquering moves, this quarantined life humbles us all, and when I call her, the first thing on her mind is getting back to Memphis, where she first learned to play with a band before a fluke recording opportunity made her a solo star.

Memphis Flyer: You’re a Memphis native, and recorded both of your records for Matador here, but now you’re living in Nashville. Are you settling down there?

Julien Baker: I’ve always had this nomadic span between Memphis and Nashville, and this is the longest I’ve been away from Memphis. And it makes me really sad. My parents and a lot of my friends have moved to other cities. So when I do come back there, it feels underpopulated. I still consider that my home-home. Memphis, with all the music that comes out of there, has an outsider-ness to it, but I worry about gentrification. I fear Memphis becoming a cariacature of itself in the way that other cities have. Maybe it’s because I live here in Nashville and I see it so much. There’s actually a rich and inclusive community in Nashville, but it is underneath layers and layers of irony and branding. I don’t want Memphis to feel like it has to acquiesce to the stylization that I see in a lot of other cities, in order to legitimize itself.

That old backwater feeling of Memphis can help more idiosyncratic artists thrive. Did you feel like that growing up here?

Completely. When I was growing up, I felt like in my little microcosm of the music scene it was booming. Because I would go to the skate park all the time and see seven-band bills that were weird metalcore, hardcore, or deathcore bands, and it would be packed. And that felt like such a massive era to me, because I was a kid. I was part of a close-knit house show community, and we’d play little art galleries, or parking lots. And then there was this big gulf between that and Minglewood Hall or the Orpheum. I’d go to the Orpheum to see Death Cab for Cutie knowing that they’re on a B city tour. We’re the city they didn’t bother to hit on the first tour. [laughs] Something about that, when you’re making music in that sort of a petri dish, there’s less posturing because there’s less expectations. The people you’re relying on to come to your shows and support your music have less power in the commercial music world. And that’s what gives you the freedom to not feel so performative. When bands play New York, it’s a big deal. When bands play Nashville, industry people are there and it’s a big deal. When you’re in Memphis, you’re collecting all the scraps of culture as it trickles down to you. And then assembling them into this clandestine collage. When you have limited resources, the resourcefulness makes you experimental and inventive.

You can see that in your debut. It was hard to pin down, stylistically.

It’s funny because even that record is made out of a lack of resources, trying to assemble something out of just a looping pedal. The whole reason Sprained Ankle got made was because I had this friend in college [Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro] who had free studio time. I wanted the Memphis band I was playing with, Forrister, to come up and record some songs. And they couldn’t get off work. So I was like, “Okay, I don’t want to waste this studio time,” and I made that record. And then a label wanted that record, and all of this stuff happened to me. But those songs are just things I cobbled together alone in college because I didn’t have my boys with me. To me it sounds like a scratch track where all the instruments are missing.

Anthony Cabaero

From the “Faith Healer” music video

So when I told my band, “Hey, a label wants to sign me, and they want me to make another solo record and they want me to tour,” they were all excited for me but undeniably disappointed. And I was too, because I had imagined that we’d all do this together, and that my band and I would be musicians for life, as a career. And that’s not what happened.

Now, starting with The Late Show, I’m playing with a full band again. Calvin Lauber, who recorded my music, both Turn Out the Lights at Ardent and this new one at Young Avenue Sound, is playing bass, and Matt Gilliam from Forrister, who I’ve been playing with since I was 14, is playing drums. And it was so much more fulfilling to me than just seeing my lonely body standing onstage. Because it felt like I was standing on the invisible shoulders of all these people who played with me, and then I reaped all the credit. [laughs] It always felt very bizarre, and I struggled with that.

So it was coming full circle, being back with your bandmates?

Yeah. It’s not quite the old lineup, but it’s still meaningful to me to have Memphis people who I grew up with playing with me. And one reason Calvin and Matt and I have such good musical chemistry is because we came from the same subcultural milieu of the Memphis scene. And it feels so much easier for me to enjoy the music when it’s a group effort. It’s not just me, a single body onstage demanding attention, being the sole person producing sound. It is an ongoing collaborative auditory conversation that the band is having. I’m ecstatic to be playing with a band. [laughs].

It’s ironic, because I gather that you played most of the parts on Little Oblivions.

