Dorothy Orgill Kirsch, center, with Mario Monterosso and Dabney Coors at a "Simple Song of Freedom" event in 2023 (Credit: Michael Donahue)
It was time to honor Dorothy Orgill Kirsch.
You’ve probably seen her for years at cultural events around Memphis.
Earlier this month, Kirsch was the guest of honor at an ARTSmemphis tribute at the group’s headquarters. “It was attended by a representative of every single organization invited,” says longtime family friend Dabney Coors. “She has supported all of them.”
The celebration was to recognize “65 years of Dorothy Orgill Kirsch’s support for all of our arts organizations,” And, Coors says, “We are going to celebrate her ongoing gifts to the city.”
According to the City of Memphis proclamation, organizations Kirsch has supported include Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Opera Memphis, Playhouse on the Square, and Theatre Memphis, as well as ARTSmemphis.
Other groups she underwrote include Memphis Zoo, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Rhodes College, TheatreWorks, Hattiloo Theatre, Ballet Memphis, and New Ballet Ensemble. “Every theater, every ballet group, you name it, she has underwritten it,” Coors says.
Debbie Litch of Theatre Memphis, Whitney Jo of Playhouse on the Square, Dorothy Orgill Kirsch, and Dabney Coors at the Kirsch tribute at ARTSmemphis headquarters (Credit: ARTSmemphis)
Kirsch also supported Mario Monterosso’s “Simple Song of Freedom” humanitarian project for the war in Ukraine. She underwrote 30 musicians and 30 singers for the project.
Monterosso envisioned using Memphis performers in a video similar to “We Are the World” based on the song by Bobby Darin. The video, which he wanted to use to send a message of peace and freedom, includes a wide range of performers, including Carla Thomas, Kallen Esperian, Amy LaVere, Larry Dodson, Gary Beard, the Stax Music Academy choirs, and the First Baptist Church gospel choir with Rev. Keith Norman. It ended with Priscilla Presley quoting Mother Teresa.
In her speech at the tribute, Coors, who referred to Kirsch as “the angel of Memphis arts” says, “Dorothy was tapping her hands and feet when she listened to ‘Simple Song of Freedom’ and she said, ‘Yes. I want to support this effort.’”
Monterosso premiered his video December 20th at Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.
Carla Thomas with Mario Monterosso at the “Simple Song of Freedom” premiere at Memphis Brooks Museum of Art (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Kirsch “loves Memphis beyond everything else,” Monterosso says. “In my opinion, every time she sponsors a project, it’s like she’s sponsoring Memphis.”
She “likes to see Memphis behind every single project,” he says, adding, “Everything she does represents Memphis around the world. And this is incredible.”
People like Kirsch “are very rare,” Monterosso adds. “People who do things just because of their love of art, their love of the city where they great up and live their entire life, is so incredible.”
Justin J. Pearson +
Oceana Gilliam (Photo: Courtesy Justin J. Pearson + Oceana Gilliam)
The annual big freeze seems to have gone, but what could have dispensed with the cold Memphis weather? Perhaps it’s all the love in the air. With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, be uplifted by the stories of three Bluff City couples who navigated their own twisty, windy paths to love. Their tales will thaw both the frostiest days, and our cold, frozen hearts.
Justin J. Pearson + Oceana R. Gilliam
Oceana Gilliam says she met Justin Pearson in 2016 at Princeton University. “Justin and I, we both did this program together called the … what is it?”
“Policy International Affairs Junior Summer Institute,” says Justin, finishing her thought, as the couple are prone to do.
“We were both juniors in college going into our senior year,” Oceana continues. “I was really smitten, I think, when I first saw him, because even then, when we were just in college, he would have on his suit. When he would introduce himself, he would stand up and say, ‘Hello, I’m Justin J. Pearson.’ I was just like, oh my God, I really love that. He was always so kind. He’s always so sweet.”
