Tag: Memphis

Standing at the Crossroads

Post author By Preston Lauterbach
Post date September 13, 2007

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

A longtime Memphis music insider calls the history of the Memphis and Shelby County Music Commission “labyrinthine.” The organization has existed under different names. It has changed agendas. The doors to the presidency and board of directors seem to revolve at a dizzying pace.

Public perception — insofar as Internet message boards and local-interest blogs can gauge — is that the commission has absorbed ample public funds and produced nothing enduring in return. Plenty of confusion remains, though, about what the commission is actually empowered and financed to do.

When asked how much money the music commission has cost, and to what results, Shelby County finance officer Jim Huntsiger reacts this way:

“That’s a good question,” he says.

Huntsiger explains that the county provided an annual grant in the $150,000 range for operating costs beginning in 2000 but that a scheduled, gradual reduction brought the county government funding to zero as of fiscal year 2008. The city continues to fund the jointly governed organization to the tune of $125,000 annually, while the county’s patience seems to have expired.

Last month, the Shelby County Board of Commissioners voted down a resolution to transfer $50,000 to the music commission for the purpose — in classic music-commission-style vagueness — of “enhancing the music industry.”

With government support waning and a suspicious public looking on, the embattled Memphis and Shelby County Music Commission is at a crossroads.

The music commission and the Memphis Music Foundation, the commission’s fund-raising arm since 2003, split earlier this year. The commission then voted former Motown Records producer Ralph Sutton — who came to the city three years ago to run House of Blues Studio D — its new chairman of the board.

Sutton hopes to adjust the music commission’s focus to the new rules of the music industry, empowering artists with business training and stressing independence — something his experience suits him for. “The most intriguing part of the challenge would be to put what I’ve learned from people like [Motown Records founder] Berry Gordy to work here,” he says.

Standing outside the House of Blues Studio D off Lamar Avenue, Sutton says he is so enamored of his new surroundings that he sometimes records the sounds of the Memphis night. Though Sutton has engineered and produced records by Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and other giants of the Motown sound, the chorus of cicadas that fills the air after dark in Memphis is new music to the Los Angeles native.

Though the county funds for the music commission have dried up, the city’s share is enough to pay a new executive director. Sutton will participate in that search — the executive director is jointly appointed by the city and county mayors, but the commission board will have some input in the decision — and some insiders say that he needs to look no further than the nearest mirror for the best candidate.

Sutton is game. When asked how he’d do things differently from former commission president Rey Flemings — whose self-interested leadership coupled with the organization’s inertia during his tenure symbolize the commission’s failures in the public mind — Sutton says, “I’ve already been validated.”

Sutton says that certain of the commission’s struggles are attributable to unqualified leadership, mistakes the commission should have learned from. “The press and the public have a right to wonder what the commission was doing,” Sutton says. “The [next] executive director would need to be a true music professional. The city has tried to use a marketing person and a fireman. It has to be someone who has industry connections and the understanding of the creativity and human characteristics of a musician, record producer, or songwriter. It’s important that we select someone who has a running knowledge of the industry.”

While Flemings left the commission for greener financial pastures, Sutton says he’s already been there. “I’m human, and I believe that we’re all striving toward more recognition and better opportunity. I could always go work for Lionel [Richie] or Stevie [Wonder]. But I don’t really have an interest in that. I would prefer to participate in the rebirth of something here.”

It’s simple enough for Sutton to claim greater commitment to the city than Flemings showed, but he views the tasks ahead of the commission with a pragmatism missing from Flemings’ plans, which included bringing the MTV Video Music Awards to Memphis.

“We’re not attractive to major companies right now,” Sutton says. “Sony’s not thinking about coming down here. Universal’s not going to open an office here until we can show them that we have some infrastructure. Industry professionals as a whole need to know this information.”

The rebirth Sutton envisions will require planning for sustained growth and ground-up music industry development built around knowledgeable artists. Sutton says that business-savvy artists enjoy a heightened opportunity to succeed in the independent-driven digital music age.

“People can’t expect us to be able to start doing things like an established city like Nashville,” explains Sutton. “The realistic thing is to recognize that we have things to learn. We need to start industry programs for musicians here. What is a publishing-rights organization [PRO]? What’s the difference between a PRO and a publishing company? They need to know those types of things to know how to make a living. We don’t know who’s going to be a star, but we can help people make a living. We’re in a digital world now, and we have to start with the little things and work our way up.”

Justin Fox Burks

Left: Dean Deyo; Right: Ralph Sutton

Rather than aiming for a one-time big splash like the MTV awards, Sutton defines the role of the new music commission as empowering artists through high-level industry connections.

“ASCAP and BMI would be down here in a heartbeat,” he says. “They wouldn’t open offices, but they’d send high-ranking people to do seminars and Q&A’s. A digital music company like iTunes would love to come and help us with the process of getting our songs on there. We need to learn from Concord and gain from the publicity they’re bringing Stax. They’re the biggest independent record label in the world, and they’re masters of repackaging. They’re showing us how we can do this.”

In the meantime, the commission can still help musicians out in a pinch. They’ve used money from the unused executive director’s salary to subsidize local events like Goner Fest and organizations such as the Center for Southern Folklore. They also administer a health-care program for 15 qualifying music professionals, and they could accommodate more.

Finally, Sutton stresses visibility and accountability for the commission in the local music community. Monthly music-commission meetings take place at the Central Library. “If you’ve got a complaint, come on and say it. If I can’t answer it, then it’s something we’ll have to work on. We need to put ourselves in a position where the musicians can come and access the commission,” he says.

When asked how the commission will be financed after losing its fund-raising apparatus, Sutton says, “That’s going to be another thing. We’ve got to get some real sponsors.”

The organizations — the music commission and the Memphis Music Foundation — have begun to coexist, according to their leaders. “We’re at the front end of getting our relationship back,” Sutton says. “There was some confusion on both sides, but with Dean Deyo’s leadership at the music foundation, it’s getting better. They’re into promoting Memphis music, fostering new artists, and preserving the music. So, if they can do those things, we’re always going to get along.”

“We expect to support things they do, and we expect them to support things we do,” Deyo says.

The Memphis Music Foundation, launched in 2003 as the fund-raising arm of the music commission, split from the commission shortly after Deyo assumed leadership on January 1st. The foundation represents the influence of Memphis Tomorrow, a behind-the-scenes coalition of corporate leaders from the city’s largest companies that encourages economic development here. In 2002, following a series of economic development surveys, the organization targeted three industries as crucial to economic growth in Memphis: logistics and distribution, biotechnology, and music. Memphis Tomorrow formed committees within its membership, focusing on each of the target industries. Phil Trenary, CEO of Pinnacle Airlines, for example, chairs the music-industry development committee.

The foundation came out of the need for fund-raising beyond the $300,000 or so initially approved from the city-county arrangement. Memphis Tomorrow initiated a strategic plan for the music commission, which, in light of personnel changes and the commission/foundation divorce, is the only document available to gauge the organizations’ effectiveness over time.

The plan was based in part on an extensive survey of local music-industry professionals called “Get Loud.” The programs outlined in the plan were to have provided tasks for the commission and foundation. It shows the challenges facing the industry at the time — the lack of professional development opportunities here was cited as the chief obstacle to overall industry growth — as well as a series of proposed solutions, including a Memphis music festival that featured Memphis acts from across generations and genres.

A proposed Sam Phillips Independent Music Center hung its fate on a network of music-industry service “providers” who would donate their time to the center and assist Memphis music professionals. No such providers were identified in the plan, and their recruitment doesn’t seem to have been accounted for.

A proposed Memphis Music Venture Fund never grew beyond the idea that it would include $10 million in assets to invest in worthy local music businesses. Neither did a “music business district” or a Memphis counterpart to the pioneering live-music TV program Austin City Limits. A Memphis “Grand Ole Opry”-style venue, featuring perfect acoustics and state-of-the-art technical infrastructure, located at the corner of Beale and Third, obviously failed to materialize. The plan called for “sponsorships from major electronics manufacturers,” not otherwise identified, to fund the venue.

The strategic plan’s priority schedule rated developing the now-defunct music commission Web site a 10, for highest priority. Likewise, a “global concert event,” a Memphis Music Conference, and something called the “digital distribution initiative” were given top-priority ratings without ever materializing.

Flemings, who was hired in 2003, made an annual salary of $129,950, not including benefits, as president of the combined music commission/foundation. His hiring, insiders say, reflected the will of Memphis Tomorrow and alienated music-oriented members of the commission/foundation board to please the business-minded members. The rift foreshadowed this year’s amicable divorce of the music commission and music foundation, which both organizations deem as mutually beneficial.

The Memphis Music Foundation can now operate privately to promote economic development in the Memphis music industry. “We create talent. It’s just that when we create talent, their attorney is in Atlanta, their studio is in Nashville, and their publicist is in L.A. We want those people here in Memphis,” Deyo says.

While the music commission focuses on connecting local artists to outside resources, the foundation will concentrate on bringing music business to Memphis. “We’re not a foundation to hand out money,” Deyo says. “But if there are things we can do to help with our resources, we’d like to do what we can to help.”

The foundation plans to move into new offices at 431 South Main on October 1st. Deyo says his group can function more effectively without having its books open, like the music commission must do as a public entity.

“If you’re a public body, everything you do can be discussed in public,” Deyo says. “You have to give information to anyone anytime they want it. When you’re negotiating a deal and there’s another city competing for that deal, we don’t want them to know what our deal is.”

Deyo has entered negotiations to bring an independent recording studio to Memphis. He bargains for tax breaks for the prospective business and entices them with other incentives. “We started out against six different cities, and now it’s down to us and New Orleans. I don’t want New Orleans to know what I’m offering, and that’s hard to do when you’re a public body,” Deyo explains.

The potential studio relocation is precisely the sort of project the foundation will focus on in its new incarnation. “Our goal is economic development,” explains Deyo. “In 1973, the music industry in Memphis was the third-largest employer. There were all these different pieces of it that we lost. We want to regain that.”

Deyo says that the foundation will open a musician resource center at its South Main facility to provide up and coming musicians with “knowledge, networks, and connections,” he says. “We’re not going to start a record label. We’re not going to do anything but provide them with a place where they develop a marketing brochure for a band, talk about legal needs, or ask any question about the music business. We’ll provide answers. We won’t tell them what to do, but we’re going to give musicians access to the knowledge of how other bands who have made it have done it.”

In order to establish the music business in Memphis, the foundation must first establish the legitimacy of music and the opportunity it represents to the business community at-large.

“Memphis music is well thought of outside Memphis,” Deyo says. “I couldn’t raise 50 bucks in Memphis today to fund a music business. The business community considers it risky and not for any particular reason. It’s just kind of an attitude. My background with Time Warner helped me build relationships with CEOs of companies here. Part of my job is to rebuild the credibility of the music industry in the eyes of the business community.

“There is a lot to do. I don’t know if we will ever get back to where we were in 1973. That’s pretty heady stuff. I see it as something we don’t have to build from scratch or reconfigure our education system for,” Deyo says. “It can be part of the city’s economic engine and provide jobs.”

Tags Memphis, Memphis Music Foundation, Music, Music Commission, Ralph Sutton

News

Blue Ridge Paper Products Moving Headquarters to Memphis

Post author By John Branston
Post date August 28, 2007

Blue Ridge Paper Products is moving its headquarters to Memphis from North Carolina. From the the Asheville Citizen-Times:

One of Western North Carolina’s largest employers is moving its home office to Memphis and will lose its top executive and financial officer, according to a company memo to workers.

Richard Lozyniak, Blue Ridge Paper Products chief executive, will step down at the end of the week after declining to follow the company to Tennessee, according to an internal memo Friday.
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John Wadsworth, chief financial officer, is staying on for an undisclosed amount of time to help with the transition but will also leave.

The memo does not mention job changes beyond the management level.

Mark Clasby, director of the Haywood County Economic Development Commission, said the headquarters move won’t hurt the local economy because “there’s not that many people involved in the home office.”

New Zealand-based Rank Group bought Blue Ridge for $338 million in a deal that closed July 31.

The company owns Evergreen Packaging in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and plans to merge the two businesses into a new company called Evergreen Packaging Group, which will be headquartered in Memphis.

Evergreen Packaging has 1,150 workers, according to the Pine Bluff Chamber of Commerce. Blue Ridge employs about 1,300 people at its Canton mill and a finishing plant in Waynesville.

Clasby said it’s too early to tell what the merger will mean for local jobs.

“In any merger there is always consolidation,” he said. “We really don’t know at this point.”

A to Z

Post author By John Branston
Post date August 23, 2007

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Hungry? Sure, you could stay in and make something, but why should you when Memphis and its surrounding areas are filled with great restaurants serving up just the thing to sate your appetite?

This dining guide — organized by neighborhood, from A to Z — should point you in the right direction, whether you’re hankering for hibachi in Hickory Hill, craving pizza in Cooper-Young, or dying for something sweet downtown. Making a decision at this fork in the road has never been easier.