Calvin and I made the record together, and I played most of the instruments. I think he played guitar on one track and a little bit of drums. But it was just me and him building this studio creation.

There are a lot of drums on the new record. Are those loops? They’re showing off their sampled-ness. It’s a cool, disarming effect.

Oh yeah, the sound of a really overcompressed drum machine! I was so worried about how to use a drum machine in a tasteful way. Also, I played a lot of the acoustic drums, but I’m not good at drums. I just knew the parts I wanted. So I would do 16 measures of a drum beat and Calvin and I would try to splice together usable takes. I used to hate that or consider it dishonest studio magic. And I don’t know what flipped in my head with this record. I had noises in my head and I wanted to accomplish them.

I also wanted to explore ugly sounds. I love ugly sounds in beautiful songs. But looking back on my records, Turn Out the Lights is this glossy, beautiful, clear-toned combination of instruments, and I felt like what was missing was that aggressive disjuncture between the softness of the songs and some ugliness.

Julien Baker (left) and Calvin Lauber, with Matthew Gilliam in tracking room

When I was making Turn Out the Lights, I thought using a Mellotron guitar pedal at the end of a song was a big sonic jump. “Playing it safe” is a reductive phrase, but in many ways I was making sounds that were beautiful only then. I wasn’t really pressing myself to try to integrate weird noises. It’s sort of the opposite on this record, and I like that.

The sounds are of a piece with the lyrics on Little Oblivions. You’re a little grittier and harder on yourself in the new songs.

Yeah, there’s a lot of waxing philosophical on Turn Out the Lights. I think I wanted so badly to write songs that were about healing and recovery, and if they were sad, they still offered the possibility to triumph over negative things. I think that was noble of young me [laughs], but also maybe a little bit idealistic. And undoubtedly I’ll look back at this record and think it’s pretty nihilistic, but maybe that’s just the shift of the pendulum that I needed.

The songs on the new album have a kind of groundedness in day-to-day experiences. Like “a weekend on a bender,” that kind of specificity, or “let’s meet when you get off work.” That sort of prosaic, daily life stuff, and then the emotional universe comes crashing through while you’re “cruising down Main Street.”

I don’t think I realized it when I was writing the songs, but they’re more bodily. They are more grounded. A lot of that has to do with me learning how not to live in the world of my head so much. The record’s pretty candid about things like substance abuse or physical violence. And those are things that, in a jarring, scary, destructive way, jolt you back into the experience of your body.

For a long time, I thought of my behavior and my sobriety as this power of the mind to subdue the body. But that’s a very Puritanical way to think of your body, as just a flesh suit for your mind. You know what I mean? It’s just very disassociative to be always transcending something instead of just inhabiting your body. And so I think, for better or for worse, it’s like situating my life back into my body, and being more present in my day-to-day life experience was a big part of that shift on this record.

In the song “Faith Healer,” you evoke both a “snake oil dealer” and the desire to just feel something, anything.

People are drawn to substance abuse or even organized religion because it makes them feel something. And we’re assuming that what it makes them feel is what they’re after. What I was after, what anybody’s after, is the thing that makes you feel good. There’s an inevitable balance of pain that comes with the things that make us feel good, and yet we return to it: in toxic relationships, in substance abuse, in church. I’ve changed the way I think about religion and my various other convictions. Like my political beliefs. There’s a sort of disillusionment that can be good. When I reevaluated all my behaviors and I think, “What am I actually coming to these things for?” If it’s just as compulsive as an addict, for me to wake up at 4:30 in the morning and read my Bible every day, then why don’t I just drink? [laughs]. You know, if these are basically dealing with the same issue?

Religion, belief, belonging to a political identity or a social group or some particular conviction of behavior — I adhered to all those things because I thought they would make me feel safe and assuage my anxiety. And that’s also the very same longing that makes me susceptible to substance abuse. Those things aren’t unrelated.

It seems like you’re trying to bring more intentionality to faith — or drinking. Whatever it may be, do it with more intentionality. You say “I don’t mind losing my conviction, it’s all a relative fiction.” It’s like you’re seeing these scripts or constructs that humans create. But it’s not quite nihilist to me. It seems more existentialist. Like you’re choosing your script to suit your life needs with more intentionality.

