Tag: Levitt Shell

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Music Music Features

This Weekend at the Levitt Shell

CREDIT: Pauly Lingerfelt

Things are heating up at the Levitt Shell this weekend, with four shows taking place between Thursday the 28th and Sunday the 31st. Hurray for the Riff Raff kick things off Thursday night, bringing the critically acclaimed folk rock of Alynda Lee Segarra (pictured) to the Overton Park stage. Originally from New York City but now based in New Orleans, Segarra cites everything from political poetry to the punk scene on the Lower East Side as inspiration for her brand of socially aware music. Segarra’s trip to Memphis is in the middle of a full U.S. tour that features a plethora of up-and-coming openers, including Brooklyn artist Juan Wauters on select dates.

The AJ Ghent Band keep things moving on Friday night with some legendary lap-steel guitar shredding from Ghent and company. Ghent comes from a long line of world-renowned lap-steel guitar players, and his grandfather Henry Nelson created the lap-steel sound known as “sacred steele,” a genre kept alive today by guitarists like Robert Randolph. Ghent cut his teeth playing with the Col. Hampton Band and also jammed with the Zac Brown Band before releasing his debut album Live at Terminal West earlier this year.

Saturday night brings New Orleans trombonist Glen David Andrews to the Shell, an artist who’s been riding the wave of good press since releasing Redemption last spring. If you’re in the mood for a history lesson on New Orleans music, don’t miss Andrews perform Saturday evening. Blues singer Earl Thomas closes things out on Sunday, an artist who has played with Ike Turner and written songs for Etta James. Thomas has been in the game for a while now, and has been called one of the best blues singers in the world, which makes him an excellent closer for a weekend that showcases unique Southern songwriters.

All shows at the Levitt Shell this weekend start at 7:30 p.m. and admission is free.

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Music Music Blog

This Weekend at the Levitt Shell: The Roosevelts, Mike Farris, Ruby Velle

The Roosevelts play the Levitt Shell this Saturday night.

As a supplement to our Weekend Roundup, we will be previewing the concerts at the Levitt Shell all summer long. This weekend Mike Farris, The Roosevelts, and Ruby Velle and the Soulphonics all play free shows at the Shell. 

Friday, May 22nd.
Mike Farris and the Roseland Rhythm Review, 7:30 p.m. at the Levitt Shell. 

This Weekend at the Levitt Shell: The Roosevelts, Mike Farris, Ruby Velle

Saturday, May 23rd.
The Roosevelts, 7:30 p.m. at the Levitt Shell.

This Weekend at the Levitt Shell: The Roosevelts, Mike Farris, Ruby Velle (2)

Sunday, May 24th.
Ruby Velle and the Soulphonics, 7:30 p.m. at the Levitt Shell.

This Weekend at the Levitt Shell: The Roosevelts, Mike Farris, Ruby Velle (3)

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We Recommend We Recommend

Easter Events

CREDIT: Konstanttin | Dreamstime.com

There has not been a want for “eggstravaganzas” around these part. Case in point: the Eco EGGstravagnza at Shelby Farms (Saturday, April 4th, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.), which kicks off the park’s month of Earth Day events. This family-friendly event includes an egg hunt, environmental exhibits, eco crafts, a fishing rodeo, nature hikes, live music, food trucks, and more. The park’s new Treetop Adventure course and zipline will be open as well. The Memphis Botanic Garden is holding a Family Egg Hunt (Saturday, 1-4 p.m., $10), with age-specific hunts. The Easter Bunny will be there for photo opportunities and there will be a magic show and crafts. The Dixon’s also in the egg-hunt game (Saturday, 10:30 a.m.-noon, $10). Reservations are required for this one: 761-5250.

Konstanttin | Dreamstime.com

Also happening Saturday are the annual Bunny Run in Audubon Park (9 a.m.), a 5K and fun run benefiting SRVS, which helps children with special needs, and the Easter Eve Concert at Levitt Shell (6-9 p.m.) featuring family-friendly music by the Passport and more from the students of Visible Music College.

All that egg-hunting can build up an appetite, so head downtown for eighty3’s Easter brunch (Sunday, April 5th, 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m.). The special menu includes an andouille sausage pie, brown sugar smoked ham, and a trio of desserts to choose from, including carrot cake ice cream sandwiches with ginger ice cream and lime caramel dipping sauce. Reservations: 333-1224. The Peabody will be having its annual Easter brunch (10:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m., $22 for children 5 to 12, $64 adults). This is a massive feed with 100s of dishes to choose from and a 32-foot-long dessert table. Reservations: 529-4183.