BARTLETT

ABUELO’S MEXICAN FOOD EMBASSY—Serves quesadillas, carne asada, and chili rellenos, along with beef tenderloin, jumbo shrimp, and several seafood entrées. 8274 U.S. 64. 672-0769. L, D, FB, #, $-$$

GRIDLEY’S—Offers barbecued ribs, pork plate, chicken, and smoked turkey; also lunch specials. Closed Tuesday. 6842 Stage Rd. 377-8055. L, D, #, $-$$, MRA

LA PLAYITA MEXICANA—Specializes in seafood, including red snapper and oysters; also offers steaks and a variety of Hispanic entrées. 6194 Macon. 377-0181. L, D, FB, #, $-$$

SAITO STEAKHOUSE—Japanese cuisine cooked at your table; sushi bar has 100 offerings. Closed for lunch Saturday. 6600 Stage, Ste. 101. 373-1957. L, D, FB, #, $$

SIDE PORCH STEAK HOUSE—In addition to steak, the menu includes chicken, pork chops, and fish entrées; homemade rolls are a specialty. Closed Sunday and Monday. 5689 Stage. 377-2484. D, FB, #, $-$$

WILLIE MOFFATT’S—Large menu includes everything from bacon-wrapped filet mignon and a rum-marinated chargrilled chicken sandwich to shrimp baskets and a Tequila lime salad. 2779 Old Whitten. 386-2710. L, D, FB, $

CHICKASAW GARDENS/UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS

NEW TO CHICKASAW GARDENS/UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS

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EL PUERTO — Six months after the opening of El Puerto, customers’ reactions are positive. “They love the food. They love the way our waiters treat them and serve them with a smile,” says manager Alex Rojas. “Our customers say, ‘Oh, we’re going to tell our friends about this place and the food here.'” The Mexican restaurant offers lots of choices. “Our fajitas are the most popular item,” Rojas says. “We also have steak, shrimp, and fish tacos. We have a big menu to choose from, and we have great margaritas.” An additional bonus: live Spanish music from 8 to 11:30 p.m. on Saturdays.
775 S. Highland. 452-8019. L, D, $

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A-TAN—Mandarin entrées are a chicken-pork-beef-shrimp combo and a seafood-vegetable stir-fry; also features a sushi bar. 3445 Poplar, Ste. 17, University Center. 452-4477. L, D, FB, #, $-$$

ANNE’S BAKERY & CAFE—Serves sandwiches, soups, salads, pastries, and desserts. Memphis Pink Palace Museum, 3050 Central. 320-6407. B, L, #, $, MRA

BROTHER JUNIPER’S—Offers salads, soups, sandwiches, and homemade breads, pastries, and desserts; also, breakfast on weekends. Closed Monday. 3519 Walker. 324-0144, B, L, #, $, MRA

CRUMPETS—British pub fare includes vegetable tarts, Cornish pasties, rosemary chicken salad, burgers, and Chef’s Sampler. Tea served 2-3:30 p.m. Closed Sunday-Monday. 262 S. Highland. 324-2221. L, Wi, #, $

EL CHICO—This mainstay in University Center dishes out fajitas, chimichangas, fried ice cream, and other Tex-Mex fare. Enchilada specials on Wednesdays. 3491 Poplar. 323-9609. L, D, FB, #, $

ELFO’S—Changing luncheon menu features such specialties as pink-peppercorn salmon with orange sauce and eggplant Napoleon, along with soups, sandwiches, salads, and homemade desserts. Closed Sunday. 3092 Poplar. 888-0402. L, FB, #, $, MRA

LA BAGUETTE—Offering soups, quiche, sandwiches (including paninis), and pastries in a French-style setting. 3088 Poplar. 458-0900. B (bakery), L, #, $, MRA

MEDALLION— Offers steaks, seafood, chicken, and pasta entrées; buffets at both lunch and dinner. 3700 Central, Holiday Inn (Kemmons Wilson School of Hospitality). 678-8200. B, L, D (except Sunday), FB, #, $-$$, MRA

PETE & SAM’S—Serving Memphis for more than 50 years; offers steaks, seafood, and traditional Italian dishes. 3886 Park. 458-0694. D, Br, # (except bathrooms), $-$$

RONNIE GRISANTI AND SONS—Specializes in handmade Tuscan cuisine; menu items include ravioli and baked manicotti, along with seafood and steaks. Closed Sunday. 2855 Poplar. 323-0007. D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

WOMAN’S EXCHANGE TEA ROOM—Chicken-salad plate, beef tenderloin, soups-and-sandwiches, and vegetable plates are specialties; adjacent shop features handmade items. Closed Saturday and Sunday. 88 Racine. 327-5681. L, #, $

CITYWIDE

ASIAN PALACE—Chinese fare is the specialty, including shrimp with walnuts and oysters, Peking-style pork and duck; also crab, lobster, and vegetarian items. 2920 Covington Pike. 388-3883; 4978 Park Ave. (mainly takeout). 761-7888. L, D, Br, Wi, $

BANGKOK ALLEY—Thai cuisine includes noodle and curry dishes, as well as duck, catfish, and seafood entrées. Closed for lunch Saturday and all day Sunday, Cordova location. 830 N. Germantown Parkway (Cordova). 753-7250. 2150 W. Poplar at Houston Levee (Collierville). 854-8748. L, D, Br, Wi, #, $-$$, MRA

BLUE COAST BURRITO—Build-your-own burritos with an array of steak, fish, chicken, and fresh veggies. Menu also includes fish tacos and made-to-order salads. 3546 Walker. 323-3730; The Avenue at Carriage Crossing (Collierville). 850-TACO. L, D, $

BOL A PASTA—Serves shrimp scampi, baked pastas, steaks, and fresh seafood. 2200 N. Germantown Parkway. 384-7988; 3160 Village Shops Dr. 757-5609. L, D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

BONEFISH GRILL—Two specialties are pistachio-parmesan-crusted rainbow trout and tenderloin portobello piccata; steak and pork also served. 1250 N. Germantown Parkway (Cordova). 753-2220; The Avenue at Carriage Crossing (Collierville). 854-5822. L (Saturday-Sunday, Collierville), D, FB, #, $-$$

BUCKLEY’S FINE FILET GRILL—Specializes in steaks such as eight-ounce center-cut filets but also offers grilled chicken, seafood, and pasta. 5355 Poplar. 683-4538; 714 N. Germantown Parkway (Cordova). 756-1639. Buckley’s Lunch Box, 919 S. Yates (lunch Monday-Friday and takeout only). 682-0570. L (Yates only), D (not Yates), FB (beer and wine only at Yates), #, $-$$, MRA

THE BUTCHER SHOP—Serves steaks ranging from 8-oz. filets to a 30-oz. porterhouse; also chicken, pork chops, fresh seafood. 101 S. Front. 521-0856; 107 S. Germantown Rd. 757-4244. L (Friday only, S. Germantown Rd.), D, FB, #, $-$$$, MRA

CARRABBA’S ITALIAN GRILL—Serves chicken marsala, calamari, various pastas, and other “old-world” Italian entrées. 5110 Poplar. 685-9900; The Avenue at Carriage Crossing. 854-0200. L (Saturday-Sunday, Collierville; Sunday, Poplar), D, FB, #, $-$$

CENTRAL B B Q—Dishing up ribs, sandwiches, hot wings, and more; also family packages. 2249 Central. 276-7573; 4375 Summer. 7676-4672. L, D, Br, Wi, #, $-$$, MRA

CHINA INN—Serves Chinese, American, and down-home-style cuisine; daily buffet featured. 4430 Elvis Presley Blvd. 396-0287; 2829 Covington Pike. 383-8211. L, D, Br, #, $

COLETTA’S—Longtime eatery serves lasagna, ravioli, and pizza with barbecue or traditional topping. Closed for lunch Sunday, South Parkway location. 2850 Appling Rd. 383-1122; 1063 S. Parkway E. 948-7652. L, D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

CORKY’S—Popular barbecue emporium offers both wet and dry ribs, plus a full menu of other barbecue entrées. 5259 Poplar. 685-9744; 1740 Germantown Pkwy. (Cordova). 737-1911; 743 W. Poplar (Collierville). 405-4999. L, D, Br,#, $-$$, MRA

CREPE MAKER—Specializes in hand-held crepes, including Philly steak, pesto, chicken, and vegetarian; also desserts. 175 Peabody Place. 522-1290; The Avenue at Carriage Crossing, Collierville. 861-1981. Closed for dinner Sunday, Collierville. B, L, D, Br, Wi (coolers), #, $

CRESCENT CITY—Entrées include red beans and rice, muffalettas, po’ boys, crawfish, and catfish; also beignets. The Avenue at Carriage Crossing (Collierville). 850-8580; 1315 Ridgeway Rd. 763-7008; 6585 Towne Center Crossing (Southaven, MS). 662-536-4013; 2362 N. Germantown Pkwy. (Cordova). 213-9077. B (some locations), L, D, FB, #, $, MRA

EL MEZCAL—Serves burritos, chimichangas, fajitas, and other Mexican cuisine, as well as shrimp dinners and steak. 4688 Knight Arnold. 360-1838; 402 Perkins Extd. 761-7710; 694 N. Germantown Pkwy. (Cordova). 755-1447; 1492 Union. 274-4264. L, D, FB, #, $

EL PORTON—Fajitas and steak ranchero are just a few of the menu items. 2095 Merchants Row (Germantown). 754-4268; 65 S. Highland, Poplar Plaza. 452-7330; 1805 N. Germantown Parkway (Cordova). 624-9358; 1016 W. Poplar (Collierville). 854-5770; 8361 U.S. Highway 64. 380-7877. L, D, FB, #, $

FIREBIRDS—Specialties are hand-cut steaks, prime rib, rotisserie chicken, and fresh seafood, 8470 Highway 64 (Bartlett). 379-1300; The Avenue at Carriage Crossing (Collierville). 850-1603. L, D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

GUS’S WORLD FAMOUS FRIED CHICKEN—Serves chicken with signature spicy batter, along with homemade beans, slaw, and pies. 310 S. Front. 527-4877; 215 South St. (Collierville). 853-6005. (Original location: 505 Highway 70 W., Mason, TN. 901-294-2028). L, D, Br, #, $-$$, MRA

HALF SHELL—Specializes in seafood, such as King crab legs; also serves steaks, chicken, pastas, salads, and sandwiches; oyster bar at Winchester location. 688 S. Mendenhall. 682-3966; 7825 Winchester. 737-6755. L, D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

HARRY’S DETOUR—Eclectic American menu includes pecan-smoked meats and daily seafood specials. Closed Sunday and Monday, Cooper location; closed Sunday and Monday and dinner Tuesday, G.E. Patterson location. 532 S. Cooper. 276-7623; 106 G.E. Patterson. 523-9070. L, D, Br, #, $-$$

HUNAN PALACE—Menu items include Peking duck, orange beef, and “flower basket” of fish, chicken and vegetables in a Mandarin sauce. 1140 N. Germantown Parkway, Ste. 101 (Cordova). 751-8863; 7140 Highway 64. 388-7848. L, D, Br, #, $

INTERSTATE BAR-B-Q—Specialties include chopped pork-shoulder sandwiches, ribs, hot wings, spaghetti, chicken, and turkey. Closed Sunday, Southaven location. 2265 S. Third. 775-2304; 150 W. Stateline Rd. (Southaven). 662-393-5699. L, D, Br (S. Third), #, $, MRA

JIM’S PLACE—Features American, Greek, and Continental cuisine with such entrées as souflima (pork tenderloin) and Grecian lamb; also steaks and seafood. Closed for lunch Saturday and all day Sunday. 5560 Shelby Oaks. 388-7200; 3660 Houston Levee (Collierville). 861-5000. L, D, FB, #, $$, MRA

LA HACIENDA—Among the specialties are carnitas, shrimp adobe, and Mexican lasagne. 746 W. Poplar (Collierville). 850-7698; 1760 N. Germantown Pkwy. (Cordova). 624-2920; 175-B Goodman Rd. W. 662-349-4484; 7034 Highway 64 (Oakland). 465-1505. L, D, FB, #, $

MCALISTER’S DELI—Sandwiches galore, including the Orange Cranberry Club with turkey, ham, and bacon topped with orange cranberry sauce and the California Classic with provolone and mozzarella cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and bell peppers. Plus, there’s a wide selection of salads, stuffed baked potatoes, wraps, and McAlister’s Famous Sweet Tea. 3482 Plaza Avenue. 452-6009; 2857 Kirby Pkwy., Ste. 119. 756-2943; 580 S. Mendenhall. 763-2711; 3855 Hacks Cross. 881-6068; 1 Commerce Square, Ste. 150; 522-9123; 8385 Stage, Ste. 115. 388-7053; 6600 Stage, Ste. 120 (Bartlett). 213-3311; 7990 Trinity, Ste. 129 (Cordova). 737-7282; 7710 Poplar (Germantown). 753-1507; 336 Market Blvd. (Collierville). 853-1492; 8390 Hwy. 51N, Ste. 110 (Millington). 872-1983; 975 East Goodman, Ste. 21 (Southaven). 662-349-3354; 8120 Camp Creek, Ste. 110 (Olive Branch). 662-893-4120. L, D, $

DAN MCGUINNESS PUB—Serves fish and chips, shepherd’s pie, and other Irish fare; also such entrées as herb-crusted salmon. 150 Peabody Place. 527-8500; 4698 Spottswood. 761-3711. B (Sat.-Sunday), L, D, FB, #, $-$$

MEMPHIS PIZZA CAFE—Homemade pizzas are specialties; also serves sandwiches, calzones, and salads. 2089 Madison. 726-5343; 5061 Park Ave. 684-1306; 7604 W. Farmington (Germantown). 753-2218; 5627 Getwell (Southaven, MS). 662-536-1364; 797 W. Poplar (Collierville). 861-7800. L, D, Br, Wi (Madison only), #, $, MRA

MESQUITE CHOP HOUSE—The focus here is on steaks, including a prime filet, a 24-oz. porterhouse, and a bone-in tenderloin; also, some seafood options. 5960 Getwell (Southaven). 662-890-2467; 88 Union. 527-5337. D, FB, #, $$-$$$

NEELY’S BAR-B-QUE—Serves pork ribs, sandwiches, spaghetti, hot wings, nachos, and smoked turkey 670 Jefferson. 521-9798; 5700 Mt. Moriah. 795-4177. L, D, Br, #, $, MRA

ON THE BORDER—Dishes out such Tex-Mex specialties as fajitas and steak- and-shrimp combination. 8101 Giacosa Pl. (Cordova). 372-8883; 4552 Poplar. 763-0569; 7935 Winchester. 755-6404; 6572 Airways Blvd. 662-536-0901. L, D, FB, #, $

PANCHO’S—Serves up a variety of Mexican standards, including tacos, enchiladas, and mix-and-match platters. 3600 Broadway (West Memphis). 870-735-6466; 717 N. White Station. 685-5404. L, D, FB, % (West Memphis), #, $, MRA

PEI WEI ASIAN DINER—Serves Pan Asian cuisine (Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, and Japanese) including General Tsao’s chicken. 1680 Union Ave., #109. 722-3780; 2257 N. Germantown Pkwy. 382-1822. L, D, Br, Wi, #, $

PETRA DELI & CAFE—Serves Greek, Italian and Middle Eastern sandwiches and entrées. Closed Sunday. 2140 W. Poplar Ave. (Collierville). 853-3521; 6641 Poplar. 754-4440. L, D, Br, #, $

PIG-N-WHISTLE—Offers pork shoulder sandwiches, wet and dry ribs, catfish, spaghetti, and stuffed barbecue potatoes; also homemade pies. 2740 Bartlett Rd. 386-3300; 6084 Kerr-Rosemark Rd. 872-2455. L, D, Br, FB (Kerr-Rosemark), #, $-$$

RED ROBIN GOURMET BURGERS—Menu includes a large selection of gourmet burgers from the 5 Alarm with jalepeno peppers and salsa to the Monster Burger with two beef patties, American cheese, lettuce, tomato, and pickles. 1231 N. Germantown Pkwy. (Cordova). 754-5501; The Avenue at Carriage Crossing (Collierville). 854-7645. L, D, FB, $

ROMANO’S MACARONI GRILL—Offers Northern Italian cuisine, including pasta Milano and penne rustica; also steaks, seafood, and salads. 6705 Poplar. 753-6588; 2859 N. Germantown Parkway. 266-4565. L, D, FB, #, $-$$

SEKISUI OF JAPAN/SEKISUI PACIFIC RIM & SUSHI BISTRO—Authentic Japanese cuisine, fresh sushi bar, grilled meats and seafood, California rolls, and vegetarian entrées. Pacific Rim cuisine at Poplar location. Closed for lunch Saturday-Sunday, at Belvedere, Union, Poplar, Collierville, and Goodman locations. Closed for lunch Saturday, and for dinner Sunday., Horn Lake. Humphreys Center, 50 Humphreys Blvd. Ste. 14. 747-0001; 25 Belvedere. 725-0005; Union at Second, Holiday Inn Select. 523-0001; 4724 Poplar (between Perkins & Colonial). 767-7770; 1884 N. Germantown Parkway (Cordova). 309-8800; 2130 W. Poplar (Collierville), Ste. 107. 854-0622; 1255 Goodman Rd. W. (Horn Lake, MS). 662-536-4404. L, D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