Precisely! I think that’s something very real that you’re getting at. Instead of having a schema of faith outside of my being, it’s more like coming to faith as a lens for the world, and choosing how I apply that lens. What tools I take from faith to help me be a better human being. And it’s the same thing with substance abuse. For a long time, I had an oversimplified, self-constructed narrative about sobriety. But I had to re-approach sobriety as a practice rather than as an ideal. And in terms of faith, instead of trying to figure out how to define God, I had to shift faith into a practice. Now, the part of faith that resonates with me is the community aspect. The cultural aspect.

I hear that in your lyrics. “A character of somebody’s invention/A martyr in another passion play … I’ve got no business praying, I’m finished being good/Now I can finally be okay in not the way I thought I should.” The consideration you bring to your words propels the album beyond nihilism.

Yeah, ultimately nihilism becomes just as painful and limiting as idealism. You have to learn how to be a person eventually. And that is what is called “your twenties.”

Little Oblivions drops this Friday, February 26th, on Matador Records. On Thursday, March 25th, Julien Baker and band will perform a streamed concert in support of Little Oblivions from Nashville’s Hutton Hotel, with three screenings aired at 8 p.m. AEDT, 7 p.m. GMT, and 9 p.m. EDT. Tickets start at $15, available exclusively at audiotree.tv/streams.

Categories
Music Music Blog

Julien Baker’s Stunning Performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

CREDIT: Alysse Gafkjen

Alysse Gafkjen

Julien Baker

With a new album, Little Oblivions, about to drop on Matador on February 26, Julien Baker is surfacing more and more these days. It’s good to have her back. The Memphis native has gone from success to success simply by sticking to her unique blend of the cathartic confessional, from the intimate to the dramatic. Though her voice has always powerfully navigated both whispers and roaring melodies, it seems she’s grown into her range even more as the years have gone by. That was especially in evidence last night, when she led her band through “Faith Healer,” the album’s first single, on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.

Julien Baker’s Stunning Performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Her band was in fine form as they rocked the song from the stage of the Exit/In in Nashville, and one can almost imagine hearing it ring out across Tennessee to Memphis as it went down. Singing from behind a keyboard, she made use of her all her vocal strengths in the song, which builds to a soaring high point as she wails, “Faith healer, come put your hands all over me/Snake oil dealer, I’ll believe you if you make me feel something.”

Recently, Baker could also be spied doing guitar duties in the service of Hayley Williams’ Tiny Desk Concert last month, not to mention ringing in the holidays with her Spotify-only cover of an old Perry Como song, “A Dreamer’s Holiday.” Keep your eyes and ears peeled for more Baker sightings in the near future, and full coverage of her new album in the Memphis Flyer next month. 

Categories
Cover Feature News

2021: Here’s Looking at You

If 2020 was the year of despair, 2021 appears to be the year of hope.

Wanna see what that could look like? Cast your gaze to Wuhan, China, birthplace of COVID-19.

News footage from Business Insider shows hundreds of carefree young people gathered in a massive swimming pool, dancing and splashing at a rock concert. They are effortlessly close together and there’s not a mask in sight. Bars and restaurants are packed with maskless revelers. Night markets are jammed. Business owners smile, remember the bleak times, and say the worst is behind them. How far behind? There’s already a COVID-19 museum in Wuhan.

That could be Memphis (once again) one day. But that day is still likely months off. Vaccines arrived here in mid-December. Early doses rightfully went to frontline healthcare workers. Doses for the masses won’t likely come until April or May, according to health experts.

While we still cannot predict exactly “what” Memphians will be (can be?) doing next year, we can tell you “where” they might be doing it. New places will open their doors next year, and Memphis is set for some pretty big upgrades.

But it doesn’t stop there. “Memphis has momentum” was Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland’s catchphrase as he won a second term for the office last October. It did. New building projects bloomed like the Agricenter’s sunflowers. And it still does. Believe it or not, not even COVID-19 could douse developers’ multi-million-dollar optimism on the city.

Here are few big projects slated to open in 2021:

Renasant Convention Center

Throughout 2020, crews have been hard at work inside and outside the building once called the Cook Convention Center.

City officials and Memphis Tourism broke ground on a $200-million renovation project for the building in January 2020. The project will bring natural light and color to the once dark and drab convention center built in 1974. The first events are planned for the Renasant Convention Center in the new year.

