Tag: Memphis Soul

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Don Bryant’s You Make Me Feel is an Instant Classic

In recent years, the appeal of classic sounds from the the ’60s and ’70s has grown and grown, leaving many wondering if such retro stylistic moves are mere trend-hopping, simply another attempt to create a flavor of the month. And yet, there’s a certain rightness to the sound, an undeniable frisson when you listen to a contemporary act capture the sound and feel of that era, as if synth-pop and Pro Tools had never happened. As it turns out, this may all be because the records of that era were simply, objectively better. In an interview with Tape Op, Gabriel Roth, co-owner of the retro soul label Daptone Records, puts it like this:

I started making records because I was listening to old records and they sounded great. It’s not really an agenda or an angle as much as it is just kind of being honest with ourselves. In articles, people say, “Aren’t you just doing something that’s been done before?” or “Isn’t this some kind of retro fad?” First, we’re not making enough money for it to be called a fad, that’s for sure. We’re just trying to be tasteful and try to make the kind of records that sound good and feel good. If they sound old, that’s great — I dig old records … the truth is we dig old records, so we’re going to try to make old records.

Daptone is based in Brooklyn, but it turns out that the same philosophy holds true in another epicenter for classic soul and funk sounds: Memphis. It shouldn’t come as a great surprise, given the longevity of many legendary studios here. Some of them, like Royal Studios, still have the same gear used to make those classic sounds in the first place. Others, like Scott Bomar’s Electraphonic Recording, take pages out of the Royal playbook and stick to the same methods. 

Beyond that, one needs players who are sensitive to the classic sounds and textures and, most of all, an artist capable of delivering performances with all the soul, integrity, warmth and outright heat that was more typical in the days before sequencing and cut-and-paste production.

And all those elements come together seamlessly in Don Bryant’s latest album, You Make Me Feel (Fat Possum). It’s not surprising, given that Bryant, after a brief foray as a solo artist, was a house songwriter for Willie Mitchell’s Hi Records, eventually marrying Ann Peebles, who made his “I Can’t Stand the Rain” famous. He carried on behind the scenes for decades, until his second solo album, Don’t Give Up On Love, was released in 2017. That album, like the latest, was produced by Bomar, pairing Bryant with Bomar’s crack soul band, the Bo-Keys. It was such a powerful return to form, with all of the classic ingredients, that one might consider it Bryant’s 21st century comeback. Now, with the same team in place for a second album, we see that Bryant, now nearing his 80th year, is not slacking his pace or his taste in the least.

The album kicks off with a classic horn-driven intro conveying the majesty of a blues-based riff in a soul context, before laying down a very ’70s groove that can’t be denied. Then, track two reveals Bryant’s take on a song (that he wrote) made popular by his wife back in the day, “99 Pounds.” Also sporting some powerful horn riffs, this one captures the classic Royal sound, with the same driving Howard “Bulldog” Grimes beat that made Hi a beacon of soul back in the day.

From there, we hear plenty of mood swings, all delivered with an aching, heartfelt panache  that few singers can pull of these days. For Bryant, it seems it’s second nature. And, as tracks evoking various emotions go by, we are reminded of how eclectic Bryant’s career was even before the mid ’70s. Some tracks here, like “Your Love is Too Late” or “Cracked Up Over You,” evoke more of a ’60s soul sound, with the latter sporting echoes of the old Satellite Records (pre-Stax) track by Prince Conley, “I’m Going Home.” It’s an earlier take on R&B than the classic Ann Peebles-type, funk-infused grooves, but Bryant, who was singing and recording from the 1950s onward, can carry both with equal aplomb.

Interspersed along the way are some moving ballads, which, given the homespun strength of Bryant’s voice, may be his strong suit. (Though, to be fair, he can howl on the uptempo tracks with a unique urgency). The standout here may be “Don’t Turn Your Back on Me,” which begins with only solo guitar and Bryant’s vocals. From there, it adds layers of sound and emotion as the band falls in.

Both the ballads and the groovy numbers have one crucial element: air. The sound of a band playing mostly live in a room just may be the key to that “old record” sound. And it only makes it better when it’s a room in Memphis, where one of soul’s great architects is pouring his soul into every note. 

Don Bryant’s You Make Me Feel is an Instant Classic

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Booker T. Jones’ Heartfelt Homecoming at Crosstown Theater

CREDIT: Alex Greene

Alex Greene

Booker T. Jones and band with Carla Thomas

“My first guitar was a Sears Silvertone,” quipped Booker T. Jones during his appearance at Crosstown Theater Saturday. Looking up at the walls around him, he added, “I must have bought it right here.”