“She was this very cute Black girl who was speaking Russian and singing in Russian at this program,” Justin recalls. “There was a song that I had just learned by Leon Bridges. One of the lines is ‘Brown skin girl with the polka-dot dress on.’ I love the song and I remember sending that to her, so I liked her a lot.”
Oceana, who was “born and raised in South Central,” Los Angeles, went to grad school at UCLA, while Pearson was all the way across North America at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, before leading the charge to stop the Byhalia Pipeline with Memphis Community Against the Pipeline. (After their victory, the environmental justice organization changed its name to reflect a wider focus on pollution.) “Even though we didn’t get together, it’s like the flame never went away,” says Justin. “Which is why I kept pursuing, probably more than she was. I was in the DMs between 2016 and literally 2020.
“We reconnected because I actually went to L.A. and I saw her for 30 minutes before I gave a speech. She was in grad school at UCLA getting her master’s in public policy. And so anytime I would talk to her — which was very little over those few years — she was just doing some amazing stuff for policy and political science things. But then we had Covid, and we had the summer of Black Death with George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks, these lynchings going on. She was protesting a lot in Los Angeles, and I was starting to get more engaged and involved in things in Memphis because we just moved back home. Then we had the pipeline fight in Memphis, and we really started to connect and bond and talk. She was a big support system during that time, too.”
“We really, really connected during the pandemic — we’re one of those pandemic bae couples,” says Oceana. “It was such a difficult and hard time. He was someone that I could really turn to, and he was always there for me. … We would literally be working with each other — I’ll be on a work meeting, he’ll be on a work call, but we have our Zooms on or our FaceTime on mute. We spend hours and hours together.”
When Justin broached the subject of running for the Tennessee House of Representatives to Gilliam, “At that point I could really see it,” she says. “He was already doing a lot of great work with MCAP, and I saw how he spoke out against trying to build this pipeline between people’s homes and take land. And so when he decided to say, ‘Hey, I want to run for office,’ I was with him fully and completely. I feel like that was a great path for him. He’s really passionate about this work, but he’s also very genuine. He’s very serious.
“Just from my own experience, being around other type of politicians, what I really appreciate about Justin the most is that the work that he does, he really does it from the heart. After going around with him, door knocking, meeting people in Westwood and other parts of Memphis and Millington, people really, really love Justin.”
As Justin grappled with the decision to run for office, the couple took a road trip from L.A. to Memphis. “You’re on the diving board and you’re like, am I really going to jump? We kept getting all these signs that this is the right thing to do. I remember, I was driving and I was like, ‘We going to do it, right? We going to do it? We were in Texas, and this huge cross kind of appeared out of nowhere, seemingly. And it was like, yeah, we’re going to do this thing.”
After Justin won a special election in 2023, Oceana was going to return to Los Angeles, but instead got caught up in what Justin calls “the most wild week ever known to humanity,” where he was sworn in to the house, brought the post-Covenant School shooting protests against gun violence onto the State House floor, and was then impeached and temporarily expelled from the Legislature. “That was such a difficult time,” she says. “I was in the gallery every single day with him. It was really something else.”
Justin and Oceana got engaged at her birthday party in 2023. They plan on tying the knot in the spring of 2025. “You get triumphs, or you get tragedies, that bring people together,” says Pearson. — Chris McCoy
Amir Hadadzadeh and Sepideh Dashti (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
Sepideh Dashti + Amir Hadadzadeh
Amir Hadadzadeh and Sepideh Dashti met some 10 years ago in Iran — they’d met a few times actually, but mostly in passing. Amir’s university friend married Sepideh’s sister, so they were bound to get to know each other one day.
At the time, Amir was studying in Canada, and Sepideh was still in Iran. On a visit back home, Amir had been tasked with dropping off something from his friend and his wife to Sepideh. “I knocked on the door,” Amir reminisces, “and someone — Sepideh — just opened the door a little bit and a hand came out, grabbed the thing, and went in. She didn’t even show her face.” This day, it turned out, wouldn’t be the day that Amir and Sepideh got to know each other, but they laugh about it now.