Memphis International Airport

Memphis International Airport

Expect the ribbon to be cut on Memphis International Airport’s $245-million concourse modernization project in 2021. The project was launched in 2014 in an effort to upgrade the airport’s concourse to modern standards and to right-size the space after Delta de-hubbed the airport.

Once finished, all gates, restaurants, shops, and more will be located in a single concourse. The space will have higher ceilings, more natural light, wider corridors, moving walkways, children’s play areas, a stage for live music, and more.

Collage Dance Collective

The beautiful new building on the corner of Tillman and Sam Cooper is set to open next year in an $11-million move for the Collage Dance Collective.

The 22,000-square-foot performing arts school will feature five studios, office space, a dressing room, a study lounge, 70 parking spaces, and a physical therapy area.

The Memphian Hotel

The Memphian Hotel

A Facebook post by The Memphian Hotel reads, “Who is ready for 2021?” The hotel is, apparently. Developers told the Daily Memphian recently that the 106-room, $24-million hotel is slated to open in April.

“Walking the line between offbeat and elevated, The Memphian will give guests a genuine taste of Midtown’s unconventional personality, truly capturing the free spirit of the storied art district in which the property sits,” reads a news release.

Watch for work to begin next year on big projects in Cooper-Young, the Snuff District, Liberty Park, Tom Lee Park, and The Walk. — Toby Sells

Book ‘Em

After the Spanish flu epidemic and World War I came a flood of convention-defying fiction as authors wrestled with the trauma they had lived through. E.M. Forster confronted colonialism and rigid gender norms in A Passage to India. Virginia Woolf published Mrs. Dalloway. James Joyce gave readers Ulysses. Langston Hughes’ first collection, The Weary Blues, was released.

It’s too early to tell what authors and poets will make of 2020, a year in which America failed to contain the coronavirus. This reader, though, is eager to see what comes.

Though I’ve been a bit too nervous to look very far into 2021 (I don’t want to jinx it, you know?), there are a few books already on my to-read list. First up, I’m excited for MLK50 founding managing editor Deborah Douglas’ U.S. Civil Rights Trail, due in January. Douglas lives in Chicago now, but there’s sure to be some Memphis in that tome.

Next, Ed Tarkington’s The Fortunate Ones, also due in January, examines privilege and corruption on Nashville’s Capitol Hill. Early reviews have compared Tarkington to a young Pat Conroy. For anyone disappointed in Tennessee’s response to any of this year’s crises, The Fortunate Ones is not to be missed.

Most exciting, perhaps, is the forthcoming Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda prose anthology, expected February 2nd. The anthology is edited by Memphis-born journalist Jesse J. Holland, and also features a story by him, as well as Memphians Sheree Renée Thomas, Troy L. Wiggins, and Danian Darrell Jerry.

“To be in pages with so many Memphis writers just feels wonderful,” Thomas told me when I called her to chat about the good news. “It’s a little surreal, but it’s fun,” Jerry adds, explaining that he’s been a Marvel comics fan since childhood. “I get to mix some of those childhood imaginings with some of the skills I’ve worked to acquire over the years.”

Though these books give just a glimpse at the literary landscape of the coming year, if they’re any indication of what’s to come, then, if nothing else, Memphians will have more great stories to look forward to. — Jesse Davis

Courtesy Memphis Redbirds

AutoZone Park

Take Me Out With the Crowd

Near the end of my father’s life, we attended a Redbirds game together at AutoZone Park. A few innings into the game, Dad turned to me and said, “I like seeing you at a ballpark. I can tell your worries ease.”

Then along came 2020, the first year in at least four decades that I didn’t either play in a baseball game or watch one live, at a ballpark, peanuts and Cracker Jack a soft toss away. The pandemic damaged most sports over the last 12 months, but it all but killed minor-league baseball, the small-business version of our national pastime, one that can’t lean on television and sponsorship revenue to offset the loss of ticket-buying fans on game day. AutoZone Park going a year without baseball is the saddest absence I’ve felt in Memphis culture since moving to this remarkable town in 1991. And I’m hoping today — still 2020, dammit — that 2021 marks a revival, even if it’s gradual. In baseball terms, we fans will take a base on balls to get things going before we again swing for the fences.