Crosstown Concourse, of course, was then the regional warehouse and retail center for Sears. He went on to recall how he quit buying records at Sears after he discovered the Satellite Record Shop, the storefront at the entrance to Stax Records in its heyday. At Sears, he noted, you couldn’t hear the record until you bought it. “But Steve Cropper was happy to play records for you.”

Such are the perks of hearing one of the progenitors of classic soul play his hometown, where, once upon a time, lightning was captured in a bottle, or at least on vinyl. And Jones seemed to revel in the memories.

But the magic of such anecdotes paled before the majesty of the music, unerringly played by Jones and his band (which included his son Ted on guitar, Melvin Brannon, Jr. [aka M-Cat Spoony] on bass, and Darian Gray on drums). Time stood still as the sounds of Jones on the Hammond organ, complete with rotating Leslie speaker, filled the auditorium with the harmonies known from so many classic records.

Though Jones’ latest album, Note by Note, surveys tunes from across his lifetime as a player and a producer, Saturday’s set was decidedly Memphis-heavy, with a heaping dose of originals by Booker T. & the M.G.’s. There was “Green Onions” in all its minimalist glory, and “Time Is Tight,” complete with its powerful coda. “Hip-Hug Her” also was honored, albeit with a twist: flowing lyrics rapped over the tune by Gray.  Alex Greene

Booker T. Jones and son Ted Jones

“And now, here’s a piece by George Gershwin,” Jones noted, before launching into the M.G.s’ arrangement of “Summertime,” as perfect a showcase of his organ mastery as any of their cuts.

But the legacy of that Silvertone guitar was also alive and well, as Jones picked up a Telecaster and sauntered to the front of the stage from time to time, delivering very personal interpretations of “Hey Joe,” a la Jimi Hendrix, “Purple Rain” by Prince, and others. At times, he sang sublime harmonies with his son.   Alex Greene

Booker T. Jones on guitar

But the most sublime harmonies of the night came when Jones called “an old friend” to the stage, none other than the Queen of Memphis Soul, Carla Thomas. Jones, noting the importance of the Thomas family, and especially Carla’s father Rufus, described seeing the movie Baby Driver and unexpectedly hearing her sing in the soundtrack. Then they launched into “B-A-B-Y,” one of Carla’s greatest Stax sides. She was in fine voice, her delivery full of her trademark sweetness and wit. It was a luminous moment, with Carla, Jones and the band breaking out into beaming smiles throughout.

It was a dramatic moment, especially because Jones typically approached each song with a solemnity that seemed to exhort the audience to listen with care. And listen they did, the entire room rapt with adoration for the grooves and the moves that helped put Memphis on the map.

Opening the set were students from the Stax Music Academy, who did right by such classics as “Soul Man,” “Soul Girl,” “When a Man Loves a Woman,” and even Peter Gabriel’s Stax-influenced “Sledgehammer.” For those who slept on it, let it be known that Memphis Soul is alive and well and kicking. 

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Reggie Young’s “Debut” and Groundbreaking Discography

Though Reggie Young was born in Missouri, history has confirmed that he is as Memphis as they come. Having begun his career in Eddie “Rockin’ Daddy” Bond’s band in the 50s, his guitar acumen helped him to advance quickly. After a spell with Johnny Horton, he became an integral part of Bill Black’s Combo, who worked out of Hi Records’ Royal Studios to produce scores of instrumental hits.

From Hi, he moved to American Studios and once again was part of a hit making machine, this time known as the Memphis Boys, American’s in house band. That’s him on Elvis’ hits of the time, and many others from the late 60s and 70s, including the distinctive electric sitar on B.J. Thomas’ “Hooked on a Feeling.” In the decades beyond, he was associated more with the Highwaymen and Waylon Jennings.

It’s worth recalling his storied history in Memphis now, after the summer release of his album Forever Young. Incredibly, this marks Young’s first album under his own name, as a band leader. Recorded in several studios in Tennessee and Alabama, but primarily at La La Land Studio in Muscle Shoals, it captures the elegant, shimmering fretwork that Young is known for. The result may not set the world on fire. Perhaps it’s polished to a fault, but fans of smooth soul/jazz will enjoy it immensely. To these ears, and aside from its sheer dexterity, it’s chiefly significant as a landmark in a career that has mostly been in the service of other artists.

But the album also drives home a point that is easily forgotten in the revolving door of musical trends: giants still walk among us. Those who have survived this long, after the white hot decades of the 50s-70s, deserve recognition. To this end, it’s significant that Young has received honors from the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Memphis chapter of The Recording Academy in just the past decade. Recognition can be a long time coming.

His role in history is doubly important because, as he lived it, he painstakingly notated every session he participated in from 1964 on. These neatly hand-penned notebooks are a music historian’s dream. And it’s now being made available to the general public, thanks to his collaboration with the Soul Detective website. One can get lost in the hundreds of sessions and releases documented on this site. An ongoing labor of love, it is a work in progress as information for each new year is added. Check it out and take a stroll through one giant’s role in American music.

Young will appear in the panel discussion, Forever Young: An Oral History with Reggie Young, at the Ponderosa Stomp Music History Conference in New Orleans, Oct. 5-6.

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Poppa Willie’s Night: Royal Studios kicks off 60th Anniversary Celebration

CREDIT: Joey Miller

Joey Miller

Royal Studios

Don Bryant

“Hey, I”m looking forward to this! It’s a full band and everything. It’s exciting to me!” Don Bryant can barely contain his mirth, contemplating another show with old-school soul masters the Bo-Keys. With a new album out this year – his first since his 1969 debut LP on Hi Records – he’s been leading the band through several performances lately. But Friday’s show, dubbed “Poppa Willie’s Night” in honor of Hi’s longtime manager and producer Willie Mitchell, will be especially notable: it marks Bryant’s return to Royal Studios, where he worked for many years as a hit songwriter for Hi. He’ll be kicking off a series of three concerts being staged to celebrate the studio’s sixtieth anniversary.

It was as a songwriter that Bryant gained his widest fame, having co-written the hit “I Can’t Stand the Rain” with Ann Peebles, who he married soon after. And it could only have been in the Hi Records milieu, bursting with talents like Al Green, Otis Clay, and others, that a singer of Bryant’s caliber would be relegated to writing rather than recording hits. And he wrote many – 154 by one account.

It started early. Having begun his career leading a vocal quartet, the Four Kings, he had a song of his, “I Got to Know,” recorded by the 5 Royales when still in his teens. “When they recorded the song it was at a studio down on North Main,” he recalls. “And I wasn’t even allowed to go in the studio, I had to sit out in the lobby. That was one of the biggest deals I could have had in those days, because they were one of the most famous groups. My group was always trying to imitate them, dance-wise and song-wise. They had a lot of popular songs.”

Poppa Willie’s Night: Royal Studios kicks off 60th Anniversary Celebration

Soon after that, the Four Kings began fronting Willie Mitchell’s band. This proved fortuitous for Bryant’s solo career. “My group had problems and broke up. So I told Willie, ‘If you would accept it, I’d like to try doing solo.’ Because singing was my thing. And he said, ‘Okay, I’ll try you out.’ And that’s how I got to sing vocals with Willie Mitchell and band.” Bryant started by contributing vocal parts to some of Mitchell’s singles for Hi.

Boo Mitchell, heir to Willie’s throne as manager of today’s Royal Studios, says “He sang on some of my dad’s instrumental recordings. My favorite is a song called ‘That Driving Beat’, which he sings. It’s a Willie Mitchell song and Don is singing it. It is badass. It’s from like ’66, I think. And there’s a song called ‘Everything’s Gonna be Alright’, and it’s a Willie Mitchell song, but Don is singing. And I only found this out after my Pop passed, ‘cos it has harmony vocals throughout the whole song, and Don said, ‘That’s Willie singing harmonies.’ I was like, ‘No Shit!’ I never knew it, man! And then, Pops wasn’t around so I couldn’t give him any shit about it, and say, ‘How come you never told me it’s you singing?’”

Poppa Willie’s Night: Royal Studios kicks off 60th Anniversary Celebration (3)

Poppa Willie’s Night: Royal Studios kicks off 60th Anniversary Celebration (2)

For Bryant, this culminated in the release of his solo album, Precious Soul, in 1969. But it wasn’t long before other singers in the Hi Records stable, like Al Green, eclipsed Bryant’s solo career. Part of this had to do with major changes for Hi Records, Royal Studios, and Willie Mitchell himself. Says Boo, “Right after Joe Cuoghi [Hi Records’ original owner] died in 1970, I think he willed his shares in Hi Records to Pops, and so it was a big transition for him, you know. And when Joe Cuoghi died, [Al Green’s] ‘I’m So Tired of Being Alone’ had been out for like three or four months and had only sold like 2000 records. And Pops knew it was a hit, so after the funeral and all that stuff was over, Pops basically went to Atlanta, New York, and Chicago, and just camped out at radio stations until they played it. And they finally played it. When they played it in Atlanta, it hit. They played it in NY, same thing, Chicago, same thing. And then it went platinum.”

This marked the beginning of many years of mega-hits from Green, who outsold even the classic hit makers from Stax Records. As Boo Mitchell recounts, “Stax was doing a lot of singles. And they weren’t really selling a lot of albums, you know what I mean? And Al Green was doing the opposite because Willie Mitchell came from the album world. Which was more I guess what white artists were doing. Because of Hi Records. And so when he started doing Al Green, he did it with that same mentality of the album. And you know there were songs that were selling the albums…like ‘How Can You Mend a Broken Heart’ was the song that sold the Let’s Stay Together album. ‘Let’s Stay Together’ as a song was awesome, but all the radio stations were playing ‘How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,’ which was like a six minute song. It was never a single. Neither was ‘Love and Happiness’.”

Bryant settled in as a songwriter for the Hi Records team. He married Ann Peebles and saw her star rise through the 1970s. But by the end of the decade there came another sea change. “You know, it was like a perfect storm of badness,” says Mitchell. “Stax posted bankruptcy in ’75, which was very impactful. Then Elvis died in ’77. Al Green went completely gospel around the same time. And then disco was coming in. So things were changing. Pops had partners and he was kind of outvoted to sell the label. Because his partners were business guys, you know. And on paper it probably looked like the right thing to do. Okay, our bread and butter Al Green is going gospel and the music is changing and we should get out. You know what I mean? It may not have been a good decision. But Pops made the great decision, when they outvoted him to sell the label, he made the decision to buy the studio. So that was a great decision on his part.”

Joey Miller

Royal Studios

This was a pivotal moment for Royal, enabling it to continue operating without Hi. And through all these years, the studio itself has barely been altered. “It hasn’t changed since 69. It’s the same,” says Mitchell. And this only enhances its appeal to current day artists. Lately, after the success of the Mark Ronson/Bruno Mars hit “Uptown Funk,” recorded at Royal, the studio’s star is on the rise again. Mitchell explains, “Me and my sister started Royal Records last year. And also Royal Radio. Which is an app, or on Google Play. And it’s housed at Royal Studios, and it streams mostly music that was made at Royal, but all kinds of different music. We have radio shows with Barbara Blue and Preston Shannon, they have a blues show. Al Kapone has a show. Frayser Boy has a show. Charles Hodges from the Hi Rhythm Section has a show.”

Joey Miller

Boo Mitchell

A distinct family vibe permeates the studio to this day. This will be apparent at Friday’s shindig. The in-studio party will feature homestyle cooking by Mitchell’s Aunt Yvonne, who has served soul food to most of the renown artists who have recorded there. And now Don Bryant, with his new record, Don’t Give Up on Love, out on Fat Possum Records, will return there to honor Royal’s rejuvenation. “It’s just like homecoming to me,” he says.

And no other living artist goes as far back into Royal’s history as Bryant. “It’s so awesome to have Don, because he was there with my dad almost from the very beginning, you know,” says Mitchell. He says having Bryant kick off this year’s anniversary celebrations “was really the only thing that made sense to me, historically. You know, it was just like, that’s the right thing to do. It’s a miracle he was available because he’s been touring all over the place. And, you know the stars lin ed up.”

Rhythm on the River (Poppa Willie’s Night), featuring Don Bryant & the Bo-Keys, takes place at Royal Studios, Fri., July 28, 7 p.m.,  $200. Future events connected to Royal Studios’ 60th Anniversary include a free show, Memphis Mojo, at the Levitt Shell on October 14th, and the grand finale, Sixty Soulful Years, featuring several international stars at the Orpheum Theatre, November 18th.

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The Masqueraders Got Talent!

The Masqueraders

Some readers may recognize the Masqueraders from their many years on Beale Street, often at the Blues City Café, sometimes playing with only a keyboard to back up their sublime harmonies. Others with a historical bent may recognize them as featured artists on rare and collectible singles from the La Beat, Wand, Bell, AGP, and Hi record labels, stretching back over 50 years. You might also know their background harmonies on albums by the Box Tops and Isaac Hayes, and even an LP of their own on Hayes’ Hot Buttered Soul imprint.

Either way, you may have done a double take if you happened to see them two weeks ago on NBC’s America’s Got Talent! It was heartening to see them playing before the huge studio audience, not to mention the millions tuning in on their televisions and devices. I’ll let you be the judge, but for once I tend to agree with the celebrity panel: they killed it!

Note that with the judges behind them all the way, they will advance to the “Judge Cuts” rounds, which begin on Tuesday, July 18th. Tune in to see how they fare, and we’ll keep reporting if and when they advance through future performances.

The Masqueraders Got Talent!