Instead, Amir says he kept thinking about her while he was studying for his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering. He was drawn to her seriousness. “She didn’t care about any guy. I mean, there was no one,” he says. “And then I decided to call, so it started from there.”
“Actually, we would chat [over Skype and Yahoo Messenger],” Sepideh corrects. “We were too shy to talk.”
But in 2009, the internet in Iran was not stable as the government sought to tighten its control. “We would start to chat with each other. And in the middle of the chat, the government decided to shut down the internet,” Amir says, “and we were not able to really have a deep conversation. It was very tough for us.”
“The internet shutdown happened,” Sepideh says, “and that was a moment we felt that [we would make a good couple] because then our conversations stopped for several days and I remember Amir’s sister called me and said, ‘Amir is very worried for you and asked me to tell you not to go outside because they arrested someone for protesting the election.’”
And so, Amir and Sepideh kept chatting, sending messages when the internet allowed, and eventually graduated to phone calls and video calls after the shyness wore off. After a few months, Amir returned to Iran and proposed. “She accepted,” Amir says. They had about a month together before Amir returned to Canada, and they could only see each other a few hours a day. “Sometimes we had to be sneaky,” Amir says with a smirk.
A year later, they were married. “We only had 10 days to be really close to each other [after the wedding before Amir had to go back to school],” Sepideh says. She was able to get her visa six months later, so they could finally be together in the same country. The day they reunited was April 15, 2011, Amir recalls immediately.
Since then, they’ve moved from Canada to Memphis, with Amir taking a job at the University of Memphis as a professor of mechanical engineering. Sepideh, meanwhile, is something of a multi-hyphenate as an art instructor at the Kroc Center, adjunct faculty at U of M, a Ph.D. candidate in educational psychology and research, and an artist who explores identity, womanhood, and the body. “I always tell her, ‘You are an internationally recognized artist. You should acknowledge that,’” Amir adds when he boasts about his wife’s accomplishments.
“He’s why I can manage,” Sepideh says, “especially with two kids. Honestly. … Like, even, I can say now in our parenting that we are very involved. So I’m very serious and I get mad and angry very easily, so most of the time I ask, ‘Can you manage this?’ I think his humorous sense has helped to engage with kids, make them calm, and make me calm.”
With both their families back in Iran, the two have found support and comfort in each other. “I think sometimes I feel this attachment is too much because when he goes somewhere for a seminar that is not in Memphis, I’m so stressed,” Sepideh says.
“We’ve imagined what would happen if we were back in Iran and discussed that a lot,” Amir says, “and we’ve concluded that we wouldn’t be as happy as what we have here. … I only wish that I would have met her earlier. That’s the only regret that I have. I wish we would have met, I don’t know, 10 years, at least five years earlier. [For now,] I’ll just admire her, love her, try to make her laugh.”
“We hope to grow old together,” Sepideh adds, “and watch our children become independent and lead fulfilling lives, just as our parents wished for us.” — Abigail Morici
Mario + Kristin Linagen-Monterosso (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
Mario + Kristin Linagen-Monterosso
I happened to be present the moment sparks flew between Mario Monterosso and Kristin Linagen. As Kristin recounts it, “Mario asked a mutual friend about me, and she said, ‘You know, she’s single now, if you’re asking about her.’ And he reached out to me via social media and said, ‘Hey, I’m playing at DKDC tonight. I’d love to see you.’”
Monterosso, of course, is the celebrated Italian guitarist who moved to Memphis years ago to follow his dream of living in the birthplace of the music he loved most. He soon became an integral part of the roots music scene here. Last May, as James and the Ultrasounds, with me on keys, held court at Bar DKDC, Mario sat in with us and we all did a double take: He was on fire that night.