TOPS BAR-B-Q—Specializing in pork barbecue sandwiches and sandwich plates with beans and slaw; also serves burgers and fries. 4183 Summer. 324-4325; 5391 Winchester. 794-7936; 6130 Macon. 371-0580. (See phone book/go online for more locations.) L, D, # (most locations), $, MRA

COLLIERVILLE

NEW TO COLLIERVILLE

[IMAGE-5]

ASHIYANA EXOTIC INDO PAK CUISINE — “Collierville is a very pretty town,” says Eric Manjiyani, manager of Ashiyana Exotic Indo Pak Cuisine, which opened just over a month ago. “We thought that it would be a good place to begin an Indian restaurant.” Ashiyana means “the house,” Manjiyani says, and was chosen to signify the restaurant’s dedication to an authentic Indian experience, from the menu’s Indo Pak flavoring to the sense of home it gives customers. Diners, both Indian and otherwise, have responded, Manjiyani says. “We’re having a lot of repeat customers. We’re short of seats right now. We wish we had a bigger place.” 835 W. Poplar (Collierville). 854-5411. L, D, Br, Wi, #, $

CAFE GRILL—Asian/American entrées are chicken chow mein soup along with meatloaf, beef brisket, and certified Angus steaks; also a luncheon buffet. Closed Sunday. 120 W. Mulberry. 853-7511. L, D, #, $

CAFE PIAZZA BY PAT LUCCHESI—Specializes in gourmet pizzas, panini sandwiches, and pasta. Closed Sunday. 139 S. Rowlett St. 861-1999. L, D, Br, Wi, # (except bathrooms), $-$$

CAFFE ITALIA—Lasagne, cannelloni, and carpaccio are among dinner entrées; for lunch: panini sandwiches, salads. Closed Sunday-Monday. 102 Mulberry St. 850-8363. L, D, FB, #, $-$$

CHEEBURGER CHEEBURGER—A true-blue burger joint, including the Serious (10-ounces), the Delirious (14 ounces), and the Famous One-Pounder (20 ounces, to be more exact). All burgers and chicken sandwiches are made-to-order. Menu also includes a wide selection of shakes and malts. The Avenue at Carriage Crossing. 861-6776. L, D, $

FINO VILLA—Entrées include prime filet mignon, sea bass and lobster ravioli, and pollo Fino Villa. 875 W. Poplar. 861-2626. L, D, FB, #, $-$$

FUJI CAFE—Offers traditional Japanese cuisine and sushi bar; specialties are teriyaki and tempura dishes. 875 W. Poplar. 854-7758. L, D, Br, Wi, #, $$

JA JA’S THAI RESTAURANT—The menu offers some 40 traditional Thai entrées, including sweet and spicy pork; popular for its egg rolls. Closed Sunday and Monday. 192 Washington. 850-5222. L, D, Br, Wi, #, $

LEE KAN’S ASIAN GRILL—Offers Pan-Asian cuisine; pepper-orange steak and Hong Kong-style noodles are entrées; also sushi. 255 New Byhalia Rd, Ste. 111. 853-6686. L, D, FB, #, $$

MULAN—Hunan chicken, spicy tofu, and orange beef served here; sushi too. 2059 Houston Levee. 850-5288. L, D, Br, Wi, #, $-$$

PASTA ITALIA—Northern Italian cuisine featuring handmade pastas; specialties include ravioli, canneloni, and seafood dishes. Closed for lunch Saturday and all day Sunday-Monday. 101 N. Center St. 861-0255. L, D, Wi, #, $$-$$$

SHANTI STEAK HOUSE—Serves steak, chicken, pork chops, and seafood, including shrimp. Closed Sunday. 336 New Byhalia. 861-7177. D, Br, #, $-$$

STIX—Hibachi steakhouse with Asian cuisine features steak, chicken, and a filet-and-lobster combination; also sushi. Closed for lunch Sunday. The Avenue at Carriage Crossing. 854-3399. L, D, FB, #, $-$$

THE TENNESSEAN—Set in an old train car on Collierville’s town square. Changing seasonal menu of contemporary Southern cuisine includes steaks, fish, poultry, and pasta. Closed Sunday and Monday. 123 N. Rowlett. 853-9447. L, D, FB, #, $-$$$

COOPER-YOUNG

NEW TO COOPER-YOUNG

Justin Fox Burks

LOU’S PIZZA PIE — Has there ever been a business more perfectly named than “Pie in the Sky”? The local parlors have dished out perfect pizza in various locations from South Main to the heart of Midtown. And one by one, every location has closed, leaving fans unable to gorge themselves on the garden-fresh “Sun Pie” or stuff themselves silly on the olive- and artichoke-laden “Moon.” Fortunately for those who can’t get enough of “Bluto’s Revenge” (spinach, feta, roasted garlic, and roma tomatoes), Lou’s Pizza Pie in Cooper-Young is now serving all the classics. 2158 Young. 722-4031. L, D, $

BEAUTY SHOP—American/Southwestern/Asian cuisine served in a former beauty shop. Closed for dinner Sunday. 966 S. Cooper. 272-7111. L, D, FB, #, $$, MRA

THE BLUE FISH—Seafood specialties include pecan-crusted grouper with crawfish-crab relish. Also organic meats, free-range chicken, and oyster bar. Closed Sunday. 2149 Young. 725-0230. D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

CAFE OLE—Chimichangas, shrimp diablo, fish tacos, vegetarian dishes, and daily specials are featured. 959 S. Cooper. 274-1504. L, D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

CASABLANCA CAFE—Rack of lamb, grilled salmon with mango sauce, moussaka, and vegetarian entrées are served at this Moroccan/Greek/Middle Eastern restaurant. 2156 Young. 725-8557. L, D, #, $-$$

CELTIC CROSSING—Irish fare — including shepherd’s pie, fish & chips, and lamb stew — is featured here. 903 S. Cooper. 274-5151. L, D, FB, #, $, MRA

DISH—Specialties here range from deviled crab cakes to tempura prawns with spicy red pepper aioli; also tapas, i.e., “small plates”; choose from 45 items. 948 S. Cooper. 276-0002. D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

DO—This small Tokyo-style sushi bar features teriyaki, sushi rolls, grilled items, bento-box meals, salads, and more. Closed Sunday and Monday. 964 S. Cooper. 272-0830. D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

JASMINE THAI RESTAURANT—Entrées include panang green curry, masaman, and pad thai (noodles, shrimp, and peanuts); also seafood, vegetarian dishes. Closed Monday. 916 S. Cooper. 725-0223. L, D, Br, Wi, #, $-$$

TSUNAMI—Features Pacific Rim cuisine (Asia, Australia, South Pacific, etc.); also a changing “small plate” menu. Closed Sunday. 928 S. Cooper. 274-2556. D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

CORDOVA

NEW TO CORDOVA

[IMAGE-6]

WASABI SUSHI AND SAKE BAR — Both food and restaurant are eye-pleasing at Cordova’s Wasabi Sushi and Sake Bar, which opened August 8th. “We have unique décor, and everything is sectioned out,” says owner Johnny Lum. “We have very comfortable sofas, bar seating, booths, and contemporary artwork. It’s mix and match — casual but intimate and relaxing.” As for the food, Wasabi focuses on “presentation, good flavors, and quality seafood fresh from our vendors,” Lum says.
1134 N. Germantown Pkwy. (Cordova). 754-0567. L, D, $

BAHAMA BREEZE—West Indies ribs, Jamaican-grilled chicken, and coconut shrimp are among the entrées at this Caribbean-themed restaurant. 2830 N. Germantown Parkway, Wolfchase Galleria. 385-8744. L, D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

BOMBAY HOUSE—Indian fare includes lamb korma and chicken tikka; also, a daily luncheon buffet. 1727 N. Germantown Parkway. 755-4114. L, D, Br, Wi, #, $-$$

HUNAN GOURMET—Serves authentic Asian cuisine and features a sushi bar, Hong Kong-style noodle bar, and Mongolian barbecue. 2965 N. Germantown Rd., Ste. 102. 371-9329. L, D, Br, #, $

JOE’S CRAB SHACK—Serves a variety of seafood, along with chicken, steak, and pasta. Closed for lunch Saturday and Sunday. 7990 Horizon Blvd. 384-7478. L, D, FB, #, $-$$

THE MELTING POT—Steak, seafood, and poultry entrées prepared fondue-style at your table; also package meals. 2828 Wolfcreek Parkway. 380-9500. D, FB, #, $$-$$$$, MRA

SHOGUN JAPANESE RESTAURANT—Entrées include tempura, teriyaki, and sushi, as well as grilled fish and chicken entrées. Closed for lunch Saturday. 2324 N. Germantown Parkway. 384-4122. L, D, FB, #, $-$$

DOWNTOWN

NEW TO DOWNTOWN

[IMAGE-7}

ITTA BENA — “I love to hear live music, and I love to eat good food, but I don’t want to do them at the same time,” says Wil Thompson, general manager of the new, casual, elegant, bistro-style restaurant Itta Bena. The reason he mentions it is Itta Bena’s unique location: on the third floor of B.B. King’s Blues Club on the corner of Second and Beale, an intersection much more famous for hot guitar licks than pan-seared Alaskan halibut. When constructing the floor of his oasis of “serenity” above the club, Thompson says he “put down a layer of plywood, a layer of soundboard, another layer of plywood, a layer of rubber, and a layer of oak.” There’s also an entrance directly to the club, just in case the call of the wild gets to you. 143 Beale. 578-3031. D, Br, Wi, FB, %, $$-$$$, MRA

[IMAGE-8]

MY GREEK CAFE — 345 Madison has been many things in recent years: a stripped-down punk club, an overstuffed comedy club, and various bars. It was recently converted by John Gegumis into My Greek Cafe, a sprawling, dark, and comfortable cafe offering authentic Mediterranean delights. Gegumis previously managed O Kypos, a wonderful but tiny diner located in the downtown Comfort Inn. My Greek Cafe is a reasonably priced, full-service reincarnation of O Kypos, with a full bar and an occasional spot of live music. Gegumis spent eight years cooking in his family’s restaurant on Kalamaki Beach in Zakynthos, Greece, and his simple takes on such Greek staples as souvlaki and spanakopita are steeped in family tradition. Gegumis has also brought back the succulent lamb ribs that made his little diner the talk of downtown foodies. Closed Sundays. 345 Madison. 507-2720. L, D, FB, $[IMAGE-9]

THE ARCADE—Offers American home-cooking, plus gourmet pizzas, sandwiches, and daily lunch specials. 540 S. Main. 526-5757. B, L, Br, #, $, MRA

AUTOMATIC SLIM’S TONGA CLUB—Specializes in American Southwestern/Asian/Jamaican cuisine, including coconut mango shrimp and whole red snapper. Closed for lunch Saturday and Sunday. 83 S. Second. 525-7948. L, D, FB, #, $$, MRA

BIG FOOT LODGE—Hefty portions of prime rib, lobster, deep-fried Cornish game hens, catfish, and burgers (including 4-lb. Sasquatch) are specialties. 97 S. Second. 578-9800. L, D, FB, #, $-$$$, MRA

BLUEFIN RESTAURANT & SUSHI LOUNGE—Serves fusion or “edge” cuisine featuring seafood and steaks; also, a sushi bar. 135 S. Main. 528-1010. L (Tues.-Thurs.), D, FB, #, $$, MRA

BLUES CITY PASTRY SHOP & COFFEE BAR—Pastry shop and coffee bar on South Main downtown, featuring coffee and espresso and sweet treats, including chocolate pyramids and Mississippi Mud Cake. 153 S. Main. 576-0010. B, $

BLUFF CITY BAYOU—Cajun specialties are gumbo, crawfish étouffée, and jambalaya, as well as po’boy sandwiches and muffalettas. Closed Saturday and Sunday. 694 Madison. 527-0860. L, #, $

CAFE 61—American eclectic/Asian/Cajun entrées include blackened grouper and crispy duck waffles; also Sunday brunch. 85 S. Second. 523-9351. L, D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

CAPRICCIO GRILL ITALIAN STEAKHOUSE—Steaks, seafood, pasta, and several northern Italian specialties are entrées. 149 Union Ave., The Peabody. 529-4199. B, L, D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

CAYENNE MOON—Serves New Orleans-Southern cuisine, specializing in lump crabcakes and seafood gumbo. Closed Sunday-Monday. 94 S. Front. 522-1475. D, #, $-$$, MRA

CENTER FOR SOUTHERN FOLKLORE AND CAFE—Vegetarian greens, hot-water cornbread, and peach cobbler are menu items. Closed Sunday. Main at Peabody Place Trolley Stop. 525-3655. L, Br, #, $, MRA

CHEZ PHILIPPE—Three-to-five-course meals offered with emphasis on French food with Asian flair. Afternoon tea also served from 2 to 3 p.m. (reservations required). Closed Sunday and Monday. The Peabody, 149 Union. 529-4188. D, FB, #, $$$$, MRA

CIRCA—Regional French cuisine with such specialties as sorghum-cured rack of lamb; menu includes steaks, chops, seafood. Closed for lunch Saturday and Sunday. 119 S. Main, Pembroke Square. 522-1488. L, D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

CONTE’S—Lasagna, baked ziti, chicken parmesan, and mussels in white wine sauce are menu items. Closed for lunch Saturday and all day Sunday and Monday. 149 Madison. 526-6837. L, D, Br, Wi, #, $-$$

DAILY GRILL—Services classic American cuisine; dinner entrées include filet medallions, short ribs, steaks, and seafood, along with meatloaf and chicken pot pie. Westin Hotel, 170

Lt. George W. Lee. 334-5950. B, L, D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

ENCORE—Chef Jose Gutierrez offers French and Mediterranean entrées at this European-style bistro. Closed Monday. 150 Peabody Place, #111. 528-1415. D, FB, #,$$, MRA

E P DELTA KITCHEN & BAR—Serving a fusion of Cajun, Creole, and Southern cuisine in the former Elvis Presley’s Memphis eatery. Specialties include lobster étouffée and smoked duck gumbo; also a late-night menu. 126 Beale at Second. 527-1444. L, D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

FELICIA SUZANNE’S—Crispy oysters in New Orleans barbecue sauce and filet of beef tenderloin with applewood-smoked-bacon potato cakes are American-Southern specialties. Closed Sunday and Monday. Brinkley Plaza, 80 Monroe, Ste. L1. 523-0877. L (Fri. only), D, FB, #, $$$, MRA

THE FLYING FISH—Serves up fried and grilled versions of shrimp, crab legs, oysters, catfish, and more. 105 S. Second. 522-8228. L, D, Br, Wi, #, $-$$, MRA

GRILL 83—European-style steakhouse serves prime steaks and fresh seafood, including a signature New Orleans-style seafood gumbo. 83 Madison Ave., Madison Hotel. 333-1224. B, L, D, FB, %, # (except bathrooms), $$-$$$, MRA

