Tag: Mark Edgar Stuart

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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

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Music Music Features

Bailey Bigger: Confronting Traumas Through Music

CREDIT: Adrian Berryhill

What a difference a year makes. Last October, Bailey Bigger released her debut EP, Between the Pages, on Blue Tom Records (the label run by the University of Memphis), and certainly her skills as a songwriter and vocalist were obvious. Her unaffected alto, reminiscent of Buffy Sainte-Marie, was the perfect vehicle for her simple, deft turns of phrase. But now, as she is poised to release Let’s Call It Love, her first EP for Big Legal Mess Records, those songs seem a world away. It’s hard to believe she’s made such a journey with only 20 years under her belt.

Her trademark qualities are still on full display, but are now complemented with an even more refined band, assembled at Delta-Sonic Sound by producer Bruce Watson.

“Bruce brought a little bit of soul into my music,” she says. “He brought in the organ and the electric guitars and things like that that I never would’ve thought to do on my own. It’s Americana but Memphis.” She speaks the truth: With players like Mark Edgar Stuart (her mentor of sorts), Joe Restivo, Will Sexton, Al Gamble, George Sluppick, and Jana Meisner, the record represents the state-of-the-art Bluff City sound.

Adrian Berryhill

Bailey Bigger — she’s a keeper of the fire.

And yet Watson’s first pivotal move in making this record was simply rejecting her first batch of songs, forcing Bigger to come up with her best material yet. To compose the new songs, she dug deep into the turmoil she’d recently faced due to an unpleasant breakup, her grandmother’s death, and her feelings of alienation in moving from Marion, Arkansas, to the big city across the river. Now that she’s happily relocated to a farm near Marion, she’s gained some perspective on those earlier struggles.

Memphis Flyer: Was it emotionally difficult to delve into your personal backstory to create the songs on the new EP?

Bailey Bigger: Well, in my poetry-writing class, we were talking about trauma in poetry and how it’s really hard to write about traumatic experiences. You have to put yourself in that headspace again and relive it, in a way, to get those truths out on paper or in songs. And a lot of times that’s easier to just avoid. But I live for that stuff, in a way, because I think it’s one of the most important parts of the human experience, to be open and talk about things that people are afraid to talk about.

That makes for better songs, don’t you think? But is it tough to sing those songs once you’ve written them?

I think it becomes like muscle memory, in a way, performing these things live. If I were to really dig in and relive those moments every time I played it live, I don’t think I’d make it through the performances. When I was recording “Let’s Call It Love,” we cut several vocal tracks and we were like, “Yeah, that’s fine. Pitch is good.” But I was thinking, “I’m not singing this how I felt it.” And that’s one of the worst things ever, where your voice isn’t delivering what you felt. I hate that. So I said, “Okay, just one more time.” And I remember how I channeled the take that I wanted to keep. It wasn’t by thinking of the person the song’s about. I did not want to picture that person at all. I thought to myself, “Sing to the girl who is in the same place as you are. Sing to that person that it hasn’t happened to yet. She still has a chance to get out. Sing to that person that you were a year and a half ago when you didn’t see it.” So that’s what really got me to perform it the way I wanted to.

I also get that feeling from the bonus track, “A Lot Like I Do” — “I remember a girl who looks a lot like you do” — as if you’re looking back at yourself.

That was probably the hardest one for me to perform. That one still evokes strong emotions in me every time I play it live. It’s probably the most personal song I’ve ever written in my life. It doesn’t even say anything specific about what happened to me, but I think it tells it perfectly at the same time. I can’t rely on muscle memory with that. That’s a rough one. All three songs are about this transformative time in my life. But the person I was at the beginning of all those traumas is not who I am now.

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Music Video Monday: Bailey Bigger

Music Video Monday is getting hygge with it.

“Hygge” is a Danish word that means “cozy” or “comfortable,” as in “wrapped in a blanket with a glass of wine.” After the 2020 America has had, it’s something we all need. MVM newcomer Bailey Bigger is bringing it with “Weight of Independence.”

Bigger is a 20-year-old native of Marion, Arkansas who loves the farm life. “We lived in my great-grandparents’ old house. I love the community part of it. You say your name to a stranger and they say, ‘Oh, you’re Eddie’s granddaughter, David’s daughter,’” she says.

Recorded with the help of her mentor, Mark Edgar Stuart, for her debut EP on Big Legal Mess Records, “Weight of Independence” was inspired by the hardest day in her young life, when her relationship disintegrated and her grandmother passed away. The song is about gaining perspective and finding some kind of inner peace. “It let me step back and see the bigger picture. A lot of things matter way more than that breakup. I had a realization that that person was nothing in the big story.”