Yet it was Mario’s winning personality more than his musicianship that caught Kristin’s eye. “You know, it was fate,” she says now. “We went out for a couple cocktail nights, and then he said, ‘Hey, I’d like to take you out. I’d like to court you.’ And I’m a traditional woman, I’m old-fashioned, so I just loved that idea. I thought he was a cool guy.”
Kristin has an ear for music herself. “I love music,” she says. “I played the guitar growing up. I’m not much of a guitar player now, but I picked it up when we first started dating. Just to show him a little bit because I still remember all the songs I grew up playing in high school.”
While her real calling has been her own business, Therapeutic Touch Massage, opened after she studied at the Massage Institute of Memphis, Kristin clearly loves the arts. That may be why Mario decided that they must visit New York together. “After about a month of dating, he said, ‘Hey, I want to take you to New York,’” Kristin recalls. “It was June of last year, and we planned the trip for December. And we said, ‘You know, even if things don’t work out, we’re still going to go together.’ So we made a pact! I mean, we spit on our hands and shook on it and everything. You know, we go all the way!”
Mario smiles at this memory, then adds, “Being in New York with someone I love was always a big thing to me. But I’d never done it before.” Meanwhile, unbeknownst to him, his new amore had similar feelings about the Big Apple.
“Three years ago, I had this fantasy of being in New York with a man that I love over Christmas,” recalls Kristin. “And when he asked me to go, I thought, ‘Wow, this man is making my dreams come true. Are we making each other’s dreams come true?’ And by the time December comes along, and we’re all in, I’m thinking, ‘Okay, he loves New York. He loves me. Maybe he will propose?’”
She kept that to herself, though, as they embraced the city’s energy. “He took me to a Broadway show, Some Like it Hot,” Kristin recalls. “Then we walked to Rockefeller Center and experienced the crowd and the Christmas tree and Radio City Music Hall. And then we went to Sardi’s for dinner.”
After their meal, Kristin made a suggestion. “I said, ‘Let’s finish our wine upstairs, more privately, where we can look out the window at the Shubert Theatre. That’ll be fun!’ And of course he loves this idea, because it’s my idea, but he has things planned that I don’t know.”
That’s when Mario excused himself and pretended to visit the restroom. “It was the moment,” he says, “where I was thinking, ‘Do I do it now? Do I do it now?’ The ring was in my pocket!”
“He comes back and goes right into it,” says Kristin. “He just says, ‘Can I be direct with you?’ And he pulled out a red velvet box and said, ‘Kristin, will you marry me?’ I said, ‘Yes!’ And I ran up to the bar. ‘We need two glasses of champagne!’ Everybody applauded and we had a great evening from then on. And then the next morning, I woke up at 4 a.m. with a fever, shivering and sweating. I had gotten the flu!”
It was a perfect moment of “in sickness and in health,” and Mario dutifully cared for his beloved through the rest of their stay. By the time another month went by, Mario and Kristin Linegan-Monterosso had eloped. Nowadays, if you happen to see them, they’re likely to be beaming. — Alex Greene
Tav Falco is the ultimate rock and roll auteur, having crafted a persona that tossed convention in the dustbin like yesterday’s news, thereby putting the world on notice. Even saying he purveys “rock and roll” is too conventional for this artist, as the songs he’s curated over the years have included tango, country and western, blues, rockabilly, and crime jazz. That alone is indicative of his ambition. He shall never don the straitjacket of the generic.
Memphians of my generation have known this for a long time. Indeed, Falco was an icon of the city’s underground when he lived here, and remains so for many, though he’s moved onto an international stage in this century, living in Europe or Southeast Asia as his muse dictates. One can still imagine him haunting back alleys and botanicas of Memphis like a juke-joint flaneur. For that reason, he’s sometimes taken for granted here. Yet who else in these days of pastiche treads the same ground with such panache?