HAPPY MEXICAN—Fajitas, steak ranchero, and a shrimp cocktail are specialties. Closed Sunday. 385 S. Second St. 529-9991. L, D, FB, #, $-$$

HARD ROCK CAFÉ—Menu includes “Tupelo” chicken tenders, New York strip steak, grilled salmon, and more. 315 Beale. 529-0007. L, D, FB, $-$$

INN AT HUNT-PHELAN—Cuisine is American with a Southern emphasis; also French entrées; Sunday brunch. 533 Beale St. 525-8225. Closed for dinner Sunday and all day Monday and Tuesday. D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

LOLO’S TABLE—Specialties are pan-seared scallops and sauteed lump crab cakes. Closed for lunch Saturday and all day Sunday. 128 Monroe. 522-9449. L, D, FB, #, $$, MRA

MCEWEN’S ON MONROE—Southern-American entrées include pepper-seared beef tenderloin with a Dijon cognac cream sauce;

and sweet-potato-crusted catfish with mac-and-cheese. Closed for lunch Saturday, all day Sunday. 122 Monroe. 527-7085. L, D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

THE MAJESTIC—Offers American food, including pizza, shrimp, and pork tenderloin. 145 S. Main. 522-8555. L, D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

MARMALADE—Southern homestyle entrées include catfish, fried chicken, pork chops, barbecued ribs, and chili. Closed Sunday and Monday. 153 G.E. Patterson. 522-8800. D, FB, #, $

MOLLY FONTAINE LOUNGE—This new eatery specializes in tapas (small plates) featuring global cuisine. 679 Adams. 524-1886. Closed Sunday-Tuesday. D, FB, #, $

MOVIE & PIZZA COMPANY—Offers a wide selection of pizzas as well as a wide selection of movies for rent. The menu includes meat and veggie pizzas as well as sandwiches. 110 Harbor Town Sq. 527-2233. L, D, Br, $

PEARL’S OYSTER HOUSE—Specializing in seafood, including oysters, crawfish, and stuffed butterfly shrimp. Closed Sunday. 299 S. Main. 522-9070. L, D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

PEOPLE’S ON BEALE—Sports bar with plenty of pool tables to keep you occupied for hours, with a menu featuring traditional pub grub from hamburgers to chicken fingers. 323 Beale. 523-7627. L, D, FB, $

THE PIER—Specializes in steaks, prime rib, and seafood — including King crab and lobster tails; has excellent river views. 100 Wagner Place. 526-7381. D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

RENDEZVOUS—Menu items include barbecued ribs, chicken, beef brisket, nachos; also cheese plates, skillet shrimp, Greek salads. Closed Sunday and Monday. 52 S. Second. 523-2746. L (Fri.-Sat. only), D, Br, Wi, #, $, MRA

RIO LOCO—Entrées include fajitas, burritos, and seafood selections. 117 Union Ave. 523-2142. L, D, FB, #, $

SAUCES—Specializes primarily in seafood — including grouper, mahi, and halibut — accompanied by diners’ choice of complementary sauces, such as rosemary tomato basil and lobster cream. Closed Monday. 95 S. Main, Ste. 106. 473-9573. L, D, FB, #, $, MRA

SAWADDII—Among the Thai entrées are grilled sea bass with curry sauce and mahi-mahi with spicy chili sauce. 121 Union Ave. 529-1818. L, D, FB, #, $-$$

SPINDINI—Judd Grisanti offers regional Mediterranean fare, featuring steaks, seafood, and chicken dishes, cooked in a wood-burning oven. 383 S. Main. 578-2767. D, FB, #, $-$$$, MRA

STELLA—”Southern/global” fine-dining cuisine features steaks, fresh seafood, lamb, and more. Closed Sunday. 39 S. Main (at Monroe). 526-4950. D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

TEXAS DE BRAZIL—Serves beef, pork, lamb, and chicken dishes and Brazilian sausage; 60-item gourmet salad area; weekend brunch. 150 Peabody Place, Ste. 103. 526-7600. L, D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

ZANZIBAR—Specializes in “new world” cuisine; entrées include Thai-glazed chicken wings, peanut soup, and various sandwiches and salads. Closed Sunday (except for brunch), Monday and Tuesday. 412 S. Main. 543-9646. L, D, FB, #, $-$$

EAST MEMPHIS

BRONTE—Full-service restaurant in a bookstore setting serves seafood, steaks, pastas, quiches, sandwiches, and salads. Davis-Kidd Booksellers, 387 Perkins Extd. 374-0881. B, L, D, Br, Wi, #, $-$$, MRA

CAFE TOSCANA—Serves contemporary Italian specialties, including parmesan talapia, along with other pasta and seafood. Closed Sunday. 5007 Black Rd., Ste. 150. 761-9522. D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

CAL’S STEAKHOUSE—University of Memphis basketball coach John Calipari lends his name and sports memorabilia to this restaurant serving steaks, pasta, and seafood. Double Tree Hotel, 5069 Sanderlin. 322-6666. B, L, D, FB, #, $-$$$, MRA

CASPIAN PERSIAN CUISINE—Fesenjon — i.e., pomegranate sauce with walnuts poured over chicken breasts — is a specialty; also grilled fillets, chicken, and Cornish hens. 715 W. Brookhaven Cl. 767-3134. L, D, FB, #, $-$$$

ERLING JENSEN, THE RESTAURANT—Presents “globally inspired” cuisine; specialties are rack of lamb, fresh fish, and wild game. 1044 S. Yates. 763-3700. D, FB, #, $$$, MRA

FLEMING’S PRIME STEAKHOUSE—Serves steaks, prime beef, and chops, as well as chicken and fresh fish,. 6245 Poplar. 761-6200. D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

FOLK’S FOLLY ORIGINAL PRIME STEAK HOUSE—Specializes in prime steaks, as well as lobster, grilled Scottish salmon, Alaskan king crab legs, rack of lamb, and weekly specials. 551 S. Mendenhall. 762-8200. D, FB, #, $$$-$$$$, MRA

FRATELLI’S—Serves hot and cold sandwiches, salads, and soups, Closed Sunday and Monday. Memphis Botanic Garden, 750 Cherry Rd. 576-4118. L, #, $

THE GROVE GRILL—Offers steaks, chops, seafood, and other American cuisine with a Southern flair; entrées include shrimp and grits and sweet potato and turnip green hash; also Sunday brunch. 4550 Poplar. 818-9951. L, D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

HIGH POINT PIZZA—Serves salads, sandwiches, and pizzas, including Margherita, barbecue pork, veggie, four-meat, and more. Pizza-by-the slice is available during lunch. 477 High Point Terrace. 452-3339. Closed Monday. L, D, $

INTERIM—Offers American-seasonal cuisine. A specialty is Memphis barbecued pork chop with goat-cheese grits, bacon-wilted greens, and smoked tomato sauce; also a Gulf seafood of the day. Closed for lunch Saturday and all day Sunday. 5040 Sanderlin, Ste. 105. 818-0821. L, D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

JARRETT’S—Changing menu of American bistro cuisine includes horseradish-encrusted grouper and smoked trout ravioli with Arkansas caviar. Closed Sunday. 5689 Quince. 763-2264. D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

LULU GRILLE—Offers fresh seafood, steaks, chops, wild game, pasta, several sandwiches and homemade desserts. Closed Sunday except for brunch. 565 Erin, Erinway Shopping Center. 763-3677. L, D, FB, #, $-$$$, MRA

MANTIA’S—A Mediterranean cafe, deli, and market serving soups, sandwiches, salads, steaks, pasta, and seafood. Closed Sunday. 4856 Poplar. 762-8560. L, D, Wi, #, $-$$, MRA

MAYURI INDIAN CUISINE—Serves tandoori chicken, tikka masala, as well as lamb and shrimp entrées; also a lunch buffet, weekend dinner buffet. 6524 Quince Rd. 753-8755. L, D, Br, #, $

MORTIMER’S—Trout almondine, hand-cut steaks, and seafood pasta are among the offerings. Closed for lunch Saturday. 590 N. Perkins. 761-9321. L, D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

NAPA CAFE—American eclectic specialties are prime dry-aged beef with red wine shallot demi-glace, rack of lamb, and potato-encrusted halibut. Closed for lunch Saturday and all day Sunday. 5101 Sanderlin, Ste. 122. 683-0441. L, D, FB, #, $$, MRA

NEW HUNAN—Chinese eatery with more than 80 entrées; also lunch/dinner buffets and a sushi bar. 5052 Park. 766-1622. L, D, #, $

OLD VENICE—Lasagna, pizzas, paninis, and various pastas are among the specialties here, including the “Pasta Maria” and the “John Wayne Pizza.” 368 S. Perkins Ext. 767-6872. L, D, FB, #, $-$$

THE TOWER ROOM AMERICAN GRILL—Offers steaks, seafood, pasta, lamb, and chicken dishes; also, vegetarian upon request. Clark Tower, 5100 Poplar, Ste. 3300. 767-8776. L (Monday-Fri.), D (Wed.-Sat.), FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

WANG’S CHINA BISTRO—Among the specialties here are crisp duck, shrimp, and scallops in garlic sauce, and grilled chicken with cucumber. 4002 Park. 327-4089. L, D, FB, $, MRA

WILD OATS—Offers “all-natural foods” and vegetarian menu, with pizza, hot-food bar, sushi bar, salad bar, deli, bakery, and more. 5022 Poplar. 685-2293. L, D, #, $

GERMANTOWN

ASIAN GRILL—Specializes in Pan-Asian cuisine (Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, and Malaysian) as well as fusion entrées. 2072 West St. (Germantown). 737-3988. L, D, Br, #, $

BITTERSWEET RESTAURANT—Lobster pie and filet Oscar are specialties at this steak/seafood place with a New England flair. Closed Monday and for lunch Tuesday. 7685 Farmington Blvd. (Germantown). 624-9499. L, D, FB, #, $$-$$$

EQUESTRIA—Serves American-global fusion cuisine with Southwestern accents. Closed Sunday and Monday. 3165 Forest Hill-Irene Rd. 869-2663. D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

GERMANTOWN COMMISSARY—Barbecue sandwiches, ribs, nachos, and shrimp in a rustic atmosphere. 2290 S. Germantown. 754-5540. L, D, Br, # (except bathrooms), $, MRA

NEW ASIA—Specializing in authentic Chinese food. 2075 Exeter (Germantown). 758-8388. L, D, Br, Wi, #, $-$$

ROYAL PANDA—Hunan fish, Peking duck, Szechuan chicken, and a seafood combo are among the specialties. 3120 Village Shops Dr. (Germantown). 756-9697. L, D, Br, Wi, #, $-$$

SAKURA—Sushi, tempura, and teriyaki are Japanese specialties. Closed Sunday. 2060 West St. 758-8181. L, D, FB, #, $-$$

THREE OAKS GRILL—Rack of lamb, filet Paulette, prime New York strip T-bones, and crab-stuffed halibut are among the entrées. Closed for lunch Saturday. 2285 S. Germantown Rd. 757-8225. L, D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

YIA YIA’S EUROCAFE—Wood-roasted salmon, and pork chops with smoked mushroom sauce are among the entrées; also steaks, pastas, pizzas, sandwiches, and salads; also, Sunday brunch. 7615 West Farmington at Poplar, Shops of Saddle Creek. 756-4004. L, D, FB, #, $$

MIDTOWN

ABYSSINIA RESTAURANT—Ethiopian cuisine is featured, with beef, chicken, lamb, fish entrées and vegetarian dishes; also, a daily buffet. Closed Sunday. 2600 Poplar. 321-0082. L, D, Br, #, $

THE BAR-B-Q SHOP—Dishes up barbecued ribs, bologna, chicken, pork shoulder sandwiches, and spaghetti, along with beef brisket, sandwiches, and salads. Closed Sunday. 1782 Madison. 272-1277. L, D, Br, #, $, MRA

BARI—Authentic Southeastern Italian cuisine emphasizes lighter entrées and fresh seafood, such as roasted striped bass, spaghetti carbonara, and fresh grilled sardines. 22 S. Cooper. 722-2244. D, FB, #, $$, MRA

BAYOU BAR & GRILL—Cajun fare includes jambalaya, gumbo, catfish acadian, Cajun shrimp, red beans and rice, and muffalettas. 2105 Overton Square Lane. 278-8626. L, D, FB, #, $, MRA

BHAN THAI—Serves curries, pad Thai noodles, and vegetarian dishes, as well as seafood, pork, and duck entrées. Closed for lunch Saturday and Sunday and all day Monday. 1324 Peabody. 272-1538. L, D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

BOSCOS SQUARED—Serves pasta, seafood, steaks, sandwiches, and pizza cooked in a wood-fired oven; also a variety of freshly brewed beers; also Sunday brunch. 2120 Madison. 432-2222. L, D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

THE BRUSHMARK—Serves sandwiches, salads, and crepes; a signature item is African peanut soup. Closed Monday. Brooks Museum, Overton Park, 1934 Poplar. 544-6225. L, D, FB, #, $, MRA

Justin Fox Burks

CAFE 1912—Serves French/American/Creole cuisine, with Italian influences; seafood entrées include steamed mussels; also crepes and salads; offers Sunday brunch. 243 S. Cooper. 722-2700. D, Br, Wi, #, $-$$, MRA

CAFE SOCIETY—With Belgian and classic French influences, serves Angus beef, veal, chicken, and seafood dishes, along with weekly specials. Closed for lunch Saturday and Sunday.
212 N. Evergreen. 722-2177. L, D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

DRAGON CHINA—Specializes in Mandarin, Cantonese, and Szechuan cuisine, all-day buffet, and a 140-item menu. 1680 Madison. 278-8838. L, D, #, $

GOLDEN INDIA—Northern Indian specialties include tandoori chicken as well as lamb, beef, shrimp, and vegetarian dishes; also, a luncheon buffet. 2097 Madison. 728-5111. L, D, Br, Wi, $

INDIA PALACE—Tandoori chicken, lamb boti kabobs, and chicken tikka masala are among the entrées; also, vegetarian options and a daily lunch buffet. 1720 Poplar. 278-1199. L, D, Br, #, $

LE CHARDONNAY—Seafood, steak, and chicken entrées include Stilton-stuffed tenderloin and citrus-glazed grouper; also wood-fired pizzas. Closed for lunch Saturday and Sunday. 2100-5 Overton Square Lane. 725-1375. L, D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

LOBSTER KING—Specializes in Cantonese cuisine with an emphasis on fresh seafood, including crab, clams, and lobster. 32 N. Cleveland. 725-5990. L, D, #, $-$$, MRA

LOS COMPADRES—Entrées are enchiladas, burritos, tamales, tacos, and vegetarian dishes. 2617 Poplar. 458-5731. L, D, FB, #, $

MOLLY’S LA CASITA—Fajitas, chiles rellenos, a vegetarian combo, and bacon-wrapped shrimp are a few of the specialties. 2006 Madison. 726-1873. L, D, FB, #, $-$$ MRA