All indications are that vaccines will make 2021 a better year for gathering, be it at your favorite watering hole or your favorite ballpark. Indications also suggest that restrictions will remain in place well into the spring and summer (baseball season). How many fans can a ballpark host and remain safe? How many fans will enjoy the “extras” of an evening at AutoZone Park — that sunset over the Peabody, that last beer in the seventh inning — if a mask must be worn as part of the experience? And what kind of operation will we see when the gates again open? Remember, these are small businesses. Redbirds president Craig Unger can be seen helping roll out the tarp when a July thunderstorm interrupts the Redbirds and Iowa Cubs. What will “business as usual” mean for Triple-A baseball as we emerge from the pandemic?

I wrote down three words and taped them up on my home-office wall last March: patience, determination, and empathy. With a few more doses of each — and yes, millions of doses of one vaccine or another — the sports world will regain crowd-thrilling normalcy. For me, it will start when I take a seat again in my happy place. It’s been a long, long time, Dad, since my worries properly eased.— Frank Murtaugh

Film in 2021: Don’t Give up Hope

“Nobody knows anything.” Never has William Goldman’s immortal statement about Hollywood been more true. Simply put, 2020 was a disaster for the industry. The pandemic closed theaters and called Hollywood’s entire business model into question. Warner Brothers’ announcement that it would stream all of its 2021 offerings on HBO Max sent shock waves through the industry. Some said it was the death knell for theaters.

I don’t buy it. Warner Brothers, owned by AT&T and locked in a streaming war with Netflix and Disney, are chasing the favor of Wall Street investors, who love the rent-seeking streaming model. But there’s just too much money on the table to abandon theaters. 2019 was a record year at the box office, with $42 billion in worldwide take, $11.4 billion of which was from North America. Theatrical distribution is a proven business model that has worked for 120 years. Netflix, on the other hand, is $12 billion in debt.

Will audiences return to theaters once we’ve vaccinated our way out of the coronavirus-shaped hole we’re in? Prediction at this point is a mug’s game, but signs point to yes. Tenet, which will be the year’s biggest film, grossed $303 million in overseas markets where the virus was reasonably under control. In China, where the pandemic started, a film called My People, My Homeland has brought in $422 million since October 1st. I don’t know about y’all, but once I get my jab, they’re going to have to drag me out of the movie theater.

There will be quite a bit to watch. With the exception of Wonder Woman 1984, the 2020 blockbusters were pushed to 2021, including Dune, Spielberg’s West Side Story remake, the latest James Bond installment No Time to Die, Marvel’s much-anticipated Black Widow, Top Gun: Maverick, and Godzilla vs. Kong. Memphis director Craig Brewer’s second film with Eddie Murphy, the long-awaited Coming 2 America, will bow on Amazon March 5th, with the possibility of a theatrical run still in the cards.

There’s no shortage of smaller, excellent films on tap. Regina King’s directorial debut One Night in Miami, about a meeting between Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown, premieres January 15th. Minari, the stunning story of Korean immigrants in rural Arkansas, which was Indie Memphis 2020’s centerpiece film, lands February 12th. The Bob’s Burgers movie starts cooking April 9th. And coolest of all, next month Indie Memphis will partner with Sundance to bring the latest in cutting-edge cinema to the Malco Summer Drive-In. There’s plenty to be hopeful for in the new year. — Chris McCoy

Looking Ahead: Music

We usually highlight the upcoming hot concerts in this space, but those are still on the back burner. Instead, get a load of these stacks of hot wax (and streams) dropping next year. Remember, the artists get a better share when you purchase rather than stream, especially physical product like vinyl.

Alysse Gafkjen

Julien Baker

One of the biggest-profile releases will be Julien Baker’s Little Oblivians, due out on Matador in February. Her single “Faith Healer” gives us a taste of what to expect. Watch the Flyer for more on that soon. As for other drops from larger indie labels, Merge will offer up A Little More Time with Reigning Sound in May (full disclosure: this all-Memphis version of the band includes yours truly).

Closer to home, John Paul Keith’s The Rhythm of the City also drops in February, co-released by hometown label Madjack and Italian imprint Wild Honey. Madjack will also offer up albums by Mark Edgar Stuart and Jed Zimmerman, the latter having been produced by Stuart. Matt Ross-Spang is mixing Zimmerman’s record, and there’s much buzz surrounding it (but don’t worry, it’s properly grounded).

