It’s been a tough few years for the cause of peace. The Russian invasion of Ukraine just hit its two-year anniversary, with no end in sight. After the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, Israel responded with the most deadly military operation of the 21st century, which has devolved into a quagmire of violence and famine in Gaza, where two million people face hunger in a bombed-out landscape that used to be their home.
These high-profile conflicts have drawn attention from Sudan, where a civil war has displaced eight million people, and millions more are entering into famine while both sides try to starve the other one out. Meanwhile, in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is slipping into warlordism as Port Au Prince gangs conduct running battles with what’s left of the government. It’s enough to drive you to despair if you’re paying attention.
The antidote to despair is music. Italian (by way of Memphis) musician Mario Monterosso organized the Memphis Freedom Band to put out a message of peace. Last December, he invited a who’s who of Memphis musicians to record with producer Scott Bomar at Sam Phillips Recording, including Kallen Esperian, Rev. Charles Hodges, Dr. Gary Beard, Dr. Keith Norman of First Baptist Church Broad, The Bar-Kays’ Larry Dodson, Priscilla Presley, and a rare appearance by the queen of Memphis soul Carla Thomas. Filmmaker Billie Worley was on hand with a camera to capture the historic moment in the studio, as the big band sang “Simple Song of Freedom,” a 1969 hit by Bobbi Darin.
“Since the middle of the 20th century, Memphis music has been the strongest musical bridge across the world,” says Monterosso. “And now we come together in solidarity as one voice to create a bridge of hope and freedom for the people and children of Ukraine and all those countries hit by wars.”
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
That's me and Stax legend David Porter at the Night Train Fundraising Gala at Stax (Credit: Kontji Anthony)
It was great being back at a Staxattraxion.
Guests rubbed shoulders with some of the people who personify Stax at the Night Train Fundraising Gala, which was held April 29th at Stax Museum of American Soul Music. Guests included music legends David Porter, Eddie Floyd, Lester Snell, and James Alexander of the Bar-Kays, and Larry Dodson, who was formerly with the group.
James Alexander and Eddie Floyd at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Larry and Marie Dodson at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Lester and Patricia Snell at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Deanie Parker with Nashid Madyun at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Yvonne Mitchell and Willie Mae Bland at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Karl and Gail Schledwitz, Kontji Anthony, and David Porter at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Andy and Allison Cates, Soulsville Foundation president & CEO Pat Mitchell Worley, and Carissa Hussong and David Lusk at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)
This is how the news release described the event, which celebrated the 20th anniversary of Stax Museum: “A celebration of African-American music and culture, it will feature the Stax Museum filled with live music, a silent auction, fantastic cuisine, cocktails, dancing, DJs, and more, all in our newly renovated lobby, gift shop, and mid-century modern lounge, as well as Studio A, Isaac Hayes’ gold-trimmed Cadillac exhibit, and other spaces.”
Geri and Hal Lansky at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Alfred and Sherita Washington at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Henry Turley and Wanda Shea at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Caroline and Troy Parkes at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Ryan Peel at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Chris Franceschi and Kirby Boyd at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)
I covered many Staxtacular parties at the museum. This was the one where you got to also rub shoulders with Memphis Grizzlies players. That is, if you could get your shoulder up that high. The Night Train event was, as the release says, “fashioned to replace our beloved Staxtacular event that raised over $1 million over 10 years.”
So, guests dined on Delta tamales while listening to fife and drum music by Rising Stars, which features Shardé Thomas, granddaughter of the late Othar Turner.
Rising Stars at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)
That fife and drum music brought back memories of Turner’s picnics held at his home near Senatobia, Mississippi. That was the first time I ever had goat barbecue. I also locked my truck with the keys inside and the truck running one year at the picnic. Nobody, including a Mississippi sheriff, could get the door open. So, I just walked around and enjoyed the party until a friend opened the truck door with his Ole Miss dorm room key.
But I’m digressing.
Night Train guests also ate shrimp and grits while listening to the great Joyce Cobb and Charlton Johnson perform jazz music.
Joyce Cobb at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Kimberly Weaver at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Elliot and Kimberly Perry at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Simone Alex and Dame Mufasa at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Michael Ivy and Nico Hatchett at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Lauren Berry and Logan Bennett at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Mary Haizlip, Ross McDaniel, and Caroline Cook at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)
They heard the Stax Music Academy Alumni Band play soul music, the Street Corner Harmonies perform a cappella tunes, and DJ Battle play music for dancing and/or relaxing. These were all held in different parts of the museum, so guests got a musical tour of the building. Which was appropriate.