PAULETTE’S—Presents fine dining with a Continental flavor, including such entrées as crepes Florentine; also grilled steaks, chicken, salads, and rich desserts; offers weekend brunch. 2110 Madison. 726-5128. L, D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

PETRA RESTAURANT—Offers primarily Greek cuisine, with some Middle Eastern and Korean dishes. Closed Sunday and Monday. 1761 Madison. 726-6700. L, D, Br, #, $$

PHO VIETNAM—Offers traditional Vietnamese cuisine, including stir-fry, spring rolls, and egg rolls. 1411 Poplar. 728-4711. L, D, Br, #, $

SAIGON LE—Vietnamese/Chinese specialties include pork chops with mushrooms and shrimp in black-bean sauce; vegetarian options too. Closed Sunday. 51 N. Cleveland. 276-5326. L, D, Br, # (except bathrooms), $

SHANG HAI—Offers Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai cuisine; one specialty is shrimp wrapped in bacon and noodles. Closed Sunday. 1400 Poplar. 722-8692. L, D, Br, # (except bathrooms), $

SIDE STREET GRILL—This martini and cigar bar also offers steaks, pasta dishes, and more. 35 S. Florence. 274-8955. D, FB, $-$$

TUSCANY—Formerly La Tourelle, serves Italian cuisine in a casual setting. Specialties include grilled sea bass and crawfish/tomato/lemon basil pasta; also Sunday brunch. 2146 Monroe. 726-5771. D, FB, #, $$

UMAI—Japanese-French fusion specialties include spinach gyozas stuffed with wild mushroom duxelles, and 48-hour-marinated duck breast; also, Sunday brunch. Closed Monday-Tuesday. 2015 Madison. 405-4241. D, Br, Wi, #, $-$$, MRA

NORTH MISSISSIPPI

BOILING POINT SEAFOOD & OYSTER BAR—Louisiana-style seafood includes crawfish, shrimp & grits, catfish, pasta dishes, seafood platters, and more. 4975 Pepperchase Dr. Southaven. 662-280-7555. L, D, FB, #, $-$$

BONNE TERRE CAFE—Offers American/French/Continental cuisine, including roast rack of lamb, chicken Florentine. Closed Sunday and Monday. 4715 Church Rd. W., Nesbit, MS. 662-781-5100. D, FB, #, $$$, MRA

CITY GROCERY—Southern eclectic menu of steaks and seafood changes seasonally; shrimp and grits is a specialty. Closed Sunday. 152 Courthouse Square, Oxford, Mississippi. 662-232-8080. L, D, FB, # (downstairs), $$-$$$

THE HOLLYWOOD CAFE—Serves steaks and seafood in a casual setting; also fried green tomatoes, dill pickles, and frog legs. Closed Sunday. 1130 Old Commerce Rd. Robinsonville, MS. 662-363-1126. L (Monday-Fri.), D (Fri.-Sat.), FB, #, $$

LEELAVADEE THAI CUISINE—Green curry with shrimp (or beef, pork, chicken, tofu, or vegetables) is a specialty here; also tom-yum soup. Closed Monday. 775 Goodman Rd., Ste. 11, Southaven. 662-536-4699. L, D, FB, #, $-$$

MADIDI—Owned in part by actor Morgan Freeman, Madidi serves French cuisine with a Southern flair. Closed Sunday and Monday. 164 Delta Ave., Clarksdale, MS. 662-627-7770/7724. D, FB, # (downstairs), $$-$$$

OLIVE BRANCH CATFISH COMPANY—Serves its catfish fried or grilled and blackened. Other menu items include steak, marinated chicken, and fried shrimp. 9659 Old Highway 78, Olive Branch, Mississippi. 662-895-9494. L, D, Br, #, $, MRA

TIMBEAUX’S—Creole/French specialties include fish stew in a tomato saffron broth, steak bordelaise, crawfish pizza, and jumbo shrimp and grits. Closed for lunch Saturday and all day Sunday. 333 Losher St. Hernando, MS. 662-429-0500. L, D, FB, #, $$-$$$

POPLAR/I-240

AMERIGO—Specializes in pasta and wood-fired pizzas; also serves steaks and cedarwood-roasted fish. 1239 Ridgeway, Park Place Mall. 761-4000. L, D, FB, #, $-$$$, MRA

Justin Fox Burks

BENIHANA OF TOKYO—Japanese steakhouse with sushi bar offers beef, chicken, and seafood items grilled at your table. 912 Ridge Lake Boulevard. 683-7390. L, D, FB, #, $$-$$$

BROOKLYN BRIDGE ITALIAN RESTAURANT—Specializing in such homemade entrées as pasta in a vodka-tomato-cream sauce. Closed Sunday. 1779 Kirby Pkwy. 755-7413. D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

CHAO PRAYA—Thai dishes are panang seafood, gang koa duck, and green papaya salad. Closed for dinner Monday. 3588 Ridgeway. 366-7827. L, D, Br, Wi, #, $-$$, MRA

COZYMEL’S—Serves coastal Mexican entrées — from the Yucatan Especial to Chicken Flameado to sizzling fajitas; seafood entrées as well. 6450 Poplar. 763-1202. L, D, FB, #, $-$$

FRANK GRISANTI’S ITALIAN RESTAURANT—Northern Italian favorites include pasta with jumbo shrimp and mushrooms; also seafood, filet mignon, and daily lunch specials. Closed for lunch Sunday. Embassy Suites Hotel, 1022 Shady Grove. 761-9462. L, D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

MIKASA JAPAN—Seafood and traditional Japanese dishes include sukiyaki, shrimp tempura, and chicken teriyaki; sushi buffet also featured. Closed for lunch Saturday and Sunday. 6150 Poplar. 683-0000. L, D, FB, #, $-$$

MISTER B’s—Features New Orleans-style seafood and steaks. Closed for lunch Saturday and all day Sunday. 6655 Poplar,
Ste. 107. 751-5262. L, D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

MOSA ASIAN BISTRO—Specialties include sesame chicken, pad Thai, and other Pan Asian entrées. Closed Sunday. 1825 Kirby Parkway. 755-6755. L, D, Br, #, $

OWEN BRENNAN’S—New Orleans-style menu of beef, chicken, pasta, and seafood; jambalaya and crawfish étouffée are specialties; also Sunday brunch. Closed for dinner Sunday. The Regalia, 6150 Poplar. 761-0990. L, D, FB, #, $-$$$, MRA

PARADISE CAFE—Offers soups, salads, sandwiches, pasta, and several vegetarian dishes. Closed Sunday. 6150 Poplar, Ste. 120. 821-9600. L, #, $

P.F. CHANG’S CHINA BISTRO—Specialties are Mongolian beef and chicken in lettuce wraps; also vegetarian dishes, including spicy eggplant. Park at Ridgeway, Park Place Centre. 818-3889. L, D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

RIVER OAKS—Crabcakes are among the specialties at this restaurant serving French-American classics; also free-range/organic meats. Closed for lunch Saturday and Sunday. 5871 Poplar. 683-9305. L, D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

ROOKS CORNER—American bistro serving steaks, seafood, pasta, sandwiches, and salads. Memphis Hilton, 939 Ridgelake Blvd., 762-7477. B, L, D, FB, #, $-$$$, MRA

RUTH’S CHRIS STEAK HOUSE—Offers prime steaks cut and aged in-house, as well as lamb, chicken, and fresh seafood, including lobster. 6120 Poplar. 761-0055. D, FB, #, $$-$$$, MRA

SALSA—Specialties include carnitas, chiles rellenos, and fajitas; also Southwestern seafood dishes such as tilapia with fresh pico de gallo. Closed Sunday. Regalia Shopping Center, 6150 Poplar. 683-6325. L, D, FB, #, $-$$, MRA

WANG’S MANDARIN HOUSE—Offers Mandarin, Canton

ese, Szechuan, and spicy Hunan entrées, as well as vegetarian and weight-watcher specials. Closed for lunch Saturday and Sunday. 6065 Park Ave., Park Place Mall. 763-0676; 113 S. Main. 523-2065. L, D, FB, #, $, MRA

SOUTH MEMPHIS

HONG KONG—Cantonese and Mandarin standards are sweet-and-sour chicken and pepper beef. 3966 Elvis Presley. 396-0801. L, D, Br, #, $

Justin Fox Burks

SUMMER/BERCLAIR

EDO—Known for its seafood dishes and sushi. Entrées include shrimp tempura and chicken teriyaki. Closed for lunch Saturday and Sunday, and all day Monday. 4792 Summer. 767-7096. L, D, Br, #, $-$$

LOTUS—Serves Vietnamese-Asian fare, including whole boneless duck, lemon-grass chicken and shrimp, egg rolls, and spicy Vietnamese vermicelli. 4970 Summer. 682-1151. D, Br, #, $

NAGASAKI INN—Grilled chicken, steak, and lobster are among the main courses; meal is cooked at your table. 3951 Summer. 454-0320. D, FB, # (except bathrooms), $-$$

PANDA GARDEN—Sesame chicken and broccoli beef are among the Mandarin, Szechuan, and Hunan entrées at this popular eatery. 3735 Summer. 323-4819. L, D, BR, $-$$

WINCHESTER/HICKORY HILL

FORMOSA—Offers Mandarin, Szechuan, and Hunan cuisine, including sesame chicken, Mongolian and broccoli beef, and hot-and-sour soup. Closed Monday. 6685 Quince. 753-9898. L, D, FB, #, $-$$

HELLO RESTAURANT—Lemon-grass chicken, vegetarian dishes, noodle soup, and stir-fry combos are among the Chinese/Vietnamese/American entrées. Closed Sunday. 5910 Mt. Moriah (just west of Ridgeway), Ste. 103. 362-8875. L, D, Br, #, $-$$

HIBACHI JAPANESE STEAKHOUSE AND SUSHI BAR—In addition to Japanese-style grilled steaks and seafood, Hibachi serves salads, soups, and hand rolls. Closed for lunch Saturday and Sunday. 2809 Kirby Parkway, Ste. 109. 737-2124. L, D, FB, #, $$

TYCOON—Among the Chinese,Vietnamese, and Thai entrées are spicy garlic shrimp and coconut-curry chicken. 3307 Kirby Parkway. 362-8788. L, D, Br, #, $

Tags Dining Guide, Memphis, restaurant

Cover Feature News

Elvis Presley: 1935-2007

Post author By Greg Akers
Post date August 9, 2007

CREDIT: Amy Mathews

Elvis Presley, the man who jump-started the rock-and-roll revolution from a tiny Memphis recording studio in 1954 and went on to become the world’s most recognizable entertainer, died Monday, August 6th, of cardiac arrest, at his Horn Lake, Mississippi, home. He was 72 years old.

It had been six years since an earlier heart attack sent the man many called “The King” into a mini-retirement and 30 years since a drug overdose threatened his life, then in chaos, and forever altered his career: cleaning up, breaking from his iron-fisted manager, “Colonel” Tom Parker, and withdrawing from the music world for several years.

Upon his return to public life in the 1980s, Presley mixed sporadic but high-profile concert and record appearances with a series of non-music business ventures, including an ownership stake in the NFL Memphis Hound Dogs. In the 1990s, Presley returned to regular performances with a residency at the Hilton Hotel & Casino Tunica, setting the stage for a dramatic return as a musician and film star in the final decade of his life.

“Right Next Door to Dead”

On August 16th, 1977, Presley was found at his Graceland home around noon — unconscious and unresponsive — by fiancée Ginger Alden. According to never-confirmed rumors, Alden discovered Presley lying on the floor of his bathroom; all he would say later was that it was “a shameful scene.” Rushed to Baptist Memorial Hospital by paramedics, Presley, apparently a victim of a prescription drug overdose, slipped into a coma, and fears were high that he might not survive. In a statement on the steps of the hospital, Presley’s father, Vernon, announced to the world, “My boy may not make it.” Presley himself later said he was “right next door to dead.”

But the next day, Presley awoke and was discharged from the hospital three days later. He checked into Hazelden Clinic in Minnesota, a leading drug and alcohol abuse rehabilitation center, where he would stay for a month.

Those closest to Presley were shocked by how close he had come to dying, and blame quickly spread. Vernon reportedly got into a scuffle with Presley’s personal physician, Dr. George Nichopoulos. Presley, however, didn’t blame anyone but himself. (Though he did part company with “Dr. Nick” and told his associates to clean up or get out.)

Back at Graceland by October, Presley began picking up the pieces of his life. His manager, “Colonel” Parker, wanted Presley back on the road or in the recording studio. (A tour had been scheduled to begin August 17th, but Presley’s hospitalization led to its cancellation.) Desiring nothing more than to be left alone and fearing a return to his previous lifestyle, Presley refused. A bitter argument erupted, resulting in the severing of ties between the two — though Parker always maintained that he quit rather than being fired as Presley’s manager.

One relationship that was strengthened following the overdose scare was that of Presley and Alden. On February 16th, 1978, the couple married in a low-key ceremony at Graceland.

But, with a constant stream of fans, visitors, and well-wishers ouside the gates, Presley felt increasingly trapped in his home on what, in 1972, had been officially changed to Elvis Presley Boulevard. Presley wanted somewhere he could go and be outdoors and not have to worry about the prying eyes of the world. The clincher came with the announcement that Ginger was pregnant. Remembering fondly his time spent at the ranch he once owned in the mid-to-late ’60s, the Circle G, near Horn Lake, Mississippi, Presley arranged to re-acquire the 160-acre property. In 1979, Presley, a seven-months pregnant Ginger, and Vernon moved to the ranch. His daughter, Lisa Marie, continued to divide time between Mississippi and Los Angeles, where Elvis’ ex-wife, Priscilla, lived.

On June 19th, 1979, Jesse Vernon Presley — named for Elvis’ father and his stillborn twin brother, Jesse Garon — was born. Ecstatic at being a father again, Presley and his family settled into a comfortable life on the ranch. Presley continued to explore spiritual and religious matters, and he began to physically reverse the toll drug abuse and unhealthy living had taken on his body. He ate healthier and began to exercise, practicing martial arts and taking morning jogs on his property. It is said that this was the happiest time of Presley’s life.

Back in the Spotlight

By the early 1980s, a dwindling cash reserve — due to a stagnant back catalog and no new music-related income — prompted Presley to re-engage with the outside world. He began with a non-music business venture: a chain of Southern-themed fast-food restaurants called Gladys’ Kitchen. Named for Presley’s late mother, the first Gladys’ Kitchen opened its doors at 1447 Union Avenue in Memphis in 1980.

Amy Mathews

In preparation for Friday’s memorial service, Elvis Presley’s son, Jesse Vernon, cleans up at the south gate of the family estate, the Circle G Ranch. Presley died of cardiac arrest at his home on Monday.

The signature item on the menu was a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich. Hamburgers topped with peanut butter or pimento cheese were also featured. After success in Memphis, Gladys’ Kitchen expanded across the Southeast, boasting 18 locations by early 1982. But the venture saw its gains turned back shortly thereafter. The blow came from New York Times food critic and fellow Mississippi native Craig Claiborne, who famously gave Gladys’ Kitchen a zero-star, one-word write up: “Godawful.” Folding almost as quickly as it had appeared, even the original (and last remaining) Gladys’ Kitchen shuttered by 1984. It’s now a Taco Bell.