For the video, director Joshua Cannon captures Bigger in her rural element. It’s a beautifully shot piece that invokes the first peaceful day after a long storm.

Music Video Monday: Bailey Bigger

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

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Music Video Monday: Moore, Stanfill, Stuart

Music Video Monday is reading your mind!

The pandemic has disrupted the lives and careers of musicians everywhere. As a result, it has also prompted a wave of home recording, and encouraged new collaborations. The Bandwagon project is one of those.

“It’s basically musicians in these quarantine times recording and writing together via email,” says Joshua Crosby. “Like, I send Jeremy Stanfill an idea, then he adds guitar and sends it to, say, Jeff Hulett. And he adds drums then he sends it to, say, James Godwin, and he adds bass. And then it comes back to me in a way I never imagined it and then we put it up on the Bandwagon Bandcamp page. So, it’s a way to collaborate with folks you maybe never would’ve — be it not for quarantine — and also a way to let go of creative control. And anyone is welcome to submit songs.”

“Telepathy” was written by Mark Edgar Stuart and recorded by Jeremy Stanfill and Landon Moore. Director Billy Worley found some awesome vintage footage of psychics “at work” to create a memorable music video. Take a look.

Music Video Monday: Moore, Stanfill, Stuart

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

Categories
Music Record Reviews

Mark Edgar Stuart’s Folk Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner

For all the “folk” in its title, Memphis songsmith Mark Edgar Stuart’s just-released EP Folk Beef boasts more electric guitars and horns than I’ve come to expect from the singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist. The result is excellent, and, if not a cure for the quarantine blues, at the very least a welcome distraction.

The EP was recorded by Pete Matthews and Toby Vest at High/Low Recording, and it rises to the high bar set by the recording duo.

“Color Wheel” finds Stuart doing what he does so well — grappling with life’s Big Issues and making them personal and approachable through the lens of his perspective. Sickness, death, love — the Memphis songwriter has handled heavy issues with dexterity before, and “Color Wheel,” Stuart’s account of his growing understanding about his own white privilege, is no exception. 

“I’d rather be wrapped up with ya, baby, than to be out on my own. I got no plans. I’m happy at home,” Stuart sings on “Happy at Home,” a rockin’ number that sounds like it was written in quarantine. In fact, unless the great Dolly Parton released a quarantine anthem that slipped by me, I see no reason why “Happy at Home” shouldn’t be the official Tennessee tune to combat coronavirus. Somebody cut Stuart a check and put this song in a PSA about social distancing. 

“99 Percentile Blues” finds Stuart having fun taking — and landing — shots at the current administration. “This land is my land, not your land, and your land is my land, too,” Stuart sings. The song doesn’t take itself too seriously, but Stuart’s lyrics have barbs. 

With crunchy guitars, wailing horns, and faintly warbling keyboards, “Goobertown (Rerun)” is a delightful bop of an instrumental. It feels not unlike being over-caffeinated with nowhere to go.

Jamie Harmon

Mark Edgar Stuart

The gem of the EP is, to these ears, “Faxon Wizard.” The song is firing on all cylinders, but the harmony vocals (Luke White’s angelic tones, perhaps?) are the piece that pushes it over the edge.

“Over and over, like pages we all turn. Turn on each other until we crash and burn,” Stuart sings. “Crash and burn on your front porch. I’ve been here all night long. Don’t leave me hanging out here on my own.”

The so-called Faxon Wizard is a recurring character on Stuart’s social media — a be-robed and staff-carrying man who can be spotted walking in Stuart’s neighborhood. Whether the lament is from the perspective of the famous Faxon Wizard or only inspired by him — or just named after him, Stuart only knows. But sweet bearded sorcerer, the song is a boon to the ears and the soul.


I didn’t intend to do a song-by-song review, but here we are at the EP’s final track. “Superstar Hillbilly Nova” tells the tragic true story of Jimmy Ellis, an Elvis impersonator. It’s a late ’50s rock-and-roll shuffle complete with Jordanaires-esque backing vocals. It’s silly and fun. 

Stuart’s knack with a clever word is a draw to listeners and musicians alike. The players on Folk Beef are an all-star cast of Memphis’ rock-and-roll, Americana, and honky tonk set. They include Art Edmaiston, Johnny Argroves, Landon Moore, Al Gamble, John Whittemore, Krista Wroten, Jana Misener, Luke White, Rick Steff, Alex Greene, Toby Vest, Scott Bomar, James Godwin, and Matt Qualls. Everyone’s contributions help Stuart fashion a textured and endlessly listenable little record.