Jeremy Stanfill mines similar Americana territory, and he’ll release new work on the Blue Barrel imprint. Meanwhile, look for more off-kilter sounds from Los Psychosis and Alicja Trout’s Alicja-Pop project, both on Black & Wyatt. That label will also be honored with a compilation of their best releases so far, by Head Perfume out of Dresden. On the quieter side of off-kilter, look for Aquarian Blood’s Sending the Golden Hour on Goner in May.

Bruce Watson’s Delta-Sonic Sound studio has been busy, and affiliated label Bible & Tire Recording Co. will release a big haul of old-school gospel, some new, some archival, including artists Elizabeth King and Pastor Jack Ward, and compilations from the old J.C.R. and D-Vine Spiritual labels. Meanwhile, Big Legal Mess will drop new work from singer/songwriter Alexa Rose and, in March, Luna 68 — the first new album from the City Champs in 10 years. Expect more groovy organ and guitar boogaloo jazz from the trio, with a heaping spoonful of science-fiction exotica to boot.

Many more artists will surely be releasing Bandcamp singles, EPs, and more, but for web-based content that’s thinking outside of the stream, look for the January premiere of Unapologetic’s UNDRGRNDAF RADIO, to be unveiled on weareunapologetic.com and their dedicated app. — Alex Greene

Chewing Over a Tough Year

Beware the biohazard.

Samuel X. Cicci

The Beauty Shop

Perhaps a bit hyperbolic, but the image that pops into my head when thinking about restaurants in 2020 are the contagion-esque geo-domes that Karen Carrier set up on the back patio of the Beauty Shop. A clever conceit, but also a necessary one — a move designed to keep diners safe and separated when going out to eat. If it all seems a little bizarre, well, that’s what 2020 was thanks to COVID-19.

We saw openings, closings, restrictions, restrictions lifted, restrictions then put back in place; the Memphis Restaurant Association and Shelby County Health Department arguing back and forth over COVID guidelines, with both safety and survival at stake; and establishments scrambling to find creative ways to drum up business. The Beauty Shop domes were one such example. The Reilly’s Downtown Majestic Grille, on the other hand, transformed into Cocozza, an Italian ghost concept restaurant put into place until it was safe to reopen Majestic in its entirety. Other places, like Global Café, put efforts in place to help provide meals to healthcare professionals or those who had fallen into financial hardship during the pandemic.

Unfortunately, not every restaurant was able to survive the pandemic. The popular Lucky Cat Ramen on Broad Ave. closed its doors, as did places like Puck Food Hall, 3rd & Court, Avenue Coffee, Midtown Crossing Grill, and many others.

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Working in the hospitality business requires a certain kind of resilience, and that showed up in spades. Many restaurants adapted to new regulations quickly, and with aplomb, doing their best to create a safe environment for hungry Memphians all while churning out takeout and delivery orders.

And even amid a pandemic backdrop, many aspiring restaurateurs tried their hand at opening their own places. Chip and Amanda Dunham branched out from the now-closed Grove Grill to open Magnolia & May, a country brasserie in East Memphis. Just a few blocks away, a new breakfast joint popped up in Southall Café. Downtown, the Memphis Chess Club opened its doors, complete with a full-service café and restaurant. Down in Whitehaven, Ken and Mary Olds created Muggin Coffeehouse, the first locally owned coffee shop in the neighborhood. And entrepreneurial-minded folks started up their own delivery-only ventures, like Brittney Adu’s Furloaved Breads + Bakery.

So what will next year bring? With everything thrown out of whack, I’m loath to make predictions, but with a vaccine on the horizon, I’m hoping (fingers crossed) that it becomes safer to eat out soon, and the restaurant industry can begin a long-overdue recovery. And to leave you with what will hopefully be a metaphor for restaurants in 2021: By next summer, Andy Ticer and Michael Hudman’s Hog & Hominy will complete its Phoenician rebirth from the ashes of a disastrous fire and open its doors once again.

In the meantime, keep supporting your local restaurants! — Samuel X. Cicci

“Your Tickets Will be at Will Call”

Oh, to hear those words again, and plenty of arts organizations are eager to say them. The pandemic wrecked the seasons for performing arts groups and did plenty of damage to museums and galleries.