Two other business opportunities proved more fruitful. The first was the brainchild of Presley’s high school friend, George Klein. Listening to Elvis ruminating on what to do with Graceland, Klein made a wild suggestion: Turn Graceland into a Cadillac dealership. And so, in October 1983, George Klein’s King Cadillac opened its gates on the renovated grounds of Graceland, selling new and classic models of the automobile. The co-venture was a moderate success at first — those weren’t great years for the American auto industry — but in time, Klein’s King Cadillac gained a cult following, especially for its trademark custom-pink models. A status symbol of sorts for celebrities and fans, car buyers at King Cadillac included, over the years, Nicolas Cage, Johnny Depp, Axl Rose, and Quentin Tarantino.

The second business venture secured Presley’s finances far into the future. Long a loyal consumer of Mountain Valley Spring Water, Presley took a financial plunge in the company in 1987. Headquartered in Hot Springs, Arkansas, until investors moved it to New Jersey in 1966, Mountain Valley Spring Co. was acquired by Elvis Presley Enterprises and returned to its original home. Presley’s investment proved vastly profitable, riding the wave of the bottled-water boom that continues to this day.

In the aftermath of the Gladys’ Kitchen debacle, Presley made a difficult decision: His father was replaced as his business manager. Then 66 years old, Vernon was well-intentioned but in declining health. His replacement: Jerry Schilling, a longtime Presley friend and the youngest member of the “Memphis Mafia” entourage before it was effectively disbanded. An experienced manager of the Sweet Inspirations, the Beach Boys, and Billy Joel, Schilling came to Presley with a proposition: It was time to get back in the recording studio. Presley resisted initially — he hadn’t sung into a microphone in nearly six years. But Schilling convinced him to enter the friendly confines of Sam Phillips Recording Studio in Memphis with producer Chips Moman for a one-day session on December 21, 1982.

Though the session didn’t yield any finished recordings, it was seen in the music industry as a watershed moment for the King, creating ripples of excitement among insiders. A few months later, performer/producer Barry Gibb contacted Schilling with an overture to make an album of new songs with Presley. Intrigued, Presley agreed to travel to Nashville to record one song: “Islands in the Stream” — written by Barry, Maurice, and Robin Gibb — as a duet with Dolly Parton. The song would go on to be the first single from her album Burlap & Satin. Of the recording session, Presley quipped to a reporter, “It’s like riding a bike — and I ain’t rode nothin’ but a horse for a long time.”

Presley and Tina Turner perform ‘Proud Mary’ at ‘Live Aid,’ on July 13, 1985. This was Presley’s first public concert appearance since June 26, 1977, at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

“Islands in the Stream” was released in August 1983, the first new Presley recording since 1977, and was a smash success. The record hit #1 on October 29th and stayed there three weeks before being supplanted by Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long.”

“Islands in the Stream” was Presley’s first Top 40 hit in the U.S. since “Way Down” in 1977 and his first #1 since “Suspicious Minds” in 1969. Named Song of the Year by Billboard, “Islands in the Stream” also won a Grammy for Pop Vocal Group Performance and an American Music Award (AMA) for Favorite Country Song.

But with a return to musical success came sadness. Vernon Presley, then 67 years old, died of heart failure March 15, 1984, at the Circle G Ranch. He was buried at the ranch next to Elvis’ mother, Gladys, who had been moved there from Forest Hill Cemetery in Memphis years before. His father’s death deeply affected Presley. He spent more time with Ginger, Jesse, and Lisa Marie, and he sought solace in his friendships with longtime friends, especially Schilling and Klein. He also reconciled with Red West, Sonny West, and Dave Hebler, with whom he’d been estranged since they published their tell-all in 1977, titled Elvis: What Happened?.

The World Stage

Presley’s next foray into music would take place on a much bigger stage. With a famine ravaging Ethiopia, musician/activists Bob Geldof and Midge Ure organized “Live Aid,” a global concert to benefit the hunger-torn nation. Musicians of every background responded to the call; Presley was no exception.

The ground of Graceland became George Klein’s King Cadillac in 1983.

In his first public appearance since 1977, Presley headlined the Philadelphia concert at JFK Stadium, on July 13, 1985. He gave the show finale in front of 90,000 attendees and an estimated 1.9 billion viewers in 100 countries, performing “In the Ghetto,” “Burning Love,” and, in a duet with Tina Turner, “Proud Mary.” For most viewers, it was the first time they’d laid eyes on the new, slim, healthy Elvis. Memorably, many of the show’s other performers, including Mick Jagger, Madonna, and Run-D.M.C., sat on the stage to listen to his set. Presley even gave the audience a bit of his infamous wiggling hips. Asked about it later, he said, “Rhythm is something you either have or you don’t have, but when you have it, you have it all over.”

In September, Presley was back in the studio, this time turning back the clock with some old friends. The Class of ’55: Memphis Rock & Roll Homecoming album matched Presley with his onetime Sun Studio compatriots, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins, the reunited “Million Dollar Quartet” who last played together by happenstance one day almost 30 years earlier. Recorded at Sun and produced by Moman, Class of ’55 was a critical and commercial success upon its 1986 release (going on to be nominated for a Grammy for best album but losing to Paul Simon’s Homeless).

On January 23, 1986, Presley got what he called “the honor of a lifetime”: induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was enshrined in the first class of inductees along with, among others, Sam Cooke, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Sam Phillips. Phillips caused controversy introducing Carl Perkins at the awards banquet, saying, “It’s a late date to be saying it, and I mean no disrespect to the people of Cleveland, who I’m sure are a fine people and spirachul people — but Cleveland ain’t ever gonna be Memphis.” His remarks were in response to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation choosing Cleveland over Memphis for the future site of its museum. Though the foundation was won over by a $65 million pledge from the city of Cleveland, a commitment Memphis and Shelby County governments were not willing to make, Presley drew local criticism from frustrated fans and business leaders who felt he could have exerted more influence over the selection process.

In 1987, after a personal plea from actor Patrick Swayze, Presley recorded a duet single with Jennifer Warnes for the film Dirty Dancing. “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” earned Presley his second #1 hit of the decade — in as many tries. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song (but losing to “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” from Mannequin), Presley and Warnes performed their number at the Oscar ceremony. At the close of the show, host Chevy Chase signed off, saying, “Ladies and gentlemen: Elvis has left the building — with Bernardo Bertolucci’s Oscar. After him!”

Also in 1987, U2 came calling on Presley. On a tour to support The Joshua Tree album and to film their documentary Rattle & Hum, the Irish group enlisted the talents of Presley, B.B. King, and Bob Dylan, among others, as musical tour guides for their paean to American rock-and-roll. Presley had met Bono during the “Live Aid” campaign, and Elvis, now accustomed to the return to the spotlight, was happy to be on film showing U2 around Memphis.

Presley introduced the band to Sun Studios, but he turned down the opportunity to record with them there. Nevertheless, impressed by U2, he agreed in principle to work with them in the future. He didn’t have to wait long. The next year, Bono returned with a song he’d written for Presley: “All I Want Is You.” Presley recorded his part of a duet with Bono at Sun, and the song closed the soundtrack album Rattle & Hum later that year. The third single from the album, “All I Want Is You” also gave Presley a stake in another #1 hit.

Elvis wasn’t the only Presley claiming high-profile success. Ginger landed a semi-regular role on Knots Landing in 1985. But relocating part of the year to Los Angeles began to take a toll on their marriage. In 1987, Ginger accepted a role on L.A. Law, requiring her to spend more time in California than Mississippi. Presley refused to move to L.A. full-time, and Ginger refused to scale back the workload of her burgeoning career. Their relationship strained by a 2,000-mile forced separation, Ginger filed for divorce in April 1989. The couple shared custody of Jesse, who at 9 years old began to split time between his parents’ homes, as his half-sister Lisa Marie had done years before.

Still stinging from his second failed marriage, Presley would receive good news later that year: Lisa Marie wanted to move back to the Mid-South. Though Presley had not remained on good terms with Priscilla following her conversion to Scientology, he and his daughter remained close. With her homecoming, Lisa Marie would spark a joy and a desire for collaboration in her father that would bear fruit in years to come when Lisa Marie decided to follow in her father’s footsteps.

“Life in Four-Quarters Time”

Mountain Valley Spring Water and George Klein’s King Cadillac weren’t the only non-musical business ventures Presley embarked on in the mid-’80s. He also began a decades-long foray into the world of professional football.

Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton’s 1983 #1 hit single, ‘Islands in the Stream.’

A black belt in karate, Presley became identified with martial arts during that sport’s boom in the 1970s, but his first sporting love was always football. Presley was a season-ticket holder for the Memphis Grizzlies of the short-lived

World Football League, attending every home game during the 1975 season. He took a more active involvement in the sport in 1984, when he and Memphis cotton merchant William Dunavant purchased a franchise in the upstart United States Football League (USFL). The Memphis Showboats debuted at Liberty Bowl Stadium that June, but the era ended two years later with the dissolution of the USFL after the struggling league got an unfavorable ruling in a key court case against the dominant NFL. But Presley had gotten a taste for the sports business and wanted more.

In 1991, Presley joined Dunavant, Memphis-bred venture capitalist Paul Tudor Jones II, and Federal Express founder Fred Smith in a pursuit team for a proposed NFL expansion franchise, the Memphis Hound Dogs. Still stinging from public criticism for his lack of hands-on involvement in Memphis’ unsuccessful bid to land the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Presley took public lead of the NFL pursuit. In 1993, the NFL announced Memphis, Charlotte, Jacksonville, and Baltimore as finalists, eventually awarding teams to Charlotte and Memphis.

On September 9, 1995, the Memphis Hound Dogs debuted before a sold-out crowd in a refurbished Liberty Bowl, renamed Vernon Presley Memorial Stadium, losing to the Cleveland Browns 21-10. Presley performed his “American Trilogy” at halftime of the nationally televised game.

More than his musical triumphs or his return to movies, Presley cited the Hound Dogs as his proudest professional accomplishment during the latter decades of his life. “Football is the gift of the gods,” Presley said of the sport. “It’s like life in four-quarters time.”

Before kickoff of the first Memphis Hound Dogs home game at Vernon Presley Memorial Stadium, team mascot Fetch celebrates at nearby Libertyland.

A colorful and hands-on owner, Presley personally coaxed Jimmy Johnson, a Super Bowl-winning coach for the Dallas Cowboys, out of the TV studio to lead his beloved Hound Dogs. During home games, Presley was known to occasionally sketch plays from his old touch-football days and have them sent from his owner’s box to the sidelines, where Johnson would playfully crumble them up and discard them. “This one will score, if it goes,” Presley would typically scribble at the bottom of each play.

A massive success, the Hound Dogs continue to dominate the regional sports scene as the only major professional sports franchise in Tennessee, despite failing to match the success of their 1999 season, when they lost to the Los Angeles Lazers in Super Bowl XXXIV.

Even more than Presley’s concurrent residency at the Hilton Hotel & Casino Tunica, the Hound Dogs are credited with spurring Tunica’s rise as the country’s second-largest gaming and resort destination. The presence of the Hound Dogs also spurred a massive redevelopment of the Memphis Fairgrounds complex, first with the refurbished Vernon Presley Memorial Stadium, then with Elvis Presley Enterprises taking over the troubled Libertyland amusement park from the city of Memphis, converting it into Graceland Fairgrounds. Presley kicked off the grand reopening of the park in 1996 with a trip on his favorite ride, the Zippin Pippin roller coaster. Graceland Fairgrounds continues to flourish today.

The Nineties:
Viva Las Tunica

On several occasions following recovery from his 1977 overdose, Presley received overtures from Hilton Hotels to resume his residency at the company’s Las Vegas location. Wary of returning to a lifestyle that nearly cost him his life, Presley turned down Hilton repeatedly. But, in June 1990, the state legislature of Mississippi passed the Mississippi Gaming Control Act, allowing casinos to open along the Mississippi River. Hilton saw this as an opportunity to renew their relationship with Presley, opening Hilton Hotel & Casino Tunica, located less than 25 miles from Presley’s Circle G Ranch, and reaching an agreement with Presley for a residency at the casino’s 500-seat ballroom.

On most Friday and Saturday nights over the next several years, Presley held court at the Hilton, playing with a band culled from Memphis-area session and club musicians. His daughter, Lisa Marie, became a regular part of his show, opening with solo sets of her own material and then joining Presley as a back-up singer and duet partner, typically closing sets by taking the Dolly Parton verses on “Islands in the Stream.”

The tenor of Presley’s Tunica shows was far different from his Vegas residencies. Gone were the bejeweled jumpsuits, colorful scarves, and big-band set-up. Instead, Presley’s shows were a more modest run-through of his hits with occasional forays into the gospel music he always cherished, performed largely for audiences whose backgrounds were more similar to Presley’s own than his Vegas audiences had been.

Less than a year later, the troubled municipal amusement park was taken over by Elvis Presley Enterprises and renamed Graceland Fairgrounds. Presley, seated front, rides the Zippin Pippin to celebrate the reopening.

Growing comfortable with his Tunica gigs, which allowed him to continue his music career while remaining close to his Mississippi home and, later, the Hound Dogs, Presley declined other offers to record or perform outside the area for most of the decade. One exception was Presley’s participation on Frank Sinatra’s 1993 Duets album, in which the King and the Chairman traded verses on “My Way.” It was the first time the two vocal icons had worked together since the 1960 ABC television special Sinatra hosted to welcome Presley home from the Army.

In addition to his role with the Memphis Hound Dogs and his run of shows at the Hilton Tunica, the ’90s were notable for Presley because of a key, if unlikely, friendship he formed.

Presley first met Arkansas governor Bill Clinton after his purchase of Mountain Valley Spring Water in 1987. A big fan of Presley’s music, Clinton was anxious to meet the King, and the pair struck up an immediate friendship. When Clinton ran for president a few years later, Presley contributed money to the effort and made a few appearances at campaign rallies. After Clinton’s election in 1992, Presley performed at the first inaugural ball, playing “Heartbreak Hotel” as the newly elected president joined him on stage to play saxophone.

Over the years, Presley spent several nights at the White House, in the Lincoln Bedroom, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Clinton in 1995.

The Final Years

By the late ’90s, Presley, on the wrong side of 60 and feeling the effects of his hard living decades earlier, seemed to be winding down his music career. His Tunica residency had become more sporadic, Lisa Marie had broken away from the show to pursue her own recording ambitions, and Presley seemed more interested in making appearances at Hound Dogs games than on the concert stage.

But in early 1998, renegade country star Dwight Yoakam sat in with Presley while in Tunica for one of his own concerts and tried to coax the King back into the studio. Though Presley had recorded occasionally over the past couple of decades, he hadn’t recorded a full album of new material since his 1977 drug overdose. Yoakam convinced Presley that a new album was a chance to reinvent himself musically in a way that he hadn’t since his fabled “’68 Comeback,” when Presley performed a stripped-down televised concert in full-body black leather then returned to Memphis for soulful sessions that yielded his classic “Suspicious Minds.”