And seriously, “Faxon Wizard” is so damn good.

Categories
Cover Feature News

The Music Issue: Music in the Time of Corona

With shelter-in-place still the most responsible policy for all of us, a lot of people are imagining that the once-thriving music scene in Memphis is withering on the vine. But a lot of people would be wrong.

Casting a wide net for signs of life recently, I’ve reeled in a full haul of ways that local musicians are rising to the challenge of making their art accessible, and, in some cases, even making a little money. Though their income sources have shrunk, musicians are honoring their best impulses to simply get their art out there.

Amy LaVere and Will Sexton

There wouldn’t be a Flyer Music Issue without music. And, without question, the music and musicians are still there, working their craft, helping all of us cope — and with a new sense of connection and hope.

Players and Payers, Now Online!

We all know about live-streamed shows by now, of course. It’s become the new normal, and with our weekly online listings in The Flow, the Flyer has attempted to acknowledge and promote the practice. But it’s tricky to keep up with all the action. In the past week alone, we listed nearly three dozen separate streaming events, and we know we didn’t cover all of them. (Musicians, send us your announcements!) Several of these were virtual festivals with a dozen artists or more, all coordinating their homebound performances through a central hub. All told, these artists’ commitment to both social distancing and social unity (and, let’s face it, self-promotion) has been impressive. Thanks to the internet, perhaps we can have our cake and eat it too?

Nationally, live-streaming has had its ups and downs. The data-crunching company Chartmetric released a study earlier this month stating that: “The U.S. Top 100 YouTube artists surged during lockdown, but as daily infections continued to rise, that demand failed to keep pace, perhaps because consumers turned to other non-music content or other sources of entertainment as the reality of sheltering in place indefinitely started to set in.”

That leaves aside the question of why viewership should correlate in any way with the infection rate. Once you’re in place, either you’re prone to watch live music or you’re not. And of course, national data on “the top 100 artists” has almost nothing to do with the local scene, which celebrates independent artists in all their forms. By all indications, live-streamed music events are on the rise in Memphis. (The first edition of The Flow only listed two dozen events.)

And many are reaping some sorely needed financial rewards for their live-streamed efforts. Mark Edgar Stuart, who has done four such online events, was taken aback at the response. “The first two I did, I was like ‘Wow, I’ve never made that at a gig before!’ There might be something to this web show business, you know? This might carry on once COVID-19 is over.”

Most of Stuart’s events have taken the classic “man with guitar lives here” approach, where he plays for viewers from a chair in his home. But he’s been inspired by others who strive to lend their live events more panache. “I love seeing how people are getting creative with it. Graham Winchester, doing a show in the bathtub! I saw Jesse James Davis do one a few weeks ago. He had his backing beats happening and it looked cool. I was like, ‘Yeah, kudos.'”

A Weirdo From Memphis aka AWFM

Striving for an original approach is on many performers’ minds. A Weirdo From Memphis, aka AWFM, says his plans for live events have been steadily evolving. “I decided to fall back until I can make it special. I don’t know if you’ve just logged on to Instagram on a random Friday night and seen like 12 Live bubbles across the screen? It used to be kinda like an exciting anomaly. ‘Whoa, somebody’s on Live, what are they gonna be doing?’ And now it’s like everybody has their own live TV show. Which is sometimes just them sitting there. People think that what they do is special, and they think that they’re standing out but don’t really zoom out and see the picture and see that you’re really just walking in the same direction as everybody. So I’d rather make sure, when I do pop on Live, it’s a thing to get excited about because I’m doing something different. I’ve really spent some time figuring out what that was supposed to be for me. And I have the answer now, and everything I need to do it is on its way to being in my hands. If you’re not really about the artistic experience, it’s like a microwave. I’m trying to put some food in the oven!”

PreauXX

Fellow Unapologetic rapper PreauXX keeps his IG Live events fresh with the inherent spontaneity of freestyle, at which he excels. “Whenever I want to get some stuff out, I just go on IG Live for 30 to 40 minutes and just freestyle over beats. And whoever joins in my Live will give me a beat or give me a topic, and I just rap for 40 mintues, just for the hell of it.”

Of course, not everyone can rap extemporaneously with such aplomb, especially if your forte is making beats. But Unapologetic producer C Major has taken to the live internet anyway, via the beat battles hosted by a St. Louis-based group called Fresh Produce. As their web page (freshproducestl.com) explains, “Eight beatsmiths compete head to head in a tournament style bracket battle consisting of three rounds. Each producer is given at least one minute per round to impress the five judges, which include former winners from multiple beat battles, DJs, tastemakers from around the area, and the difference maker, The Crowd.”