Case in point: this year’s live album from Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, Nashville Sessions: Live at Bridgestone Arena Studios, recorded for Sirius XM’s Outlaw Country channel as he and his band toured the country last year. It’s an album that stays true to his original vision, even as it also reveals his evolution. “Ride the snake until we meet again,” reads the album’s cover. “Ride the snake until the end.”
For starters, it’s an excellent career retrospective, including songs from nearly every epoch of this artist’s growth, even as the album refashions them through Falco’s crack Italian band. The group features well-known ringer and session guitarist Mario Monterosso, who moved to Memphis from Rome years ago, joined by Giuseppe Sangirardi on bass and Walter Brunetti on drums, and here they achieve a kind of alchemy, streamlining the chaos of older versions of the Panther Burns while preserving the unhinged approach that so complements Falco’s unique vocals.
Part of the Panther Burns’ power has always rested in pairing Falco’s raw vocals and rhythm guitar with a true virtuoso. This began with the band’s co-founder, the late Alex Chilton, whose command of music led him to adopt a contrarian attitude, sometimes playing a half-step out of tune with the band with mischievous glee. Later, others like New Orleans’ George Reinecke filled that role. Today it’s Monterosso, whose youthful obsession with rockabilly and all things Memphis led to his connection with Falco, and his role as the group’s musical director.
His jazz inclinations, like Chilton’s, are a perfect foil to Falco’s preference for drama over perfect pitch. If Falco’s vocals are bent on embodying the character of each song rather than singing scales, they still rely on executing the music with a fidelity to the original flavor. Thus, the mystery of “Master of Chaos,” a co-write by Monterosso and Falco, is only heightened by the former’s knowledge of crime jazz’s dark harmonies. Introducing it as “an homage to the French literary and cinematic figure … the genius of crime, Fantômas,” Falco conjures up a shadow play with his words, savoring every syllable, while Monterosso and band march on.
The band transforms classic songs from Falco’s long career with some creative twists. “Cuban Rebel Girl,” which was originally a four-on-the-floor rocker, now takes on a swing that almost suggests striptease. And that suggestion of dishabille highlights a more erotic side of Falco’s imagined femme rebelle.
All in all, the band sound is heavier than you might expect. They hammer down as the guitars’ volume swells, with a focus and drive that sometimes eluded the more ramshackle sounds of Falco’s earlier bands. This, too, is a welcome evolution, inspiring Falco to sing with more authority than ever. If you’ve never experienced the Panther Burns before, this is the perfect entre into Falco’s world, accomplished with all the immediacy of a live performance. Pick up a copy and allow yourself to be transported to the Delta, New Orleans, Argentina, Rome, and back again to Memphis, where it all was born.
Tav Falco’s Panther Burns perform at Lafayette’s Music Room Wednesday, October 4th, 7 p.m. Click here for tickets.
I was one of the lucky ones who attended Mario Monterosso's 50th birthday party (Credit: Jonathan Finder)
If Stax great Carla Thomas shows up at your birthday party, you know you’ve made it.
Mario Monterosso, a guitarist-singer-songwriter and Memphis transplant, probably said, “Gee whiz,” several times at his 50th birthday party, which was held October 10th at B-SIDE Bar in Minglewood Hall. Actually, he did say that — in so many words. “‘Wow, That’s Carla,’ I said to myself,” Monterosso recalls.
Scott Bomar, Carla Thomas, and Alex Greene at Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Michael Donahue)
And if having Thomas as one of your party guests wasn’t enough, performing on stage with the legendary Tav Falco was the icing on the birthday cake.
Tav Falco at Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Falco was why Monterosso ended up in Memphis in the first place. Monterosso, who is from Catania, Italy, met Falco in Rome in 2014. Falco was looking for a guitarist for his new album, Command Performance and Monterosso became that guitarist. Falco then asked him to produce the album. And Monterosso also co-wrote two songs — “Master of Chaos” and “Memphis Ramble” — with Falco.