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Music Music Features

St. Paul & the Broken Bones at the Shell

Eddie Hinton has become an archetype: the tortured white boy lost on a quixotic quest to sing like a black man. An Alabama native, Hinton was a producer, guitarist, songwriter, and a singer who spent a short, troubled life in pursuit of the African-American preacher’s tone. Hinton was the house guitarist at Muscle Shoals Sound from 1967-1971 and wrote Dusty Springfield’s “Breakfast in Bed.” Producer Johnny Sandlin (Allman Brothers’ Fillmore East, Eat a Peach) once told of touring with Hinton and how he would stick his head out the window in the cold, shrieking at the top of his lungs to roughen his voice.

Paul Janeway may have done all that and more. St. Paul & The Broken Bones is the soul-revivalist band built around Janeway’s remarkable voice. They play the Levitt Shell on Sunday, September 28th. That morning, Janeway and organist Al Gamble are the guests at Grace-St. Luke’s Rector’s Forum on Religion and Culture.

St. Paul & the Broken Bones

Cultural Appropriation happens when a member of a privileged class uses a cultural practice of a minority class. From Elvis to Miley Cyrus, American popular music doesn’t exist without it. But when a pasty kid who looks like it’s his first day in the Regions Bank trust department opens his mouth and sings like a civil rights-era shouter, the issue is particularly acute. In the South, all this stuff is complicated. It’s likely that Janeway, like fellow Alabamians Sam Phillips and W.C. Handy, was moved by the music he heard growing up in the South and, from a place of love and respect, tried to emulate it. It’s complicated. Maybe it’s best to leave intellectual theory in its tiny, windowless, academic office. The rest of us will be at the Shell to hear the season’s most inspired booking.

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Sing All Kinds We Recommend

Al Bell To Introduce WATTSTAX at the Shell Friday

Indie Memphis‘ concert film series plays host to Stax co-owner Al Bell, who will introduce and discuss the origin of the musical documentary film WATTSTAX. The film captures the Stax roster at the height of the label’s success during a 1972 concert at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The opening sequence strikes you immediately in light of recent events in Ferguson. Richard Pryor’s monologues are disturbingly prescient. Bell organized the festival that Mel Stuart captured in the 1973 film. Al Bell’s remarks will be a Memphis history lesson. The music makes you move, and the dialog makes you squirm and think. It’s the funkiest lesson in civic morality in the history of humanity. Friday, August 29th, at 8 p.m.

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Sing All Kinds We Recommend

Stax Academy WEDNESDAY at the Shell – Bettye Crutcher Playlist

CREDIT: Ronnie Booze

Ronnie Booze

Bettye Crutcher

[It rained. You may have noticed. The Grand Finale Concert will be on Wednesday, July 2nd, at the Shell.]

I’ve spent the past week sort-of embedded in the Stax Music Academy as the Summer SNAP! season comes to a close. That program brings 60 kids together and runs them through the rigors of being a professional musician. They perform, they write, record, and produce under the tutelage of established master like Steve Cropper and Bettye Crutcher.

Crutcher wrote “Who’s Making Love …” — Johnnie Taylor’s breakout hit — and had her work recorded by the Staple Singers, Joan Baez, Delaney & Bonnie. See the playlist below. She’s been teaching a songwriting course, and the students will perform a new song of hers on Sunday, June 29th, the Stax Music Academy Grand Finale Concert at the Levitt Shell.

“It has been very gratifying to come back to the home of Stax Records and work with this new generation of soul music musicians,” Crutcher says. “They have so much energy and talent and they absorb so much that it reminds me of what it was like back in the day at Stax when we were all just learning from each other and supporting each other.”

 Yesterday, I sat in on a workshop in which Steve Cropper led four young guitar players and me through some of his most iconic parts. He talked of the music that led him to play his classic parts, of Ben Branch and the 5 Royales. We traded solos over changes, which was terrifying until you pulled it off. Then it was one of the most rewarding things ever. And that’s what music teaches you: how to use your skills to master a difficult and sometimes scary task. These kids have done just that all summer and deserve the adulation they’ll receive Sunday night at the Shell.