As C Major points out, “It’s a whole experience, with interviews, clips of videos in between the beats. And the people in on the session can vote on whose beat they rock with the most. They’ve got a championship round on May 27th that I’m gonna be on again.”

Producer C Major of Unapologetic

But C Major also points out another avenue for internet-based music, one he’s only now discovering: online gaming. “I’ve seen some crazy shit. They have whole festivals on Minecraft, which is ridiculous. There are bands, not even playing live, but with pre-recorded stuff they’re doing with their characters in Minecraft, and they’ve got a sea of people watching, just all characters on a computer. It’s crazy! You can be in the world of Minecraft and walk into a building and there will be a flyer and everything. And at a certain time, you go into a venue, and they’re just in there, the little blocks with guitars and shit. A drummer and shit. And your character is there with other characters. I’ve got two little boys, and they’re really into that world. So me and them stayed up one day and watched that. It’s crazy how creative people can be.

“Seeing that level of creativity just got me thinking,” he continues, “I can’t just hop on Live with my phone now. I mean, that’s cool, too. It has a level of personal-ness that you want, but at the same time, these people are out there, like they’ve been waiting for this moment.”

“My technology will shine now!” chimes in AWFM with a mad cackle.

Like so many of us (and like my own interview with them), the Unapologetic crew has also kept up their collaborative momentum with Zoom meetings, as they plan their next moves. “Every Wednesday, we have a big Zoom meeting with 12 to 15 people,” C Major explains. “It used to be a lot of planning and business, and we still do a lot of that. But now, I really cherish the time to just tell people what’s going on with me, and listen to what’s going on with them. It’s almost like therapy.”

PreauXX nods in agreement, adding, “Them kumbaya sessions are so soulfully needed.”

Another, more public version of stoking the creative fires has been pioneered by singer/songwriter Cory Branan, whose response to being a shut-in was to launch a homemade talk show, UMM, with his favorite fellow songsmiths. Episodes go live on Instagram every Wednesday, then remain archived on his YouTube channel. With such guests on the split-screen as Amanda Shires, Jason Isbell, Ben Nichols, and Frank Turner, it’s a veritable who’s who of today’s songwriting legends, and Branan’s queries reflect his own poetic approach to the craft: “You said when you finish a song, you’re like a sleepwalker who wakes up holding a bloody knife, surrounded by corpses,” he quips to Frank Turner, who responds, “I can still remember it being on the brain for a good few months, and then one day it’s finished …”

Other musicians are taking live-streamed shows to another level, albeit with careful social distancing in place. After all, many of us wish the drummer was always forced to stay six feet away. (ba-dum-bum!) Amy LaVere and Will Sexton, living together in matrimonial bliss, began their Thursday “Love Stream” shows on Facebook simply enough as a duo, but now have stepped out on their porch for some shows, inviting bandmates to play along from a safe distance.

Mark Edgar Stuart — via virtual remote control

And now, almost as an outgrowth of this internet community, actual live music, in front of real people, is beginning to take form in unpredictable ways. When the Joe Restivo 4 held an impromptu concert on drummer Tom Lonardo’s porch last Wednesday, with social distancing in place, it attracted a small crowd, well-spaced, up and down the street.

But Mark Edgar Stuart may have the best, and strangest, example of this. As he explains, “Three weeks ago, I did a show for a bunch of pontoon boats. I had a superfan out in Eudora, Mississippi, who lives in a lake community, and he was like, ‘Dude, will you do a concert? I’m gonna promote it to the rest of the lake, and we’re gonna have all the pontoons come out to the dock and you can play.’ I was on a dock with a PA, nobody around me. And it was a listening crowd. You could smell the joints being passed around. It was fun! It was about 18 boats, maybe 50 or 60 people watching. They were all six feet apart.”

Venues Hunker Down

Such wacky alternatives do make players and fans alike a bit wistful about actual music venues. But, looking for signs of hope that we’ll one day have music in clubs again, I need turn no further than the sounds of hammers swinging down the street. As all the world shelters in place, B-Side Bar is giving its stage a makeover. “We had to raise it up a few inches to fit these new subwoofers under there,” says co-owner Brad Boswell. And they’re not the only ones making the most of the downtime.

“We’re just trying to get things that we never get done when we’re just blowing and going like we do,” says Jason Ralph of the Blues City Cafe. “When you’re as busy as we are all the time, you don’t have a chance to do a lot of the things that you want. So we’re trying to take advantage of this unfortunate break we’re having. Like redoing the kitchen floor, things like that.”