Memphis was part of the Command Performance album tour. “When I put my foot in Memphis, immediately I decided, ‘Hey, this is the place,’ says Monterosso. “Sometimes you feel the things on your skin. And immediately I thought that I wanted to live, at least for a little while, in Memphis.” He quit his job in Sicily and moved to Memphis on July 29th, 2016, and he’s become the lead guitarist in Falco’s band, Panther Burns.
The birthday party at B-SIDE, with its collection of Monterosso’s old and new friends, was something special. “Well, that was huge,” he says. “My best friends ever, that I’ve been knowing ever since I was a kid. Then I had my bandmates that are Italians from Rome. So, they are connected to my Roman life. And then I had Tav, of course, who represented the change of my life.
“Then I had all those people, new friends, from Scott Bomar to John Paul Keith to Will Sexton to Jonathan Finder to Dabney Coors to Carla Thomas. So, I had my entire life over there the day of my 50th birthday.”
Recalling when he first moved to Memphis, Monterosso says, “I started out from zero again. So, I went to jam sessions just like when you are a teenager.”
He began meeting and working with Memphis music folks, including Keith, Sexton, Amy LaVere, Dale Watson, and Jason D. Williams.
John Paul Keith and Joanna D’ Gerolamo at Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Michael Donahue)Will Sexton and Amy LaVere at Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Monterosso, along with Falco and the Panther Burns, jammed about 75 minutes on stage at B-SIDE.
Giuseppe Sangirardi and Mia Hillix at Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Michael Donahue)Mario Monterosso, Tav Falco, and Giuseppe Sangirardi on stage at Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Michael Donahue)Velvetina Taylor performed at the Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Jana Finder took care of the birthday cake portion of the party. “Jana asked me if I had a preference. I’m not a great eater of sweets or candy, but I love chocolate cakes and lemon cakes.” Jana baked one of each. “So, I got both,” says Monterosso.
Mario Monterosso with his birthday cakes made by Jana Finder (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Memphis is now home for Monterosso. “Fifty is a moment in which you walk through your entire life. You look behind and see what you built and what you have. And everything was connected, was perfectly blended, that night — my past and my present. So, this is why I was so happy.
“I had people that I love and people that love me. And many times that night I said each one of the people at the party represents a little piece of my music puzzle.”
Tav Falco and Michael Donahue at Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Jonathan Finder)Robbie McDaniel, Geri and Hal Lansky, and Susan Murrmann at Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Michael Donahue)Calvin and Louise Turley and Susan Murrmann at Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Michael Donahue)Jacob Church at Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Michael Donahue) We Saw You
Mario Monterosso is no stranger to these pages, having moved here nearly six years ago from Rome, quickly becoming a fixture in the local roots-rock scene. He’s often seen accompanying Dale Watson at Hernando’s Hide-A-Way or, more recently, leading his own combo through a mix of originals, Louis Prima, and Chuck Berry. But anyone familiar with these outings may be surprised at Monterosso’s recent solo album, Take It Away (ORG Music), a largely instrumental affair that showcases the guitarist’s eclectic influences. Roaming effortlessly from spaghetti Western soundtracks to surf to blues to Mancini-esque jazz, Monterosso’s originals offer a guided tour through the instrumental sounds of the ’50s and ’60s. And that’s just how he wanted it.
“Early in the 2020 quarantine, Dale Watson recorded an instrumental album, Dale Watson Presents: The Memphians. I co-wrote four of the songs. And I thought, ‘Wow, instrumental albums are really cool.’ It’s a different way to conceive of and write a song, in terms of composition. When you have lyrics, they bring people somewhere through the words. But when you write an instrumental, it has to be the melody that brings people somewhere. And so instrumental songs have to be simple. From bossa nova records to Duane Eddy or Chet Atkins, they use simple melodies. That’s the one thing that remains in people’s heads.”