Yoakam brought Presley to Nashville to record with his touring band. The album that emerged was a collection of bluesy roots-rock akin to Presley’s 1969 Memphis sessions. Titled, cheekily, ’98 Comeback, the album featured Presley covers of left-of-center country songs such as Lucinda Williams’ “I Just Wanted To See You So Bad” and Yoakam’s own “Guitars, Cadillacs.” The album proved too country for pop and rock radio and too rock for country radio, but it garnered appreciative reviews and sold well. It also convinced Presley — who still refused to tour — to keep experimenting, launching a fertile period in which he released three wildly different but equally successful albums in four years.

’98 Comeback was followed by 1999’s Magnolia, an atmospheric, portentous set produced in Oxford, Mississippi, by rock veteran Daniel Lanois (who had co-produced U2’s The Joshua Tree). On Magnolia, Presley interpreted familiar songs such as U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game,” and, most surprisingly, British alt-rockers Radiohead’s “Creep.” The latter became a minor hit on modern-rock radio, though Presley later admitted to not really “getting” the song. Magnolia was nominated for an Album of the Year Grammy but lost to another comeback record from a veteran artist, Santana’s less risky Supernatural. The two-way race between retirement-age artists prompted Grammy critics to refer to the broadcast as the “Grannies.”

Next, Presley returned to Memphis, recording locally at Ardent Studios for Blue, a soul album in which he was backed by legendary Stax Records house band Booker T. & the MGs, with guitarist Steve Cropper and organist Booker T. Jones producing. The album’s lead single and signature song was a cover of Bill Withers’ 1971 soul hit “Ain’t No Sunshine.”

In the midst of this late-career resurgence, Presley’s other passion hit a peak as well, as his Memphis Hound Dogs reached Super Bowl XXXIV on January 30, 2000, at Atlanta’s Georgia Dome. In a game that signaled an era of changes for the NFL, the Hound Dogs squared off against another new-look franchise, the Los Angeles Lazers, the former Houston Oilers, who had relocated to California in 1997. The Hounds Dogs lost the game 24-23 as Lazers wide receiver Kevin Dyson lunged just across the end zone as time expired, pulling the Lazers to within 23-22. With no time remaining on the clock, the Lazers went for the two-point conversion and the win, quarterback Steve McNair running a bootleg play across the goal line for the 24-23 win in perhaps the most exciting Super Bowl ever. It was a bittersweet day for Presley, who sang the national anthem to open the game.

This period of activity was punctured in the spring of 2001 when, a month before the release of Blue, Presley suffered a massive heart attack. Though he recovered from this second brush with death, Presley shut down all plans to help promote his new record and retired again to the Circle G. He was 66.

In 1995, Presley received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from longtime fan and personal friend President Bill Clinton.

When Presley finally re-emerged a year-and-a-half later, it wasn’t music that brought him back, but the movies. Presley hadn’t acted in more than 30 years, last appearing opposite Mary Tyler Moore in 1969’s Change of Habit. Presley blamed the culture of the movie world for much of his substance abuse problems earlier in his career and had often derided the left-coast entertainment industry as “Hollyweird.” But director Quentin Tarantino, whom Presley knew as an occasional customer at King Cadillac, talked Presley back onto a movie set with a part written expressly for him: Bill, a mysterious leader of a group of assassins who is targeted for revenge by an employee/lover whom he attempted to have killed. A charming, aging martial-arts expert, the character Bill tapped into both Presley’s karate background and his status as an icon of cool. Though the movie, an action epic, was called Kill Bill, the character Bill was close to a cameo, with meager but crucial screen time that wouldn’t put too much strain on a sexagenarian still recovering from major heart surgery.

While Elvis was enjoying his return to the big screen, another Presley was staking out an acting career. After growing up around the Hollywood entertainment industry during his mother’s stints on Knots Landing and L.A. Law, Jesse got his big break in 2003, landing the role of Ryan Atwood, a good-hearted kid from the wrong side of the tracks, on Fox network’s teen drama The O.C.

For the next couple of years, Presley’s public appearances were few. He delivered a eulogy at a memorial service for his Sun Records mentor Sam Phillips at Memphis’ Cannon Center for the Performing Arts in July 2003. The next summer, he deemed himself unable to perform at a 50th Anniversary of Rock and Roll concert at Vernon Presley Memorial Stadium. The concert, held largely in honor of Presley’s own enormous contribution to American pop music, was broadcast live on HBO, and, though Presley didn’t perform a set on his own, he was coaxed to the stage during the finale, joining longtime admirer Bruce Springsteen, old acquaintance Bono, and emerging hometown star Justin Timberlake for a medley of the King’s hits.

After the concert, Timberlake and Bono pitched Presley on the idea of doing his own duets album, akin to the Frank Sinatra Duets album Presley had participated in a decade prior. Presley agreed. The album, The King’s Court, was recorded during a series of sessions at Memphis’ Ardent Studios, with Timberlake and Bono performing and producing. Among the participants were Springsteen, Christina Aguilera, Sheryl Crow, and Rob Thomas.

Forget Me Never

One of Presley’s greatest legacies was his work with charities. He established the Elvis Presley Charitable Foundation, setting up music programs and scholarships for inner-city youth and working with Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association in Memphis to create and manage Presley Place, a development of transitional housing for the homeless. Following Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, Presley directed massive shipments of Mountain Valley Spring Water to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast to help with recovery efforts. In October 2005, Presley organized a benefit show at the DeSoto Civic Center in Southaven, Mississippi, with other first-generation rock stars, including Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, and Fats Domino, himself a Katrina victim. Presley also became involved in Music Rising, a Katrina-affected-musicians charity.

In a part written specifically for him, Presley returned to the big screen as the title character in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill. ‘Bill’ was the first of Presley’s roles to reference his martial-arts background. Presley hadn’t starred in a film since 1969’s Change of Habit.

In recent years, Elvis had renewed frustrations with the influence of Hollywood on his family. His son Jesse got kicked off The O.C. after two seasons due to drug problems and stayed on tabloid covers when he co-starred in the fifth season of the VH1 celebrity reality series The Surreal Life.

Nevertheless, at the time of his death, Presley had two film projects in the works. He had signed on to return to the silver screen with a cameo as Daddy Lynn, the estranged father of the title character in Memphis director Craig Brewer’s upcoming country-music-themed film Maggie Lynn. Presley was also involved in the long-gestating film biopic of his life, tentatively titled Burning Love and scheduled to begin filming in Memphis in 2008.

Elvis Presley is survived by daughter Lisa Marie and son Jesse Vernon. He will be laid to rest next to his parents in Horn Lake, Mississippi, on Friday, August 10th.

Tags acting, Elvis Presley, film, hounddogs, legacy, Memphis, movie, rock and roll, singing

Cover Feature News

Four More Years?

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date July 26, 2007

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

We have seen the field. That is the hard, inescapable fact of last week’s filing deadline. The next mayor of Memphis will almost certainly be one of three contenders — two of whom are familiar properties: the proud (some say reckless, some say haughty) incumbent Willie Herenton, and the determinedly independent (some say foolishly stubborn) City Council member Carol Chumney. A third candidate, former NAACP official and MLGW head Herman Morris, has yet to make his profile clear, and that is perhaps his major problem.

Oh, there is yet a fourth candidate, former Shelby County Commissioner John Willingham, who is well enough known. Respected, even beloved, by some for his densely detailed plans to fix virtually everything and regarded as an eccentric by a perhaps greater number, Willingham constitutes a relatively distant second tier all by himself.

And after him, among the 12 other candidates who qualified by the July 19th filing deadline, there is naught but anonymity, lacking as of now even Robert “Prince Mongo” Hodges, the barefoot denizen of the Planet Zambodia and the numbing punchline to an old joke which, for some time now, has been told only by himself to himself.

A perennial, Mongo filed his papers correctly but was disqualified for one more run because of unpaid fines relating to state election requirements. The now officially irrelevant Mongo did have one moment of historical importance, shaking loose a few hundred frivolous protest votes that likely would otherwise have gone to then-incumbent mayor Dick Hackett in 1991 and thereby making possible the victory, by a margin of 142 votes, of former Memphis City Schools schools superintendent Herenton as the city’s first elected black mayor.

If not for that, Mongo would have been no more consequential than a candidate who remains on the ballot — Bill (formerly Willie) Jacox, the perennial’s perennial, who disappeared from Shelby County ballots for a decade, as did his crude self-advertising handbills that used to litter telephone poles throughout the city, but who is back this year. Two other candidates — bus driver Carlos Boyland and businessman Randy Cagle — were so obscure that, when they tried to launch early candidacies at the Election Commission’s downtown office in 1996, they were erroneously given petitions to run for county mayor that year.

Cagle made something of a fuss at a recent neighborhood forum in southeast Memphis when he accused the media of downplaying his prospects and keeping him, and others like him, out of the charmed ranks of acknowledged contenders.

It doesn’t work like that, of course. Though here and there over the years an effort has been made to logroll somebody into or out of prominence, the media don’t make or break anybody. They — we — are still merely chroniclers of moods and momentums that stir of themselves, or, as in the case of Shelby County mayor A C Wharton, the reluctant warrior who last week finally and firmly squelched insistent draft efforts by a multitude of well-known and unknown courtiers desperate for a change at the city’s helm, are put into motion by specific forces in the community itself.

Now, as always before and (one hopes) forever, ours is a representative system. That, for better and for worse, is the root fact.

Who, then, do the major players represent? Here is a capsule of sorts:

Mayor Willie Herenton: By his own testimony, the incumbent mayor is still the man who, as he told an almost hysterically happy, cheering crowd of mainly African-American citizens at The Peabody on an October night in 1991, was “willed” by them into power and prominence as the culmination of historical justice and inevitability, whose accession to power was attended, at the last rally and at the first post-victory celebration, by no less a figure than Jesse Jackson, the civil rights avatar who had been on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in 1968 with the slain martyr Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

One of the ironies of this mayor’s career is that he could not have represented outcasts from power and passions so long denied had he not, just prior to his ascension, been suddenly cast into disrepute with a civic establishment that had once embraced him and appointed him to its major power boards. Forced from his perch as head of the Memphis schools system by a sexual scandal (the late 1980s were post-Gary Hart and pre-Clinton times) and by alleged administrative irregularities, Herenton became a martyr for that moment of change.

Justin Fox Burks

The mayor, an able and commanding figure and (as he never tired of reminding people) a once-undefeated Golden Gloves champion, won three subsequent elections on the strength of his personal dominance and visible successes — mainly in civic (read: downtown) reconstruction and a record of (apparent) fiscal solvency. But his fourth term, which began with a thunderous denunciation of his City Council and a heady claim of divine sponsorship, proceeded into financial difficulties, an era of resurgent crime, and all-too-mortal wrangles with disbelievers, who included both council members and those members of a disaffected population who were challenged by Herenton to “leave” if they didn’t like how he did things in his dominion.

As it happens, the number so aggrieved has risen to the point, among blacks as well as among whites, that the mayor actually ran second (to Chumney) in the first set of polls conducted in this electoral season. Hence his reaching again for the martyr’s mantle and African-American solidarity, as in the now famous press conference of mid-June when he accused various disloyal “snakes,” in concert with a vengeful power establishment, of scheming to overthrow him with — shades of those late 1980s — a sexual-blackmail plot.

But as the Rev. Bill Adkins, a major ally in Herenton’s campaign of 1991 and co-founder of the ill-fated “Draft A C” movement, observed last week, “He really hasn’t done what he promised to do for black people. The truth is, on matters like minority contracting, he’s not even been as good as Dick Hackett was!”

Outlook: Though favored at the moment by prognosticators looking down track, Herenton fared no better than even with Chumney in the last major Wharton-less poll, taken the week before last for The Commercial Appeal by Ethridge and Associates. The mayor still has much to prove, even to his presumed hard-core base in the black community.

Carol Chumney: A maverick’s maverick, first-termer Chumney is, hands down, the most unpopular City Council member among her colleagues in city government, both on and off the council. More than once, she has put on the table a motion for an action or cause with more than plausible rationale, only to look in vain for a second. The most recent and telling case of this came back in April, when Chumney proposed a resolution asking Mayor Herenton to reverse course and accept the proferred resignation — initially rejected by the mayor — of the then beleaguered MLGW president Joseph Lee.

As so often before, Chumney’s motion failed for lack of a second. Accused by colleague Joe Brown of trying to advance her political chances and by member Brent Taylor of procedural irregularity, Chumney responded indignantly, “If I’m out of order, so be it!” A subsequent resolution by councilman Jack Sammons asking Lee to resign encountered racial-bloc voting and failed of approval by a single vote – Chumney’s. She had declined to vote for it on the technically correct ground that Lee had already tried to resign — or at least gone through the motions of doing so.

When Lee’s dormant resignation finally was accepted, on the heels of his misguided (and apparently misinformed) blackmail threat against an MLGW board member, the suddenly ubiquitous Nick Clark, Chumney claimed vindication. But the consensus among many neutral observers was that she had lost face — not just by virtue of her colleagues’ rejection but because she had appeared too unyielding and unwilling to consider compromise, that mother’s milk of consensus politics.

It is, of course, her very intransigence that has accounted for Chumney’s surprisingly high standing in the polls and for the fact that the former Democratic state representative from Midtown draws cheers when she appears before government-bashing conservative groups anywhere in the city.

If Herenton has cast himself as the symbol of a long-suffering race, Chumney has succeeded in becoming the Joan of Arc of the disaffected. Moreover, she has genuine reformer’s credentials, having played a leading role in exposing and correcting child-care abuses while a member of the state House and, as a council member, taking damn-the-torpedoes positions against questionable, if long-accepted, practices in city government. A case in point was the now-vanished arrangement whereby only 12 years of city service entitled one to a comfortable lifetime pension.

Chumney can also take credit for go-it-alone probes that in the last year or two turned up evidence of the city’s fluctuating credit rating and its tenuous budgetary predicament.

Jackson Baker

Mayoral candidate Carol Chumney: Joan of Arc of the disaffected?

Outlook: Though boosted by a grass-roots network of sorts and by recent trends that arguably favor female candidates, all other factors being equal, Chumney seems doomed to run a cash-poor campaign, and though her unquestioned ability to garner free media will help her in that regard, her long-range prospects among black voters remain a mystery, while at the same time she has real competition for the city’s white vote.

Herman Morris: Once a star scholar and athlete and, in his adult years, a man of considerable professional attainment, this up-from-humble-origins success story has found himself cast all too often as a contemporary member of what used to be called “the black bourgeoisie.” This is despite a long early history of legal and political activism on behalf of civil rights causes and candidates.

Morris’ reputation in the public mind is largely fixed from his seven years’ service as president of MLGW, an important (and, these days, crucial) administrative venue that depends disproportionately on behind-the-scenes activity, even more so than other appointed positions of less obvious public urgency. Even in moments of crisis — like the “Hurricane Elvis” windstorm of 2003 — it is elected officials, notably the mayor, who bear the brunt of public attention.