Owners and managers of music venues throughout the city are nervously pondering the day when people can congregate once more. Yet no one is sure what conditions need to be met for that to happen. Some plan to follow the authorities’ lead. “Everything will be based on CDC and what they put out, and what local government puts out,” says Ralph. “What I really don’t want is to make that happen and then have to close again.”

Yet some feel even an official go-ahead may not be enough. “We’re not gonna open up just because the governor says it’s okay, you know?” says Boswell. “We’re just gonna play it by ear. It’s possible we’ll start out doing live-stream shows first, before we fully open. But we’re not even discussing it yet at this point.”

Brett Batterson, president and CEO of the Orpheum Theatre Group, thinks smaller venues will have an advantage. “I think the smaller venues like Halloran Centre will open first. Gradually we’ll get to a point where the Orpheum will reopen.” Meanwhile, they’re hosting home-recorded performances in their Memphis Songwriters Series, regular live-streamed events on Facebook every Saturday.

Most see reopening as a mirror image of how they shut down. Boswell notes that B-Side was one of the first to shut down, and may be among the last to open again, perhaps starting with only live-streamed shows.

Blues City Cafe first phased out bands, then allowed dining customers at half-capacity for more distancing, then offered only takeout before closing completely. Ralph thinks featuring live bands will be the last phase of reopening, but even that will take some adjustment. “A lot of people don’t realize, it’s gonna look a lot different, regardless,” he says. “Even once we’re going 100 percent, as busy as we are on Beale Street, it’s not gonna be like it was any time soon.”

Laying Down Tracks

While we await such changes, musicians soldier on, and records — the other side of the musical coin — are continuing to be made, by hook or by crook. Since the quarantine era, there’s been a flowering of tracks swapped via the internet. While many producers and engineers have found the explosion of home recording gear to be a mixed blessing (pun intended), in times like these, such home rigs are keeping many of them busy. Since shelter-in-place began, countless players have gone back to finish tracks, often inviting colleagues to add overdubs in their own home studios, to then assemble later into a final mix.

As usual, the Unapologetic collective is ahead of the curve. Nothing as clunky as email is needed. As C Major explains, “We’ve actually got it set up to where the whole ProTools folder is on Dropbox, so whenever you record [in your home studio], I’m getting the updated session immediately. And I’ll go in and tweak stuff. So we’re basically kind of in the same studio, just over the internet. We just adapted that way. Dropbox updates in real time. So if anyone makes any change to the session, it’s gonna show up on mine.”

Others take a hybrid approach, stepping carefully into the city’s professional studios, armed with masks and sterilizer. Calling me from Delta-Sonic Sound, the studio run by Big Legal Mess producer Bruce Watson, Mark Edgar Stuart gives an on-the-scene report. “Will is in the tracking room, wearing a mask. I’ve been wearing a mask all day and am now outside. Bruce has been wiping down the headphones and all that kinda business.”

A similar scene, with even more players, was in place at the famed Royal Studios two weeks ago, when Michael Graber invited his favorite players to record new material — composed during his days and nights as a shut-in — with Boo Mitchell at the helm. “A lot of musicians who are usually busy with gigs or on the road were able to join in on the sessions,” he explains. “So we planned to go in and properly distance and record. And we ended up, in two days, recording 24 original songs. Some of these songs are strange compositions. We’d use traditional bluegrass instrumentation on some, but then we were throwing in dulcimers, harmoniums, bouzoukis, six-part harmonies, that kind of stuff. So it got pretty wild.”

Though everyone wore masks, hosting so many players at once proved challenging, and Graber sounds a cautionary note: “It was really, really hard to sing. I ended up taking my mask off. As did some of the other background singers. We tried to keep distanced. We were very conscious the whole first 12-hour day. But by the end of the second day, we were getting tired, people were rushing to the food when we had it out. The longer we went, the more the challenge it was to hold up those standards. It’s just what it is. It was a microcosm of what’s gonna happen as we re-enter society. First we’re very cognizant, and then we slowly let our guard down.”

AWFM says, “When we create, it’s really on top of each other, kinda like a family vibe, but that’s not the wisest thing to do right now. Especially with everybody going back home to their families. ‘Cause you can be like, ‘I’m good,’ but not realize that you’re a carrier of it and take it to somebody who’s less equipped to deal with it. That would be pretty devastating. I’ve seen people that have accidentally killed their parents or grandparents, just by having a mild case of it. They had already been existing in the house for two weeks, and really messed things up. So we haven’t created face-to-face in a minute. It’s a lot to lose, man.”