As the pandemic caused most gigs to dry up, Monterosso did what many of us did during quarantine: He watched TV. But inspiration waited for him there. “One night I was watching this very old edition of Zorro from 1975. I saw it with my parents in the theater when it came out. I was 3! And seeing it again, I thought the soundtrack was so cool. It was written by two Italians, the De Angelis brothers, also known as Oliver Onions. They wrote so many Italian soundtracks! So I thought, ‘Okay, I’m going to write a tribute,’ and I wrote ‘The Ballad of Zorro.’ After that, I kept writing instrumentals, and at one point I thought, ‘Okay, let’s do an album.’”
By then, with a host of new songs in his bag, the scenery had changed dramatically for Monterosso. “I went to Italy because my mother was dying. And it seems that some of my songs had been written for that event. It seems that way, but they weren’t. It was weird, writing a song entitled ‘Without You,’ with that atmosphere and even a theremin used like an opera singer or a ghost.”
The ghosts were especially present where Monterosso was staying. “I was staying in this old family house from 1701, about 10 miles from downtown Catania [Sicily] in Trecastagni, in the foothills of Mount Etna. That’s where I learned to play the guitar, when I was 13 or 14. So I called my friend Matteo [Spinazzé Savaris], who’s recorded all of my albums and some of Tav Falco’s albums in Rome. He came down to Sicily with all the equipment and we set it up inside my house. It was a great experience. We recorded live. I only did a few overdubs after. And I did it with all my old music mates, musicians that I grew up with. It was a beautiful experience.”
The final result is a genre-hopping tour through intriguing melodies and arrangements. It’s no surprise that Monterosso’s first instrumentals were made in collaboration with another great eclecticist, Arkansas native Tav Falco, who made his name as a music/art auteur in Memphis before relocating to Europe and recruiting Monterosso as his musical director. The instrumental version of “Master of Chaos,” which the two co-wrote, is a highlight of Falco’s Cabaret of Daggers album, and Falco’s recent Club Car Zodiac features an instrumental with a spoken-word monologue, “Tony Driver Blues,” based on a film of the same name. A similar Falco monologue lends Take It Away its only vocals as well, the noirish “Midnight in Memphis.” For Monterosso, it represents Falco’s profound influence on his life. “When he writes, Tav has the ability to bring you in and put you somewhere,” he says. Beyond that, Falco brought him to Memphis. “I will always be grateful because Tav was my boat to Ellis Island.”
If you don’t have a fireplace, or forgot to order your 12-hour fireplace Blu-ray disc, never fear! The Memphis music scene has plenty in store to help these wintry nights pass merrily. Break out the nog and settle into listening mode, safely at home. In between Zoom reunions and toasting those in your safety pod, there’s plenty to keep you entertained!
REMINDER: The Memphis Flyer supports social distancing in these uncertain times. Please live-stream responsibly. We remind all players that even a small gathering could recklessly spread the coronavirus and endanger others. If you must gather as a band, please keep all players six feet apart, preferably outside, and remind viewers to do the same.
ALL TIMES CDT
Thursday, December 24
3 p.m. and 5 p.m.
Christmas Eve Service – Bellevue Baptist Church Facebook
7 p.m.
Christmas Eve Concert – Union Grove M.B. Church Facebook
Friday, December 25
No scheduled live-streamed events
Saturday, December 26
10 a.m. Richard Wilson Facebook
5 p.m. Turnt & The KLiTZ Sisters – at B-Side Facebook
7 p.m. Led Zep’n – at Lafayette’s Music Room Facebook
Just this week, a neighbor mentioned how important live-streamed shows were to him these days, and how he always reads The Flow, for that reason. It gave us a happy glow here at The Flow. This week, the volume is down a notch, but Memphis stalwarts keep it moving. And they are doing Memphis a great service. Support their virtual tip jars generously!
REMINDER: The Memphis Flyer supports social distancing in these uncertain times. Please live-stream responsibly. We remind all players that even a small gathering could recklessly spread the coronavirus and endanger others. If you must gather as a band, please keep all players six feet apart, preferably outside, and remind viewers to do the same.