About 350 people attended, says Tim Sampson, Soulsville Foundation communications director. They don’t have a total for the amount raised as yet, he says.
The format was changed this year because Staxtacular had run its course, Sampson says. This year’s format will be “the new one going forward.”
And, Sampson adds, “We definitely thought it was a success. People were very very happy with what we presented.”
It’s always cool to visit Stax, even if it’s just to run in and take a peek at the seemingly city-block-long gold-plated peacock blue 1972 Cadillac El Dorado that belonged to the late, great Isaac Hayes.
Estella Mayhue-Greer at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Courtney and Matt Weinstein at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Ari Morris and Alex Greene at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Asima Farooq and Molly Wexler at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Trip Trezevant at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Angela and Terrell Richards at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)Martavious McGee at the Night Train Fundraising Gala (Credit: Michael Donahue)We Saw You
Director Tim Sutton has long been fascinated with the Bluff City. “It’s a feeling, an aura,” he says. “I feel like if you’re trying to tell a folk tale about American music, that’s Memphis. It’s as blessed and as cursed a place as you’re going to get.”
His new movie Memphis began life as a grant proposal for the Venice Biennale art festival’s College Cinema. His proposal for a film about a musician who comes to Memphis to record a new album only to lose himself in the process, was one of three awarded a budget of 150,000 euros (about $200,000) to produce a film that would premiere at the Venice International Film Festival in Italy. “That puts you on the map,” says the Brooklyn-based filmmaker.
Sutton set out to capture the aura of Memphis by casting as many locals as possible. Except for the lead, Willis Earl Beal, everyone in the film is a non-actor from Memphis. “I wanted the lead to be an outsider,” Sutton says. “He’s a stranger in his own skin. He’s down there trying to weave through the streets of Memphis in his own way. He has the pressures of the people around him: the producer, his girlfriend, the church. These are all the different aspects of Memphis all hovering around this guy’s experience.”
Beal’s character, who is also named Willis, is a baby-faced soul singer with a Sam Cooke-like voice. His self-possessed bearing and the deference with which those around him treat him indicate that he has been successful in the past. “I imagined it into existence,” he says of his music—or maybe his reality. “I consider myself to be a wizard”
But once he gets to Memphis, his wizardry seems to fail him. His mystical ramblings might work with his girlfriend (Constance Brantley), but when he’s in the studio confronting his producer (Larry Dodson of the Bar-Kays) his facade fails. He wanders the streets looking for inspiration. He goes to church, the crucible of soul music, but still his voice fails him. Called up in front of the congregation full of life and spirit, he finds himself empty, his voice failing him. “I haven’t been to church in a while, so I can’t sing,” he says. “I’m gonna sit myself down and praise God right now.”
Willis’ journey is organically dreamlike as he drifts from place to place, trying in vain to connect with the city’s people and understand the soul of Memphis. The director says he started off with a 45-page treatment, but the story evolved as the shoot progressed. “We still paid attention to that document, but day to day, I would write an outline and some storyboards of what we were going to do. Then, at the end of the day, we would revisit what we had done, and I would make new storyboards and new outlines based on what we had seen. It was all loose and liquid, but by design.”
The city has rarely looked more hauntingly beautiful than it does under the lens of Memphis cinematographer Chris Dapkins. “He has an almost documentary style,” Sutton says. “He likes to capture something as it is happening. He doesn’t use a lot of toys: Not a lot of camera bodies, not a lot of lights. He really understands people and how people fill a landscape.” Dapkins’ camera is fascinated with the contrast between the city’s verdant trees and its bleak, post-industrial landscapes. “He’s very natural. Every frame in the movie is beautiful. That’s Chris.”
Sutton’s film is dreamy and improvisational in the style of the Chinese director Kar Wai Wong, whose 2007 film My Blueberry Nights also envisioned Memphis as a place steeped in intimations of eternity. “I was never coming down to Memphis to say, ‘This is how we’re going to do the movie,'” says Sutton. “I was always coming down there saying, ‘I have this vision, and it’s up to us to bring that vision to life in a truthful way.’ Everybody who is in the movie is playing a heightened version of themselves — a mythic version of themselves. I set the frame, and I kind of tell them what’s going on, but it’s up to them to live in front of the camera. And that’s why I particularly love coming to Memphis: Ordinary people have a lot to share. They have a lot of wisdom. You can learn a lot just by looking a their faces.”
