Tag: Martin Shore

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Music Music Blog

Bobby Rush Brings It All Back Home (and Online) for Education Initiative

Bobby Rush

Nearly six years ago, when Memphis Flyer film editor Chris McCoy first wrote about the innovative new documentary Take Me to the River, few could have suspected how viable the movie would remain to this day — or the many offshoot projects that it would spawn.

One reason for such longevity was the film’s reliance on actual performers, collaborating across the generation gap. The brainchild of North Mississippi Allstars’ Cody Dickinson and producer/director Martin Shore, the film’s central premise was bringing together old school soul singers with younger hip-hop talents, with footage of the recording sessions bearing witness to the creation of new, hybrid sounds. Featuring Bobby Blue Bland with Lil P-Nut, Booker T. Jones with Al Kapone, William Bell with Snoop Dogg, and other luminaries like Mavis Staples or the Hi Rhythm Section, the film could hardly go wrong, musically.

And, on the strength of that musicality, a perennial tour revue was launched with many of the same talents hitting the road together. The ongoing interest inspired a follow-up tour focused on players from New Orleans, and an accompanying film for that as well; not to mention the Take Me to the River Educational Initiative, which has provided instructional modules to hundreds of schools, and hosted several online webinars and other events.

One such webinar will be happening tomorrow, Thursday, July 23, as a star of the first film, Mississippi bluesman and Grammy-winner Bobby Rush, performs music from his new album, Rawer Than Raw, and sits for a Q&A with moderator Martin Shore. Though the full album is not due until August 16, its first single was just released this month.

Bobby Rush Brings It All Back Home (and Online) for Education Initiative

This will be the 16th online webinar or masterclass hosted and inspired by Take Me to the River, and surely not the last. Visit their website or their Facebook page to keep up with future events, and see why their banner motto is “A Movement of Social Consciousness.”

Take Me to the River: Modern Blues Music, with GRAMMY-winning legend Bobby Rush and Award Winning Filmmaker Martin Shore takes place Thursday, Jul 23, at 7 p.m., CDT. Click here to register.

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Music Music Features

The Stax Heritage: William Bell Honored by NEA

CREDIT: David McLister

David McLister

William Bell

The legacy of Stax Records lives on. In the latest national recognition of a Stax-affiliated artist, William Bell, one of the first (and also one of the most recent) hit-makers for the soul label, was named a National Heritage Fellow last week by the National Endowment for the Arts’ Folk and Traditional Arts program.

As noted on the NEA’s website, “This is the country’s highest honor — a lifetime achievement award — for folk and traditional artists whose life’s work includes both artistic excellence and efforts to sustain cultural traditions for future generations.” Folk and Traditional Arts director Clifford Murphy has described folk art as “something learned knee-to-knee,” by way of noting that all nine recipients of the Heritage Award are exemplary mentors as well as inspired artists.

Memphis native William Bell, based in Atlanta for many years, has certainly excelled at both. As for being an inspired artist, there’s no question that his songs — either for his own records or for others’ — have helped to define soul music. From “You Don’t Miss Your Water,” a hit for Stax in 1961, to duets with Judy Clay like “Private Number,” to the genre-spanning blues hit, “Born Under a Bad Sign,” which Bell co-wrote with Booker T. Jones for Albert King, he’s proven his mettle repeatedly. The Grammy for Best Americana Album he won in 2017 only cinched his status. And yet, as we chatted recently, it was clear that his artistry was only part of the picture.

The 2014 film Take Me to the River was premised on pairing classic soul artists with contemporary rappers, as they recorded new interpretations of old-school gems at Royal Studios. Bell, for example, recut “I Forgot to Be Your Lover” with Snoop Dogg. Since then, director Martin Shore has leveraged its publicity to underwrite an educational initiative that’s becoming widely adopted. And of course, Bell participates regularly in workshops with students at the Stax Music Academy. Clearly, William Bell is thinking ahead.

Memphis Flyer: Did you have any inkling you’d be named a National Heritage Fellow?
William Bell: I wasn’t expecting it. My management, a couple weeks before the announcement, informed me that I was nominated to be selected. But I didn’t think I would win it. It was a total surprise to me. And I was just overjoyed, being in great company. It’s a high honor. I feel very blessed and humbled.

You’ve done a lot of work with the Take Me to the River Educational Initiative and the Stax Music Academy. Did that factor into your selection?
I assume that was a lot of it. We work with a lot of different groups. We work with the Berklee College of Music also, and the New York School of Music. I think a lot of that would have been part of the reason I was selected.
[pullquote-1] You’ve really thrown yourself into this kind of public service work.
I feel very fortunate to have come up and had the success that I’ve had, as far as a career, for so long. And my health is still good. So I think it’s time to give back and help the youngsters along, and teach them the importance of music itself.