Stax Academy WEDNESDAY at the Shell – Bettye Crutcher Playlist

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Sing All Kinds We Recommend

Roland Janes Memorial Tribute Jam

On Monday, June 30th, friends and colleagues of the late Roland Janes will jam in his honor at the Levitt Shell. The free event is the work of Janes’ friend and collaborator J.M. Van Eaton. Both men were session musicians at Sun who became rock royalty when another day’s work resulted in “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On” and unleashed the Killer on polite society. Friends from Roland’s life and career will honor him as a guitarist, an engineer, a businessman, and as friend. He was that and much more to so many. The list of invitees tells the tale.

Sun-era stalwarts George Klein, Travis Wammack, Sonny Burgess & the Legendary Pacers, and Hayden Thompson. Smoochy Smith, who moved to Stax after working at Sun, went on to write “Last Night,” the song that broke Stax nationally. Smoochy’ll be there.

Van Eaton and Janes were old friends and participants in the birth of rock and roll.

“Roland and I started at the same time in the music business,” Van Eaton says. “I was still in high school. Tech High School. Billy Riley had just got a record deal with Sun and I met Roland at the studio one day when I had my little school band in there. They heard me play and Riley didn’t have a band. So he started putting his band together and he asked me if I wanted to be a part of his band. Roland was the guitar player. The bass player in that band was Marvin Pepper. Billy hired him and that was the original Little Green Men for ‘Flying Saucer Rock n Roll.’ So I met Roland back in 1956, probably.”

Billy Lee Riley’s Little Green Men: Riley, Roland Janes, Marvin Pepper, and J.M. Van Eaton

Soon after, the backing band made history.

“We’d probably been together about two or three months and Jerry Lee Lewis walked in. He didn’t have a band. So they called us to the studio to back up Jerry. We thought this was an audition to see if he had any talent. Man, we cut this song called “Crazy Arms,” which was his very first record, and that took off enough that they wanted to do the second one. The second one was Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On. So we both played on that. To fast forward to when that kind of played out, Roland and I played in band together in Millington at Fleet Reserve. This was a club band. We got a picture. He had already started Sonic Studio by then. But we played three nights a week for five years at this one place out there. We were packing them in every night.There were four of us in that band, and three of us are still living. We’re gonna bring those guys in.”

Also on the bill are several artists who Roland produced. John Paul Keith was one of Roland’s last real sessions before his death last year. Jon Hornyak was one of many Missourians who found their way to Memphis to work with Janes. His band Interstate 55 will also play.

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Flyer Flashback News

Looking Back at the Flyer’s $50,000 Giveaway

Over the course of several months in 1999, Flyer staffers were more than simply newspaper reporters, designers, and ad salesmen. They were also philanthropists.

For the paper’s 10th anniversary, a donor known only as Mr. Anonymous gave the Flyer $50,000 to dole out to nonprofits in the form of $1,000 grants. The “Making a Difference in Millennial Memphis” contest was announced, and nonprofits were encouraged “send a proposal on the organization’s stationery.”

“The whole idea was to encourage ‘good works’ — little things that improved the quality of life here. The program was open only to nonprofit corporations within Shelby County, which were invited to submit applications for projects that needed funding. Once a week, the Flyer would announce which grant had been approved,” read Michael Finger’s first story on “Making a Difference in Millennial Memphis.”

The first $1,000 grant went to Park Friends, Inc. to help produce a self-guided trail brochure for the Overton Park’s Old Forest. The brochure “would locate about 20 stations along the dirt trails that run through the interior of the forest. These would point out record-size trees, wildflowers, plants to avoid, signs of forest animals, climate and drainage features as well as historical features within the forest. Also highlighted would be the dark side: intrusive plants that crowd out the native plants and damage done by humans, intentionally or not.”

Other grants recipients included:

* Crime Stoppers of Memphis, Inc. to purchase 100 rolls of crime-scene tape.

* Voices of the South theater troupe to create a scenic design for their production of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Wild Swans at Theatre Memphis.

* Vollintine-Evergreen Community Association Community Development Corporation to build a bridge across two creeks along the V&E Greenline.