Not that they haven’t made valiant and innovative efforts to entertain from afar with virtual programming.

But they’re all hoping to mount physical, not virtual, seasons in the coming year.

Playhouse on the Square suspended scheduled in-person stage productions until June 2021. This includes the 52nd season lineup of performances that were to be on the stages of Playhouse on the Square, The Circuit Playhouse, and TheatreWorks at the Square. It continues to offer the Playhouse at Home Series, digital content via its website and social media.

Theatre Memphis celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2021 and is eager to show off its new facility, a major renovation that was going to shut it down most of 2020 anyway while it expanded common spaces and added restrooms and production space while updating dressing rooms and administrative offices. But the hoped-for August opening was pushed back, and it plans to reschedule the programming for this season to next.

Hattiloo Theatre will continue to offer free online programming in youth acting and technical theater, and it has brought a five-week playwright’s workshop and free Zoom panel discussions with national figures in Black theater. Like the other institutions, it is eager to get back to the performing stage when conditions allow.

Ballet Memphis has relied on media and platforms that don’t require contact, either among audience members or dancers. But if there are fewer partnerings among dancers, there are more solos, and group movement is well-distanced. The organization has put several short pieces on video, releasing some and holding the rest for early next year. It typically doesn’t start a season until late summer or early fall, so the hope is to get back into it without missing a step.

Opera Memphis is active with its live Sing2Me program of mobile opera concerts and programming on social media. Its typical season starts with 30 Days of Opera in August that usually leads to its first big production of the season, so, COVID willing, that may emerge.

Courtesy Memphis Brooks Museum of Art and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Dana Claxton, Headdress at the Brooks earlier this year.

Museums and galleries, such as the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, National Civil Rights Museum, and the Metal Museum are functioning at limited capacity, but people can go and enjoy the offerings. The scope of the shows is limited, as coronavirus has put the kibosh on blockbuster shows for now. Look for easing of protocols as the situation allows in the coming year. — Jon W. Sparks

Politics

Oyez. Oyez. Oh yes, there is one year out of every four in which regularly scheduled elections are not held in Shelby County, and 2021 is such a year. But decisions will be made during the year by the Republican super-majority of the state legislature in Nashville that will have a significant bearing on the elections that will occur in the three-year cycle of 2022-2024 and, in fact, on those occurring through 2030.

This would be in the course of the constitutionally required ritual during which district lines are redefined every 10 years for the decade to come, in the case of legislative seats and Congressional districts. The U.S. Congress, on the basis of population figures provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, will have allocated to each state its appropriate share of the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. And the state legislature will determine how that number is apportioned statewide. The current number of Tennessee’s Congressional seats is nine. The state’s legislative ratio is fixed at 99 state House members and 33 members of the state Senate.

Tennessee is one of 37 states in which, as indicated, the state legislature calls the shots for both Congressional and state redistricting. The resultant redistricting undergoes an approval process like any other measure, requiring a positive vote in both the state Senate and the state House, with the Governor empowered to consent or veto.

No one anticipates any disagreements between any branches of government. Any friction in the redistricting process will likely involve arguments over turf between neighboring GOP legislators. Disputes emanating from the minority Democrats will no doubt be at the mercy of the courts.

The forthcoming legislative session is expected to be lively, including holdover issues relating to constitutional carry (the scrapping of permits for firearms), private school vouchers (currently awaiting a verdict by the state Supreme Court), and, as always, abortion. Measures relating to the ongoing COVID crisis and vaccine distribution are expected, as is a proposal to give elected county executives primacy over health departments in counties where the latter exist.

There is no discernible disharmony between those two entities in Shelby County, whose government has devoted considerable attention over the last year to efforts to control the pandemic and offset its effects. Those will continue, as well as efforts to broaden the general inclusiveness of county government vis-à-vis ethnic and gender groups.

It is still a bit premature to speculate on future shifts of political ambition, except to say that numerous personalities, in both city and county government, are eyeing the prospects of succeeding Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland in 2023. And several Democrats are looking at a potential race against District Attorney General Amy Weirich in 2022.

There are strong rumors that, after a false start or two, Memphis will follow the lead of several East Tennessee co-ops and finally depart from TVA.

And meanwhile, in March, the aforesaid Tennessee Democrats will select a new chair from numerous applicants. — Jackson Baker