ALL TIMES CDT
Thursday, August 6
Noon Amy LaVere & Will Sexton Facebook
Noon
Live DJ – Downtown Memphis Virtual Carry Out Concert Facebook
With foreigners and asylum-seekers now becoming the objects of some folks’ daily two-minute hate, it’s worth noting the value of immigrants in the Memphis music scene. Guitarist Mario Monterosso has been in Memphis more than two years, but he’s not the first Italian to seek a fortune in the Bluff City. W.C. Handy wrote of another, “a ragged immigrant boy, a dark-browed Italian youngster called Pee Wee, [who] crept out from under one of the box cars. He had come all the way from New York on the rods.” Later, the youngster came into his own on Beale Street. As Handy recalled, “When I first visited the city as a boy, Pee Wee was running a saloon … and his place became almost a landmark and a legend. Moreover, it was a headquarters for musicians.”
Unlike Pee Wee, Monterosso came to Memphis wielding a guitar, but like Pee Wee, he found a home on Beale. Many have marveled at this newcomer’s playing with the likes of Dale Watson or John Paul Keith and wondered what his story could be. It’s a tale of the fascination a boy had with the music of the American South.
Hailing from the ancient port of Catania, on Sicily’s eastern shore, Monterosso recalls that “music was part of my family. My great aunt was a very important opera singer in Italy. And my sister was a classical pianist. My father used to write about the opera.”
Photographs by Billy Morris
Mario Monterosso, an Italian guitarist in Memphis
But for the young Monterosso, the muses of the Old World were no match for those of the New. “When I was 10, my sister had a rockabilly boyfriend. My father died in the same period, so this guy became a kind of role model. And the first time I went with them to a concert, I saw this guy named Vince Mannino. With this big quiff and sideburns, and a rockabilly drape. A real Teddy Boy. He was singing ‘Boogie Woogie Country Girl,’ and I said ‘Wow, what is this? I wanna learn to play!’ And little by little, I started.”
He found more enlightenment via cassettes. “My first tape ever was of a British radio show named Radio Memphis — a compilation of Sun records and rock-and-roll. So rockabilly was my first imprint. And that’s when I discovered Tav Falco. A friend gave me this tape, and I was like ‘Wow, what is this?’ The first time I saw Tav was in Catania, in 1989.” Throwing himself into guitar, he played in bands and expanded his musical horizons into jazz, blues, funk, and country. Yet by the time he was 30, Monterosso had never left Catania.
“I was a clerk at the court,” he recalls. “So I asked for a transfer to Rome, just to have a formal excuse for my family: ‘I’m moving to Rome because of my job.’ But the truth was that I wanted to do more in the music scene.” He made a name for himself as one of Rome’s go-to roots-rock guitarists, when the fates struck once more. “A friend sent me a message, ‘Would you like to work with an American guy? His name is Tav Falco.’ I said, ‘What? You mean Tav Falco and the Panther Burns?’ She said, ‘Yes. He wants to record an album in Rome and then tour around Europe.’ I said yes immediately.”
Falco sent him a message: “Hey, I’m not a rockabilly or rock-and-roll or blues cover band. I’m something else.” Finding that “something else” to his liking, Monterosso embarked on the European tour, and then a U.S. jaunt. It was a game-changer.
“After the tour, when I came back to Rome, I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ That’s when I dedicated my life to music.” And to Memphis.
“During the tour, when I arrived in Memphis, I said, ‘I would love to live here.’ I saw New York … I saw Chicago. Very important cities, very cool. But people are always running. Here, there’s still something between people. And when I find myself at Sun Records or Sam Phillips, recording albums, it’s something special. It’s like if you love art and you find yourself in Florence or Rome, working at the Colosseum or the Cappella Sistina. Wow.”
He pauses a moment, then adds, “And it’s pretty cheap, too.”
Ebet Roberts 
Photographs by Billy Morris