* Memphis Symphony Orchestra to pay for materials for its ART ATTACK! campaign, which provided six free symphony programs at popular locations visited by Memphians during their day-to-day activities. (Wrote Finger: “We don’t usually think about the arts in connection with our daily lives — we think it’s a pursuit for rich people with too much time on their hands. The Memphis Symphony Orchestra wants to change that perception through a new program called ART ATTACK!”).

* The Lamplighter, Cooper-Young’s community newspaper, to expand its coverage to include more young adults and minorities and to publish a neighborhood history.

* The Overton Park Shell (now the Levitt Shell) to allow artist Dan Zarnstorff to airbrush portraits of Memphis musicians, such as Furry Lewis, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Sid Selvidge, and Lee Baker, over the shell’s five windows.

* Germantown Performing Arts Centre (GPAC) to create a public art project in which the “gardens of colorful flowers on the GPAC property will be cleverly juxtaposed with enormous paintbrushes, paint rollers, and paint cans to create the illusion that some giant hand was responsible for such beauty.”

* Elmwood Cemetery to display flags representing every United States war since the Revolutionary War for their Veterans Day observance.

* MIFA to recruit “an army of volunteers to install storm doors and windows, patch roofs, caulk holes, insulate homes, and distribute new blankets and hats to [elderly and low-income] people in qualified homes.”

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Music Music Features

The Levitt Shell Concert Series 2014 Guide (Part 1)

CREDIT: Adi Harari

Levitt Shell is back. Our Shell and our civic commitment to it form a linchpin in the new Memphis ‘tude. Once the Griz pack it in, we take off half our clothes and lay in the grass listening to great, free music. The world could learn a lot from us. The series starts this Friday, May 23rd.

On May 23rd, Big Star (Jody Stephens, Chris Stamey, et al) will perform their album Third to open the season. Third is sort of a Big Star album. It certainly is a tipping point away from the Fry/Bell/Nicholson era of Memphis’ most blogged-about band toward the Chilton as Col. Kurtz-like cult leader phase. There are fewer chime-pop masterpieces, but things have not yet evolved/devolved into the bend-rounding of Like Flies on Sherbert. Carl Marsh’s arrangements for strings and synth will be a thrill to hear at the Shell.

The first weekend ends with the Hillbenders, a high-lonesome string band from Springfield, Missouri, who play Saturday the 24th. They take a more fun approach to music that runs the risk of getting its overalls in a bunch. These aren’t pinch-lipped East Tennessee types; this is the fun kind of mountain music. Memphian Gedeon Luke and The People perform Sunday. Luke runs a big-bus funk band in the mode of Sly and the Family Stone or ’70s James Brown.

Adi Harari

Ester Rada

Green River Ordinance brings a Jackson Brown type of soft-rock vibe on Thursday, May 29th. New Country Rehab plays Friday, May 30th. They are a refreshing rehabilitation of Nashville’s evil mixes and insistence on lowest-common-carburetor lyrics. Ester Rada plays Saturday night and amounts to a major gear change. The Israeli-Ethiopian songstress played Glastonbury last year. One day, you might brag about seeing her at the Shell. SHEL, a Gaelic girl group winds things down on Sunday, June 1st.

Katie Herzig performs on Thursday, June 5th. Her acoustic, pop-oriented songs are well-served by a good voice. Again, the Levitt Shell favors acoustic music. This sort of act always sounds good at the Shell. Kopecky Family Band plays Friday, June 6th. Their contemporary pop sound has all the music-school DNA and post-production string section stuff that the kids in the ironic-clothes generation like. Saturday is a bye, but don’t miss Sunday. Amy LaVere is at her best with the release of her latest album, Runaway’s Diary. To channel Chris Herrington: She’s the home team, and she’s on a winning streak.

Davina and the Vagabonds bring their high-energy, early 20th-century retro mix on Thursday, June 12th. It’ll take the wisdom of old King Solomon to decide between this and the Square. The Dynamites, featuring Nashville-born soul singer Charles Walker, are the Bo-Keys from a parallel universe. They’re not as greasy as the home team, but it will be a fun Friday the 13th. On Saturday, June 14th, the Mike Curb Institute strikes again, sponsoring Rosanne Cash. Get there early for this one.