Musicians and non-musicians alike struggle with such contradictory impulses these days: to be safe, to protect others, but at the same time, to create, to collaborate, to commune. Perhaps the Unapologetic approach can benefit all of us. Says PreauXX, “For all of us, it’s been a survivor’s mentality. You can either lounge around or you can adapt.”

NIVA

More than two months ago, Growlers hosted metal bands Weedeater and The Goddamn Gallows during what would become the venue’s final show before it was forced to temporarily shut its doors due to stay-at-home orders caused by COVID-19. 

Within that period, Growlers has seen a loss of tens of thousands of dollars, and with a definite reopening date unknown at this time, that loss could add up to be much more. Growlers has since begun offering takeout food and has applied for and received loans from the Small Business Administration (SBA). But according to Mike Glenn, managing partner and national talent buyer for the venue, that’s not going to be enough to keep them afloat until they can reopen.  

“We have a great landlord in Yong Rhee, so he’s been helping in regards to rent,” he says. “But there’s utilities, certain taxes, etc. We are accruing a debt load, as are all venues.”

Nearly a month ago, Glenn caught wind of independent venues throughout the country joining a group called the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) who have been seeking to rally support from state representatives and from U.S. congressional leaders to provide additional federal aid for venues. 

“Dayna Frank, [owner of First Avenue in Minneapolis and president of NIVA], is a friend of mine, and I heard rumblings of her and a few other indies starting this,” says Glenn. “So, being in this business my entire life, this was something important to me. We don’t have billions like Live Nation or AEG. So I’m very passionate about standing for indie venues and promoters.”

NIVA, which comprises more than 1,600 independent venues throughout the country like Minglewood Hall, Exit/In in Nashville, and the Troubadour in Los Angeles, has issued a letter to the U.S. Congress asking legislators for further assistance to help keep overhead charges and taxes paid until they can present shows again.

In the letter addressed to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the collective asked that the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program be revised to increase the program’s loan cap and extend the program until all the affected businesses can resume operations at full capacity. They also asked for other modes of assistance, including establishing a business recovery grant fund, granting various forms of tax relief, and extending unemployment insurance to contract workers and artists who wouldn’t normally receive benefits. 

Glenn has worked closely with Chris Cobb, owner of Exit/In, contacting Tennessee Representatives Steve Cohen and Jim Cooper, as well as Senators Lamar Alexander and Marsha Blackburn, to ask for their support.

“The conversations with them have been very promising,” says Glenn. “All have supported the efforts.”

Last week, there was progress on the local level when the Shelby County Commission approved an amendment to the 2021 fiscal year budget that would allot $100,000 to assist local venues like Growlers, Minglewood Hall, and Levitt Shell with rental and employee assistance.

“I’ve only heard of a few other cities in the country doing that,” says Glenn. “So it’s wonderful having great local leadership who support the arts.”

According to Glenn, this is a good starting resource for venues in Memphis to be able to stay on their feet until they are able to put on shows again.

“We just want to get back to what we love, putting on events for people to have a great time,” he says. “But we also want to be safe about it. There’s just something about a room full of people vibing together that can’t be replicated with other options. So, hopefully, we’ll get back to that sooner than later. The people are the reason I’m in the business in the first place.” — Julia Baker

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Music Video Monday: Mark Edgar Stuart With Garrison Starr

Music Video Monday finds joy in togetherness.

When Memphis singer/songwriter Mark Edgar Stuart was stuck in a creative rut, he needed collaboration to help him out of it. “I’d been spinning my wheels creatively for most of 2019,” he says. “I wanted to shake things up, and get outside of my creative comfort zone. I met Brandon Kinder at Ditty TV. Though we come from different musical backgrounds, I always admired him as a songwriter and a producer. I had written a song for my wife, a good old-fashioned love song, and he recommended that it be a duet. He suggested Garrison Starr. That seemed pretty far-fetched at the time. To me she was a star. I’d been a fan of Garrison since the Highland strip days back in the 90s. She accepted the invite and the song was complete. I figured you can’t have a single without a video, so with my phone I filmed my recent vacation to Puerto Rico with my wife. I thought it was kinda fitting, the two of us making ‘One More Memory For The Road.'”

A virtual trip to Puerto Rico doesn’t sound too bad about now, does it?

Music Video Monday: Mark Edgar Stuart With Garrison Starr

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

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Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway

Shannon Walton in Sweet Knives video for ‘I Don’t Wanna Die’

You’re going to be hard pressed to see everything great on Indie Memphis Sunday, so some triage is in order. We’re here to help.

First thing in the morning is the Hometowner Rising Filmmaker Shorts bloc (11:00 a.m., Ballet Memphis), where you can see the latest in new Memphis talent, including “Ritual” by Juliet Mace and Maddie Dean, which features perhaps the most brutal audition process ever.

Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway

The retrospective of producer/director Sara Driver’s work continues with her new documentary Boom For Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Micheal Basquiat (1:30 p.m., Studio on the Square). Driver was there in the early 80s when Basquiat was a rising star in the New York art scene, and she’s produced this look at the kid on his way to becoming a legend.

Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway (2)

The companion piece to Driver’s latest is Downtown 81 (4:00 p.m., Hattiloo Theatre). Edo Bertoglio’s documentary gives a real-time look at the art and music scene built from the ashes of 70s New York that would go on to conquer the world. Look for a cameo from Memphis punk legend Tav Falco.

Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway (4)

You can see another Memphis legend in action in William Friedkin’s 1994 Blue Chips (4:00 p.m., Studio on the Square). Penny Hardaway, then a star recruit for the Memphis Tigers, appears as a star recruit for volatile college basketball coach Pete Bell, played by Nick Nolte. It’s the current University of Memphis Tigers basketball coach’s only big screen appearance to date, until someone makes a documentary about this hometown hero’s eventful life.

Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway (5)

The Ballet Memphis venue hosts two selections of Memphis filmmakers screening out of the competition at 1:50 and 7:00 p.m., continuing the unprecedentedly awesome run of Hometowner shorts this year. There are a lot of gems to be found here, such as Clint Till’s nursing home comedy “Hangry” and Garrett Atkinson and Dalton Sides’ “Interview With A Dead Man.” To give you a taste of the good stuff, here’s Munirah Safiyah Jones’ instant classic viral hit “Fuckboy Defense 101.”

Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway (3)

At 9:00 p.m., the festivities move over to Black Lodge in Crosstown for the Music Video Party. 44 music videos from all over the world will be featured on the Lodge’s three screens, including works by Memphis groups KadyRoxz, A Weirdo From Memphis, Al Kapone, Nick Black, Uriah Mitchell, Louise Page, Joe Restivo, Jana Jana, Javi, NOTS, Mark Edgar Stuart, Jeff Hulett, Stephen Chopek, and Impala. Director and editor Laura Jean Hocking has the most videos in the festival this year, with works for John Kilzer, Bruce Newman, and this one for Sweet Knives.

Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway (6)

If experimental horror and sci fi is more your speed, check out the Hometowner After Dark Shorts (9:30 p.m., Playhouse on the Square), which features Isaac M. Erickson’s paranoid thriller “Home Video 1997.”

Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway (7)

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Music Video Monday: Memphis Ukulele Band

Happy holidays from Music Video Monday!

Mark Edgar Stuart, Kyndle McMahan, Jason Freeman, Logan Hanna, and Jon Hornyak, aka The Memphis Ukulele Band, bring you a very Bluff City Christmas. Director Kim Lloyd mixed live footage of the band playing at Lafayette’s with 8mm home movies from the Sam Phillips archive showing the mastermind of Memphis music at home with his family. Lloyd dedicates the video to Becky Phillips and Louise Layton, and we dedicate it to you, our loyal MVM readers, on this holiday season.

Music Video Monday: Memphis Ukulele Band

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Music Music Blog

Madjack Records: 20 Years of Homespun Magic

Pawtuckets

In the early ’90s Mark Edgar Stuart, then a college student on an orchestra scholarship, picked up a copy of the Flyer, read an ad, and joined a band. “I was reading the Memphis Flyer one day, and there was an ad in the classifieds, ‘bass player wanted,’” Stuart says. “I never in a million years would I have answered a bass player wanted ad, except it said ‘influences — the Band and Blue Mountain.’” Stuart, who had expected to see a list of cheesy metal bands, says his interest was piqued. The ’90s alt-country movement hadn’t really gotten off the ground yet, but Blue Mountain was making some waves in Oxford — and of course Stuart knew the Band. “I called the number” Stuart says. “I wasn’t even interested in being in a band. It’s just one of those serendipitous things.” Thus began the career of the Pawtuckets, who will reunite after 18 years this Saturday to headline the Madjack Records 20th anniversary concert at Railgarten.

The beginnings of the Pawtuckets are relevant (beyond providing proof of the merits of regularly checking out the Flyer) because the Pawtuckets, and Stuart, are inextricably tied to the history of Madjack Records.

“Around 1998, with our second record, [Rest of Our Days], we decided to start a record label,” Stuart says. “It didn’t really mean much at the time. … It was just a vehicle to put out the Pawtuckets record.” With Stuart on bass and Kevin Cubbins handling guitar and pedal steel duties, the Pawtuckets were helmed by the dual songwriting talents of guitarist Mark McKinney and pianist/guitarist Andy Grooms. Percussion was handled by a rotating cast of drummers. “McKinney had a dog named Madison, and Andy Grooms had a dog named Jackpot,” Stuart remembers. “So we said let’s just name the label Madjack after the two dogs.”

Jamie Harmon

Mark Edgar Stuart

Though Stuart confesses to being more interested, at the time, in playing bass and drinking beer than in business, he says McKinney had bigger ideas and took a more serious interest in Madjack. Before too long, Madjack had signed Cory Branan and Lucero, a band the Pawtuckets often shared bills with. Co-owner Ronny Russell joined the Madjack scene to help McKinney with the business side of things. Says Stuart, “It just sprouted wings after that.”
Joshua Black-Wilkins

Cory Branan

Eventually the Pawtuckets disbanded, but Madjack soldiered on. The label continued to grow and to represent Memphis talent, through the CD boom, after the advent of the downloadable mp3, into the age of online streaming. “We definitely had to evolve,” Russell says. And still Madjack has signed Memphis artists like James and the Ultrasounds, Susan Marshall, and Jana Misener, up to and including Stuart’s recently released third album, Mad at Love, recorded in part at Scott Bomar’s Electraphonic Recording studio in Memphis and in part with Bruce Watson of Fat Possum in Mississippi.

Susan Marshall

 Stuart, who began his Memphis music career playing upright bass in an orchestra pit, has transformed again in the past few years with the growth of an unexpected singer/songwriter career. “I just started the singer/songwriter thing about six years ago,” Stuart says. “Up until that point I was just a bass player. I played for the Pawtuckets and Cory [Branan], Alvin Youngblood Hart, and just whoever needed a bass player,” Stuart says, listing an impressive curriculum vitae. He adds two more Memphis heavy hitters: Jack Oblivian and John Paul Keith.

“If you’d told me 10 years ago I’d be doing what I’m doing now, I would have told you you were crazy,” Stuart says. “Then in about 2011, I got cancer and lost my dad and it just inspired me to try to do something different.” Stuart says he felt like he had something to write about and a more mature viewpoint to bring to his craft. Around this time, with his 2013 debut solo LP, Blues for Lou, Stuart first pinged my radar. I remember hearing “Remote Control” on the radio, and pulling over to the side of the road to listen. I imagine I’m not the only one who’s been so affected by Stuart’s powerful songwriting. Stuart will perform his solo material at the anniversary show in two sets — a full band set and a stripped-down songwriter set — as well as joining Jana Misener and Krista Wroten-Combest and the Pawtuckets on bass. 

James & the Ultrasounds

“I never thought [the Pawtuckets] would get back together, but this seemed like the perfect moment,” Stuart says of the Pawtuckets reunion show set to close out the festivities at the Madjack anniversary shindig Saturday. “We haven’t played together since 2000, and we haven’t played with the original drummer since 1998, so it has been 20 years since we played with the original lineup.” With the Pawtuckets reunion concert and brand-new and soon-to-be-released albums from several of the artists in the Madjack arsenal, the anniversary show should present a mix of old and new sounds from the Memphis label.

Madjack Records celebrates 20 years at Railgarten Saturday, October 20th, at 1 p.m. Free.

Lineup:
Wampus Cats – Outdoor Stage – 1:00 – 2:00p
Jed Zimmerman – Outdoor Stage – 2:00 – 2:45p
Corduroy & the Cottonwoods – Pong Bar – 2:45 – 3:30p
Keith Sykes – Outdoor Stage – 3:00 – 3:45p
Delta Joe Sanders – Pong Bar – 3:45 – 4:30p
Mark Edgar Stuart (solo) – Outdoor Stage – 4:00 – 4:45p
Rob Jungklas – Pong Bar – 4:45 – 5:30p
James & the Ultrasounds – Outdoor Stage – 5:00 – 5:45p
Eric & Andy – Pong Bar – 5:45 – 6:30p
Susan Marshall – Outdoor Stage – 6:00 – 6:45p
TN Boltsmokers – Pong Bar – 6:30 – 7:15p
McKenna Bray – Outdoor Stage – 6:45 – 7:30p
Mark Edgar Stuart (band) – Pong Bar – 7:45 – 8:45p
Jana & Krista of Memphis Dawls – Outdoor Stage – 8:00 – 8:45p
Cory Branan – Outdoor Stage – 9:00 – 10:00p
Pawtuckets – Pong Bar – 10:00 – 11:00p