So that’s what I strive to do. Give them as much wisdom and foresight as I can, into a career in music, or just being creative in whatever the arts are. Because that’s a gift for all of us.

Do you have specific plans on how to use the $25,000 grant that comes with the fellowship?
Oh yeah! It’ll be put to good use. I work with a lot of kids here in Atlanta. I have a production company and a studio, so I work with kids here. And I’m working still with the Stax Music Academy and Soulsville over there, and with the Take Me to the River Educational Initiative. So I will be putting it to good use. We’re recording and teaching kids here in Atlanta. Trying to get them started on the right path.

You recently did a webinar on Take Me to the River with Martin Shore, Boo Mitchell and former Stax president Al Bell, subtitled “A Movement of Social Consciousness.” What were some of the ideas you explored?
I’ve done about three or four of these with Martin. Just keeping busy, trying to pass the torch along. The times are amazing. I’ve lived through the upheavals and the things we’re going through now, for many years. It’s just amazing that we’re still going through the same identical things that we went through in the ’60s. When you realize that people have given their lives, protesting and dying for so many years. … We try to make people aware of how to get along, how to live together on this planet as one human species, in songs, because that’s what we’ve gotta learn to do. And we’ve got to be open and honest with our dialogue. And find some common denominator and solution to this problem of bigotry and hatred and inequality in our society.

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Film Features Film/TV

Film: Take Me To The River

It is said that all art aspires toward musicality, and no form comes closer than film. The linear flow of moving images naturally mirrors the aural motion of music. When the sound era dawned, the very first thing filmmakers did was turn their cameras on Al Jolsen and let the music do the talking.

Perhaps because of the two media’s similarities, many directors are also musicians. Such is the case with Martin Shore, a drummer from San Diego who toured with Cody Dickinson’s Hill Country Revue. Shore’s day job is as a film producer, and Take Me To The River, his directorial debut, is the latest music documentary to take on the question, “What makes Memphis music so special?” Guided by North Mississippi Allstars’ guitarist and son of legendary Memphis music producer Jim Dickinson, Shore gathers a who’s who of Memphis music legends together to make a record while the cameras roll.

The problem facing the directors of all music documentaries is how to balance the story and the music. It’s a simple problem of arithmetic: Unless you’re Martin Scorsese and HBO gives you three hours to tell George Harrison’s story, you have a limited amount of time to work with. Without the music, it’s hard to care about the story; but give the story short shrift and you lose the reason the audience is there in the first place. In Take Me To The River, Shore errs on the side of the music, and this is probably wise. The epic sweep of the Stax story has already been told in Robert Gordon’s Respect Yourself, so Shore constructs a series of vignettes from footage of the recording sessions interspersed with interviews with the musicians.

This approach makes for some magical moments. Al Kapone chats with Booker T. Jones as the legendary keyboardist drives his van around town. The Hi Records backup singers the Rhodes Sisters recall how Willie Mitchell used to exclaim “God the glory!” when they hit a note he liked. Frayser Boy, who wrote the Academy Award-winning flow for “It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp” admits to Skip Pitts, who played guitar on Isaac Hayes Academy Award-winning “Theme From Shaft,” that he has never recorded with a live band before. Pitts refuses to even look at a chart before launching into the Rufus Thomas song “Push And Pull.” The magnetic and eternally young Mavis Staples changes the song at the last minute, and then soothes her collaborators’ nerves with a few well-placed smiles and a stunning vocal performance. William Bell tells the story of David Porter writing “Hold On I’m Comin” while an amused Porter looks on. Narrator and Hustle and Flow star Terrence Howard becomes completely overwhelmed by emotion after recording with the Hodges brothers, including a frail looking Teenie. Bobby Blue Bland teaches Lil P-Nut to sing “I Got A Woman.” And finally, Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads produces a session with Snoop Dogg and the Stax Academy Band pulling together more than a dozen musicians to cut “I Forgot To Be Your Lover” in less than 30 minutes.

It’s fun to be a fly on the wall in these recording sessions held in historic spaces, and the camaraderie and respect between the players is evident. The talent, discipline, and instincts on display are amazing, because, as the indomitable Deanne Parker says, these musicians came of age in a time when “we didn’t have any technology to make you sound better.”

Take Me To The River never answers the question of why this city produces so much great music. But then again, no one else has ever been able to put a finger on what Charlie Musselwhite calls “that secret Memphis ingredient you can’t write in a book.”

Take Me To The River
Playing Friday, September 12th
The Paradiso