You can’t run from School of Rock. The ubiquitous kid army that puts the “Aw” in “Aw Hell Yeah!” takes the stage on Thursday, June 19th. Playing for Change (June 20th) is a touring music project sponsored by Levitt Pavillions, a network of six outdoor spaces that present live music. Cedric Burnside Project cranks up the Hill Country machine on Saturday the 21st. Sunday, June 22nd, you’ll hear the California Honeydrops, led by Lech Wierzynski, a Polish graduate of Oberlin who has an acrobatic voice and infectious enthusiasm for American music.

Okie folkie John Fullbright will light up the stage on Thursday, June 26th. Cloud Cult plays the following night. The experimental (trippy) band hails from Duluth, Minnesota. I hope the poor things don’t melt, because their music is a harmonically interesting blend of violin and cello and all sorts of other stuff. Saturday, June 28th, is a funky acoustic bonanza with the Stooges Brass Band. They are festival stalwarts who cook hip-hop and R&B into their New Orleans mix. Brass bands are the most welcome trend I can recall. The Stooges have played Pakistan. The last concert for June (on the 29th) is a humdinger and is fast becoming a Shell tradition: Stax Music Academy’s Summer Grand Finale Concert.

Dagnabbit, we’re out of space. The series runs through July 20th. Read about all the concerts at levittshell.org. Stay tuned and we’ll do another round-up of the bands for July. Go shine your flip-flops, Memphis. It’s Shell time.

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Sing All Kinds We Recommend

Levitt Shell’s Fall Concert Schedule: Handicapping the Best Shows

Lisa Marie Presley, coming to the stage that launched her daddy.

  • Lisa Marie Presley, coming to the stage that launched her daddy.

The Levitt Shell announced its fall concert series this week, a 22-event slate of free shows starting Thursday, August 29th with Grammy-winning Texas roots/polka band Brave Combo and concluding on Sunday, October 6th with jazz/soul singer and member of one of Memphis music’s first families, Vaneese Thomas. In-between, the highest-profile show on the slate might be Lisa Marie Presley, who steps on the stage that helped launch her father’s career on Saturday, September 21st. (And be sure to check out the pullout calendar in this week’s print edition of the Flyer.)

The lawn of the Shell on a fall night is one of the best places in Memphis to be and this is a typically strong slate, so every show on the schedule could be a “best bet.” But here’s one reporter’s opinion on what might be the five most promising and/or interesting Shell concerts this season:

1. Elizabeth Cook (Thursday, September 5th): Call this a very highly recommended sleeper pick. This Nashville-based indie-not-alt country singer is still one of contemporary music’s best-kept secrets. Last year at the Shell she stole the show as an opening act on buddy and sometime bandmate Todd Snider’s What the Folk Fest bill, improbably telling funnier between-song anecdotes than the headliner. As hysterical as Cook can be, though, she can also cut you to the core with autobiographical showcase songs such as “Heroin Addict Sister” and “Mama’s Funeral,” both from her most recent full-length album, 2010’s terrific Welder. She covers both old-time gospel and the Velvet Underground. She’s a regular on both The Grand Ole Opry and The Late Show with David Letterman. A jewel. Here she is performing “Heroin Addict Sister” for a satellite radio broadcast:

[jump]

2. Opus One with John Gary Williams and The Bo-Keys (Saturday, September 28th): Williams was one of the key singers in the all-male Stax vocal group the Mad-Lads. Here, he and the city’s signature classic R&B band, the Bo-Keys, join with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra for one of the Symphony’s popular “Opus One” outreach shows.

3. Rock for Love 7 with Kirk Whalum (Saturday, September 7th): Grammy winning Memphis jazz/soul/gospel sax man Kirk Whalum headlines the culmination concert of this year’s edition of the annual Rock for Love festival, a fundraiser for the Church Health Center. Also on the bill: The John Kilzer Band, The Patrick Dodd Trio, and Mark Edgar Stuart with Kait Lawson.

4. John Paul Keith (Friday, September 20th): The Memphis roots-rock ace graces the Shell stage with a show that doubles as an album-release party for his third solo album, Memphis Circa 3AM, which will be released on Tuesday, September 17th on via Big Legal Mess/Fat Possum Records.

5. St. Paul & the Broken Bones (Saturday, August 31st): I heard a lot about this young Birmingham, Alabama classic soul band — whose singer looks more like the accounting guy in your office than an R&B belter — this spring at Austin’s South By Southwest Festival, but didn’t have a chance to see them. Based on the audio/video evidence, I’d label myself intrigued but not yet convinced. But I’m very curious to see them live: