Virus Death Toll Rises By Nine
Test results reported Thursday morning showed 294 new cases of COVID-19 in Shelby County.
The county’s overall average positive rate for COVID-19 rose slightly from 7.4 percent to 7.5 percent on all test results.
The Shelby County Health Department reported 2,963 tests were given. The total number of COVID-19 cases here stands at 8,688. The death toll rose by nine and is now 176 in Shelby County.
Virus Case Count Rises by 191
Test results reported Wednesday morning showed 191 new cases of COVID-19 in Shelby County.
The county’s overall average positive rate for COVID-19 dropped slightly from 7.4 percent to 7.3 percent on all test results.
The Shelby County Health Department reported 1,342 tests were given. The total number of COVID-19 cases here stands at 8,394. The death toll rose by one and is now 166 in Shelby County.
It probably needs to be enshrined in some encyclopedia of Tennessee county history. In 2020, a year of both medical and financial crisis, a statewide infrastructure development fund that ultimately totaled $215 million was recast by the General Assembly as a no-strings-attached emergency aid bill to be distributed to all of Tennessee’s cities and counties.
In the process, and this should take a central place in the encyclopedia, one county, and only one, Shelby County, saw the amount of its aid reduced from the first formulation of the aid fund until final distribution.
That was Shelby County, originally slated to receive $7.7 million — a sum proportionate to its population size, largest among the 95 Tennessee counties. But in the process of final allocation — which included budget reviews by the Senate, the House, and, ultimately, a joint House-Senate conference committee, Shelby’s amount was reduced from $7.7 million by $2.7 million, all the way down to $5 million. It was the only county so reduced.
For purpose of comparison, Knox County, whose population is 456,185 compared to Shelby County’s 937,005, began the process with an allotment from the fund of $4,108,218 but saw its final amount boosted to $5,151,760, outdrawing larger Shelby.
To be sure, the city of Memphis, with a population of 650,618, drew a separate allocation of $10 million. Meanwhile, the city of Knoxville (pop: 187,500) took home $4,167,836. In that case, the emergency-aid appropriations seem proportionate to the size of each city’s population.
Again, though, by any index of proportionality, Shelby County has undeniably gotten short shrift. And it bears repeating, too, that it was the only one of Tennessee’s five counties to withstand a reduction in its aid from beginning to end of the allocation process.
What gives? (Or perhaps: doesn’t give?)
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
New Virus Case Count Drops
Test results reported Monday showed 109 new cases of COVID-19 in Shelby County, a significant drop from the 210 new cases repotted Sunday.
The county’s overall average positive rate for COVID-19 dropped slightly from 7.4 percent to 7.3 percent on all test results.
The Shelby County Health Department reported 2,012 tests were given Monday. The total number of COVID-19 cases here stands at 8,203. The death toll rose by two on Monday and is now 166 in Shelby County.
Justin Fox Burks
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris said he is prepared to tighten virus restrictions on the economy and gatherings but it can be avoided “if everyone will do their part.”
Harris said in a Monday tweet that he was asked to return to Phase I of the Back to Business plan, the plan to reopen the economies of Shelby County and its cities. The request comes after days of record-high number of new cases throughout the county.
The request came from Shelby County Commissioner Tami Sawyer. She said in a Monday letter to Harris, Shelby County Health Officer Dr. Bruce Randolph, and Shelby County Health Department Director Dr. Alisa Haushalter that she was concerned about the rising numbers and requested a move back to Phase I or a modified Phase II.
I have officially requested Mayor Lee Harris & the @ShelbyTNHealth make a decision to return to Phase 1 and/or modify Phase 2 to include stronger protections for our health. Businesses should be able to operate but we need to stop the spread of COVID19 in Shelby County. pic.twitter.com/wUyc3PbWRp
— Tami Sawyer (@tamisawyer) June 22, 2020
COVID-19: Harris Prepared to Move Back to Phase I, But It Can Be Avoided (2)
“It is no secret that I felt we entered Phase II too soon and was even more concerned about us entering Phase III,” Sawyer said in the letter. “It feels the transitions are prompted by the ‘Back to Business’ model and not the overall capacity of our county to be safe from COVID-19.
“Back to Business should not be at the expense of people’s health. The numbers we saw this weekend, from record new cases to hospitalizations, say to me that we have moved too fast.”
The county and its municipalities headed into Phase II of Back to Business on May 18th. A week before that, the county’s overall positivity rate was at it lowest, 4.5 percent. That average grew in the four weeks following: 5.6 percent, 6.8 percent, 7.8 percent, to 9.1 percent. For this, and other reasons, county officials have stalled twice on Phase III, the plan that would further reopen the area’s economy.
Harris addressed all of this and Sawyer’s request in his tweet Monday:
We have received a request to consider returning to Phase 1. Please see below for my statement. pic.twitter.com/eLTplRS5YC
— Mayor Lee Harris (@MayorLeeHarris) June 22, 2020
COVID-19: Harris Prepared to Move Back to Phase I, But It Can Be Avoided
“There is probably no county in Tennessee (or, perhaps, our entire region) that has moved as slowly and as carefully as Memphis and Shelby County, and we are prepared to do even more,” Harris said. “If necessary, we are prepared to even return to Phase I.
“However, if everyone will continue to do their part to slow the spread of COVID-19, we can avoid returning to Phase I. We are all in this together.”
In a later tweet about her request, Sawyer said, “a lawsuit from the people who got COVID-19 because the county didn’t take precaution? That would definitely be reasonable.”
New Virus Cases Rise by 210
Test results reported Sunday showed 210 new cases of COVID-19 in Shelby County. The county’s overall average positive rate for COVID-19 is 7.4 percent on all test results.
The Shelby County Health Department reported 2,097 tests were given Sunday. The total number of COVID-19 cases here stands at 8,094. The death toll is now 164 in Shelby County.
It felt almost perfect, in that “too-good-to-be-true” territory the most passionate fans have grown to fear. On November 5th, 2019 at FedExForum, the Memphis Tigers opened the most anticipated basketball season in over a decade with a drubbing of the South Carolina State Bulldogs. James Wiseman — the crown jewel in coach Penny Hardaway’s top-ranked recruiting class — scored 28 points and pulled down 11 rebounds in merely 22 minutes on the court.
But Wiseman’s squad wasn’t the only Top-20 team in town. Three days earlier, with ESPN’s College GameDay crew placing the Tiger football program on the brightest stage it had ever seen — has Beale Street ever been so packed? the Liberty Bowl so truly blue? — Memphis upset SMU thanks to a record-setting night by Antonio Gibson (386 all-purpose yards!).
Larry Kuzniewski
Precious Achiuwa, AAC Player of the Year
The Memphis Grizzlies appeared to have the NBA’s most dynamic rookie when Ja Morant put up 30 points and nine assists in his third game. And it wasn’t just what we saw unfolding as Thanksgiving approached; the horizon appeared glowing. Tim Howard — the Tim Howard, the most recognizable living American soccer star — would take an active ownership role with 901 FC, the local USL Championship outfit. And it appeared one of baseball’s top prospects — St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Dylan Carlson — was on his way to AutoZone Park for some fine-tuning with the Triple-A Redbirds.
But there’s a reason fans fear “almost perfect.” Before his second game, Wiseman learned he’d been declared ineligible by the NCAA for having received moving expenses from his future college coach (Hardaway) in 2017. He played two more games as the university appealed the decision, but upon finally accepting the suspension, Wiseman would never wear blue and gray again.
The Tiger football team won the program’s first American Athletic Conference championship — right here at the Liberty Bowl — on December 7th, only to see beloved coach Mike Norvell depart for Florida State the next day. (Ryan Silverfield enjoyed a head-coaching debut unlike any other, leading the Tigers against Penn State in the Cotton Bowl.)
Then it all stopped. All of it. The Tigers and Grizzlies played a winter of basketball, Morant running away in the Rookie of the Year race and the Tigers’ second-best freshman (Precious Achiuwa) earning AAC Player of the Year honors. But Grizzly playoff prospects and a chance for the 21-10 Tigers to reach the NCAA’s “Big Dance” via the AAC tournament hit the invisible wall — less forgiving than brick-and-mortar — we’ll remember as the coronavirus pandemic.
At least Memphis basketball fans saw something. Both of AutoZone Park’s tenants — the Redbirds and 901 FC — remained dormant as March turned to April, then April to May and June. An operation that relies almost entirely on the ticket-buying public found itself an oversized shell — all that brick-and-mortar — unable to entertain, to create the warm-weather buzz Bluff City fans had come to crave…and take for granted.
The announcement in June that the Southern Heritage Classic would not be played this year seemed especially cruel. The football game between Jackson State and Tennessee State — a September clash at the Liberty Bowl since 1990 — represented not just African-American sports, but African-American enterprise, culture, and outreach, its accompanying parade through Orange Mound among this city’s most distinctive gatherings…and impossible during a pandemic.
That almost-perfect feeling disappeared in such devastating fashion, and with losses that compounded just as positive rates among COVID-19 testing fluctuated uncomfortably high. Instead of micro-analyzing Hardaway’s third recruiting class, many of us were counting masks among those we saw in public. Who is taking safety guidelines seriously, and who has simply had enough of pandemic protocol? Can a community live without sports? Certainly. Is it the kind of life we’ll have to identify as that fabled “new normal?” Having witnessed the Belmont Stakes run with nary a fan in the stands, we can only hope not.
Next week: As spring turned to summer, sports remained dormant, but crowds again gathered, and for a much bigger cause.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Dr. Manhattan in HBO’s Watchmen limited series.
Alan Moore named his 1986 comic Watchmen after a quote from the Roman poet Juvenal: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? “Who watches the watchmen?”
When Moore and artist David Gibbons reworked some moribund characters from the defunct Charlton comics, the Reagan ’80s were in full swing in America, and Margaret Thatcher was imposing austerity in the artists’ native Britain. Three years earlier, when Moore was first pitching the story to DC, the NATO Able Archer 83 military exercise had almost led to a full-on nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The work, which would later be called “the moment comics grew up,” was suffused with apocalyptic fear and profound disillusionment. The institutions we had created to protect us were out of control and threatening to destroy human civilization. Moore’s thesis, that the comic book superheroes we loved were secretly fascist thugs, was echoed in the other big comic book hit of 1986, Frank Miller’s Batman reboot The Dark Knight Returns. But Miller celebrated violent vigilantism because it made for good comic images. Watchmen was Moore’s warning about a fascist future.
The Seventh Kavalry
When HBO tapped producer Damon Lindelof to create a sequel series to Watchmen, he cast around for a contemporary issue that would resonate as deeply as the reckless rush to nuclear war had in 1986. Moore was out of the picture — he has not endorsed any adaptation of his work since the disasters that were the The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen films. Besides, Watchmen was explicitly a comic about comics. Even though the 2009 Zack Snyder adaptation of Watchmen was successful when it strove to faithfully reproduce scenes from the comics (I cried when Dr. Manhattan went into exile on Mars), it was still blasphemy as far as Moore was concerned.
What Lindelof came up with was the persistence of racism as an organizing principle of American society. Now, nine months after its debut on HBO, Lindelof looks prescient. The Watchmen series is so much better than we ever could have hoped for. And now, for Juneteenth, HBO has made the series available for free outside their paywall.
Regina King as Sister Night
Like the original, this Watchmen features a sprawling cast of characters. The most vibrant and poignant of the bunch is Sister Night (Regina King), aka Angela Abar, a former officer in the Tulsa police department who now fights crime as a costumed vigilante. The Commissioner Gordon to her Batman is Judd Crawford (Don Johnson), the Tulsa chief of police whose suspicious suicide by hanging sets off an investigation that will expose both a deep-seated white supremacist movement in government and a plot to regain the power that created quantum superhero Dr. Manhattan (played in different stages of life by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Zak Rothera-Oxley, and Darrell Snedeger).
Tim Blake Nelson as Looking Glass and Regina King as Sister Night
What’s most eerie about watching Lindelof’s Watchmen in 2020 is the police department’s use of masks. After the events of Watchmen (the graphic novel and the film adaptation), the superheroes who had been outlaws were accepted as adjuncts of the police.
Universal masking was adapted after an incident in which the racist terrorists The Seventh Kavalry, inspired by the posthumous writings of the Watchman Rorschach, had murdered police officers in their homes. Now that masks are de rigueur in the real world, it connects the fiction to our own apocalyptic atmosphere.
But the series’ critique of race relations in America is what really resonates in the long, hot summer of 2020. Allies emerge in unexpected places, and the villains are hiding in plain sight. Opening the series with a recreation of the Tulsa Massacre of 1921, in which white supremacist gangs destroyed an affluent black neighborhood, turned out to be a stroke of genius.
Since comic book superhero narratives have become the dominant onscreen form in the last decade, it’s a relief to see something as meaty and timely as this. I’ll fully admit that I was extremely skeptical of the endeavor — let’s just say I have not been a fan of Lindelof’s previous work — but this Watchmen is a most worthy successor to Moore’s masterpiece.
HBO’s Watchmen Series is Chillingly Relevant
Watchmen is being re-broadcast on HBO this weekend in its entirety. It is also available on HBO Max streaming service.
This Saturday, Memphis garage-rock gurus Reigning Sound will perform live (streamed to your computer or device via Twitch and Facebook Live) from the stage of B-Side, presented by Goner Records, to celebrate the upcoming Merge Records rerelease of the band’s 2005 album Home for Orphans.
The Home for Orphans reissue isn’t Reigning Sound’s first association with Merge. Their excellent 2014 LP Shattered was released on Merge Records, as was last year’s reissue of Abdication … for Your Love. “Featuring,” Merge’s website boasts, “the original Memphis lineup of singer-guitarist [Greg] Cartwright, bassist Jeremy Scott, drummer Greg Roberson, and [Flyer Music Editor] organist Alex Greene, Home for Orphans presents Reigning Sound’s classic sonic blueprint.”
Home for Orphans
That the record is made up of outtakes, demos, and rarities makes it feel like a glimpse of something elusive and wild. The songs are moody and raw, oozing atmosphere and warbling organ chords. “It was a record almost by accident,” says bassist Jeremy Scott. “We had a whole third record pretty much ready to go when Alex left. (He had a youngun’ to raise, and probably didn’t need to hang with us heathens so much anyway.) The more rockin’ material was lifted for what became Too Much Guitar, along with some newer things we developed as a trio; the moodier stuff, which contains some of Greg’s best songs in my opinion, formed the basis of this record.”
Scott adds, “Great to see it available again, in a jacket which features not one but two pictures of us! We were ugly then and we’re uglier now!”
“Love is a funny thing,” Cartwright sings over a bed of acoustic guitars, slide, and burbling bass. “Don’t know it’s real till it’s caused you pain.” The drums are unobtrusive for most of the song — a light tok! on the snare, shimmery cymbals and hi-hat to keep the beat — until the fills come in, big and dramatic as anything drummer Howard Wyeth played on Bob Dylan’s Desire.
Reigning Sound: (left to right) Jeremy Scott, Greg Cartwright, Greg Roberson, and Alex Greene
“If Christmas Can’t Bring You Home” is plaintive. Shakers and whining electric guitars that riff off of the melody of “Joy to the World” are almost too maudlin, but in the end, it works wonderfully, the sound of a lonely, drunken holiday distilled. And of course, the woeful organ chords work wonders as well. “Medication Blues #1” swirls with Byrds-like chiming guitars and an uptempo drum shuffle. The format for many of the songs — acoustic guitars, swirling organs, electric guitars played crisp and clean, bass and drums high in the mix, and harmonies galore — represents a particular sound Memphis seems to do so well in any genre, be it garage, soul, or power-pop.
“The out of town shows we did in March demonstrated that we can still bring it,” Scott says, obviously amped about the upcoming full-band performance. (Scott, like many musicians in the age of coronavirus, has streamed solo performances from his couch.) “I’m looking forward to having another opportunity to play with these guys, who are like brothers two through four to me.”
The folks at Goner have this to say about Goner TV: “We are all bummed out and we can’t get out and see a show. See our friends. Hang out and have some laughs late into the night in a dark dingy bar. Remember those days? So we wanted to do something about it. Goner TV is our attempt to bring the good times to you.”
Goner Presents: Reigning Sound Live From B-Side Saturday, June 20th, at 8 p.m. Catch it on Facebook Live or on the Goner Twitch channel: twitch.tv/gonerrecords.