Until this year, when he followed through on a long-nursed ambition to run for mayor — at least partly, many think, to atone for what he regarded as ill treatment by Herenton — Morris was mainly known for the falling-out with Herenton that led to his ouster from MLGW in late 2003 or for the supposed “golden parachute” that, perhaps unfairly, he was considered to have left with or perhaps even for his championing of utility investments, including the now-controversial Memphis Networx, a public/private fiber-optic venture that is popularly believed to have been a financial bust and is on the verge of being abandoned, at a fire-sale price, to a private financial concern.

Morris is the kind of public figure who requires careful scrutiny to properly “get” him, and the same is apparently true of Networx, which, in February of this year, long before the taxpayer-funded investment became an issue, newly announced mayoral candidate Morris made a point of publicly touting. Indeed, in an age in which Memphis is encumbered by a “connectedness” gap (see Editorial, p. 16), Networx might, as the Flyer‘s Chris Davis has suggested in a series of articles, have been the foundation of a viable public utility in its own right.

If Morris is to succeed in the politics of this year, however, he has to stake out some basis for popular appeal. He is funded well. This month’s disclosures showed him well into the six figures — though still considerably below the half-million dollars and up that Herenton has in cash on hand. Morris’ voter support, too, has so far depended largely on affluent sectors of the community and on Republican sources as much as on Democratic ones.

With that need in mind, we may be treated to further quirky moves like Morris’ recent demand that other candidates join him in having drug tests — a patent play to so far wholly unsubstantiated rumors concerning the incumbent mayor.

Outlook: With his mixture of black and white support, based disproportionately in the middle class, Morris may well turn out to be the default anti-Herenton candidate, but his long-term prospects depend on further progress in what has been a slow evolution from his naturally reserved private persona into the kind of glad-handing bonhomie type that a mayoral race requires.

John Willingham: What can we say that we have not said many times already about this gallant and largely misunderstood public figure, to whose gadfly-like prodding of the governmental structure the public owes much — not only in the realm of exposing abuse (à la the now-notorious FedExForum deal, private garage and all) but in the determined venting of alternate public courses, like Willingham’s various proposals for serious tax overhaul?

Willingham has a reputation in too many quarters as a crank, though he overcame it big-time with his upset victory in 2002 over an establishment pillar, the late Morris Fair, to become a member of the Shelby County Commission. That triumph was owing to Willingham’s becoming a channel for massive discontent over the way public funds were used, sans public consent, to bait the Grizzlies into relocating to Memphis.

Forced into an ill-advised race against Shelby County mayor Wharton in 2006 by his correct perception that too many forces, financial and otherwise, were committed to defeating his bid for reelection to the commission, Willingham is once more a private citizen, and, unfortunately for his electoral prospects, even many of his veteran well-wishers have written off his chances, casting their lot with other candidates. His devoted but long-suffering wife Marge has made no secret of her wish that her husband would cease and desist from his flirtations with public office, especially now that his chances seem so slim.

But he is still there, for one more Revere-like ride, it would seem, passing out pamphlets showing he still has an ambitious eye for redesigning the public sphere (most recently to convert the much-pondered-over Fairgrounds into an Olympic Village).

Outlook: The ex-Nixon administration aide, multi-patented inventor and engineer, and well-known barbecue maven is the longest of long shots, eminently more qualified than, say, the unlamented Mongo, but in most quarters given no greater potential for success than the Zambodian would have had. Indeed, some longtime friends wonder if Willingham isn’t taking votes away from the other potentially viable challengers.

Whoever is destined to be mayor of Memphis after October 4th is guaranteed to be dealing with a City Council with a majority of newly elected members. That outcome was foreshadowed by accelerated attrition and by the wave of indictments for public corruption that swept aside two veterans, and it was made certain when council mainstays Tom Marshall and Jack Sammons, both of whom apparently considered mayoral runs themselves, opted out of reelection races just before filing deadline.

That means that such front-burner issues as what to do with the Fairgrounds (a legislatively vetted proposal from developer Henry Turley awaits possible implementation), whether or not to seek functional merger of the city police with the Sheriff’s Department, and how finally to dispose of the ghost facility known as the Pyramid (tomb of a previous governmental generation’s civic imagining) will all come under the purview of fresh eyes and — we are entitled to hope — fresh perspectives.

This new council and the newly elected (or reelected) mayor will also have the advantage and the challenge of dealing with recommendations for change by the Charter Commission that was elected last year and has dutifully and quietly gone about what could turn out to be momentous labors.

In any case, a new team will be taking the field, and the game of Memphis city government will almost surely take new and unexpected turns, no matter who the manager of record turns out to be.

Tags Carol Chumney, Herman Morris, Mayor, Memphis, MLGW, race, Willie Herenton

News The Fly-By

Weapons of Mass Distribution

Post author By Bianca Phillips
Post date July 26, 2007

Recently in Nashville, Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) workers spent a day picking bits of once-frozen TV dinners off Interstate 440 after a tractor-trailer flipped over a guardrail.

The driver, Peter Wayne Meadows of Okolona, Mississippi, lost control of his vehicle while trying to maneuver a curve. Fortunately for other drivers, and TDOT workers, Meadows was hauling frozen dinners instead of hazardous waste.

As of July, the U.S. Army has shipped 103 truckloads of neutralized nerve agent VX on I-40 through Memphis. The chemical, currently stockpiled in Newport, Indiana, is being shipped to Port Arthur, Texas, for incineration.

It’s the possibility of a wreck that has members of the Kentucky-based Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG) and the national Sierra Club worried.

“Nobody knows what happens if you get [the neutralized VX nerve agent] on your skin,” says Elizabeth Crowe of the CWWG, an environmental action group promoting safe elimination of chemical weapons. “If you get a pinpoint amount of [straight] VX on your skin, it is enough to kill you.”

The CWWG and Sierra Club are seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the shipments. A federal judge in Indianapolis heard arguments last week and is expected to make a decision this week. The Army has voluntarily ceased shipments until that decision.

Army spokesperson Greg Mahall says they plan to ship a total of 450 truckloads of neutralized VX by December 2009 but that the chemical is a caustic solution that’s no more harmful than a truckload of “Drano or other drain cleaner.”

“Essentially,” Mahall says, “if you’re exposed to a nerve agent, it shuts down your central nervous system and results in death.”

Though Mahall says the shipments are neutralized, depositions by managers at the Newport Chemical Depot suggest otherwise. In documents presented to the court last week, the managers said samples from tanker spillage showed concentrations of the VX nerve agent in the neutralized byproduct.

“If something were to happen and that nerve agent were to get out of its container, we would have a huge disaster,” says Rita Harris, environmental justice coordinator for the local Sierra Club. “It really shouldn’t be coming … through the center of town. It’s scary because there are so many different accidents that could happen.”

Jeremy Heidt of the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency says they are in constant contact with the drivers as they approach the state border.

“We would stop them in Missouri before they cross over the border if they were to arrive in Memphis during rush hour,” says Heidt.

Local first responders are also notified as the shipments come through.

But the CWWG and Sierra Club would rather the Army dispose of the chemicals on-site in Indiana.

“It wasn’t ever a good idea to ship this waste off-site,” says Crowe. “Now that we know there’s actually more VX nerve agent within the [neutralized chemical], that makes it an even worse idea.”

The Army claims VX was never used in any American war, but there is some suspicion that Iraq used the chemical against Iran in 1988.

Tags army, Memphis, nerve gas, truck route

News

Virtual Raiford’s Hollywood!

Post author By John Branston
Post date June 22, 2007

Hey, the weekend’s here! Time to head out for happy hour! A little later, we’ll all head on down to Memphis’ favorite disco — Raiford’s Hollywood.

What’s that, you say? Raiford’s is closed? Well, yeah. But hey, that doesn’t mean you can’t take a trip back in time at the new Raiford’s Myspace site.

From the first chords of Prince’s, um, “P Control,” you are back in da house that Raiford built. Sipping those $6 40-oz’s. Dancin’ like a white boy. Actin’ the fool, etc. Drink, rinse, repeat. Almost.

All we can say is, bring it back, Robert. Memphis is not the same without you. (And shouldn’t we be naming a street after this guy, or something?)

Tags Hollywood Raiford's, Memphis, myspace, Robert, virtual raiford's

Cover Feature News

Summer in the City

Post author By John Branston
Post date June 21, 2007

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Point/Counterpoint Justin Fox Burks

The best things in life are all about juxtaposition. Chocolate is sweet yet slightly salty. Roller coasters are scary but safe. Contrast is interesting; it’s exciting. Think fusion restaurants, tanlines, baked Alaska, point/counterpoints …

I admit, taken alone, summer days aren’t anymore interesting or enjoyable than a day trapped in a sauna. But combined with a few simple pleasures, summer days can be the best time of the year.

The same ice cream that is okay in the winter and good in the spring tastes heavenly at the height of summer. A waffle cone stuffed with a double scoop of Rocky Road is a good way to cool your core temperature from the inside out (and part of the fun is savoring every single bite before it can melt into a soupy mess).

During other times of the year, frozen juice on a stick is uninspiring. Add a summer day, a truck with a bell, and an aging hippie, and that same popsicle has the pull of the Pied Piper.

Summer days don’t just make food better. That polluted pond you wouldn’t touch during April or May? Try to stay out of it in July.

When sweat is dripping down your nose and your skin is reddening like a tomato on the vine, nothing is more refreshing than a cannonball into a cool body of water. Summer days lure you into swimming in a lake, wading in a river, floating in a pool, or jumping waves in an ocean.

You might feel self-conscious in your bathing suit or you might not like the feel of sand squishing in between your toes, but once you’re in the water, you won’t regret it.

Summer days give people an excuse to indulge. Maybe it’s the shared cultural memory of summer freedom; maybe it’s just too hot to do anything except what makes you cooler, but summer days mean doing what feels good.

Looking for a way to beat the heat? Take in a mindless summer blockbuster. Not only do you get to sit on your butt for two hours while your favorite action heroes save the world from aliens or hunt for buried treasure — talk about contrast — movie theaters seem to crank up the air conditioning 11 months out of the year.

The degree change is palpable as you walk toward the ticket booth. Once inside, you breathe a sigh of relief. It’s nice and cool and dark.

And just about the time you start getting chill bumps and begin cursing your shorts, the movie ends. You walk back outside. The temperature that was once muggy and oppressive feels warm and cozy. (Your sunglasses have fogged up, but that’s another story.)

Water-gun fights, sprinklers, washing the car, blowing soap bubbles … none of these things are any good without summer days.

They might be hot, but they’re all about staying cool.

Summer days in Memphis have their charms — if you like sweat, car seats that burn your thighs, and the back of your neck gettin’ dirt and gritty.

I don’t like those things. So there’s little doubt in my mind that summer in this city is much better in the nighttime.

Sure, I could list the obvious Memphis nightlife charms — a cold beer on Beale, listening to James Govan bring the Stax sound back to life at Rum Boogie; downtown rooftop parties; relaxing on Tsunami’s tiny patio, watching the Cooper-Young hipsters walk by — but Memphis’ true summer charms are often more subtle, more hidden away.

By day, your friend’s pool is a simple refuge from the summer broil. You get hot; you jump in. Rinse, repeat, ad nauseum — and watch out for that 6-year-old with the giant water pistol. At night, that same pool becomes an urban oasis — dark, secluded, and just perfect for coping with heat and humidity that feel like you’re wrapped in a steamy Turkish towel.

You sip your icy drink. You chat with your friends. Occasionally, you slide into the inky pool and let the cool water embrace you. Perhaps you sit on a step; perhaps you swim a leisurely lap; perhaps you even take your cocktail with you. You’re not hot anymore. You’re cool. Real cool.

Nighttime in Memphis has other charms. Walking the streets of Midtown in the evening, the aroma of fragrant jasmine flowers lingers along every garden wall. Fellow strollers greet you with a smile on their non-perspiring faces. Porches are filled with conversation. You can see inside the warmly lit homes and check out people’s artwork. (Why do you think voyeurs work at night?)

And there is enough light left in a Memphis summer day to play nine holes after work without risking heatstroke. A golf course, any golf course, looks better in evening light. Your score will be better, too, if there’s no sweat dripping on the ball as you putt.

Or you can head to your favorite fishing hole (and I have many) at 7 p.m. and fish under the moon ’til midnight. You can sit on the bank and listen to the bullfrogs and whip-poor-wills sing if the fish aren’t biting. (Mosquito repellent is a must.)

You can go to a Redbirds game and savor the smells and sounds of America’s pastime under the lights. You can sit on the cool grass in deep left field, even if the game goes extra innings. I defy you to sit in a bleacher seat on an August afternoon for more than 20 minutes. Baseball, like almost everything else in Memphis, is simply better at night.

In closing, I must quote the great philosopher Olivia Newton-John, who screeched these immortal words (along with John Travolta) in Grease: “Oh, those summer ni-i-i-i-i-i-ights.”

Sorry, for putting that in your head, but all’s fair in point/counterpoint debates.

New reads on rock.

If summer sounds good, make it sound better with some good reading on rock. To start, start big: The Mammoth Book of Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘N‘ Roll (Carroll & Graf), an anthology of rock reporting edited by Jim Driver and drawn from the pages of magazines such as Cream, Melody Maker, New Musical Express, Rolling Stone, and Time Out. You know the territory. The topics come with the territory: “Bands, Booze & Broads,” according to the title of one piece here; “Wine, Women and Song” according to another; and “Blurred Vision,” according to a third. Congratulations, though, to two prize entries with two winning headlines: “Fifty Tabs a Day Turned This Man into a Tree (nearly),” on acid-guitar virtuoso Frank Marino, and “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth,” on foul-mouthed Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan, who stands by his mates and his fans: “Our audiences drink a lot and I feel we owe it to them to stay drunk.” Roight!

It was 40 years ago today when the act you’ve known for all these years, the Beatles, released Sgt. Pepper‘s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and to mark the occasion, British music writer Clinton Heylin has produced The Act You‘ve Known for All These Years: A Year in the Life of Sgt. Pepper and Friends (Canongate), a detailed report on the creation of and reaction to the Fab Four’s history-making album. Pair it with Kenneth Womack’s Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles (Continuum), then turn Stateside to see Inside the Music of Brian Wilson: The Songs, Sounds, and Influences of the Beach Boys‘ Founding Genius (Continuum) by musicologist Philip Lambert. “Inside the music” is right, because Lambert gets down — right down to the key changes, chord progressions, and lyrical variations in Wilson’s work. You think that most summery of songs, “Surfer Girl,” is a simple tune? Wrong. You think “Good Vibrations” is complicated as hell? Right.

Right or wrong, you love hip-hop. You hate hip-hop. So do writers and editors Kenji Jasper and Ytasha Womack in Beats Rhymes & Life: What We Love and Hate About Hip-Hop (Harlem Moon/Broadway Books), a collection of essays and interviews with the likes of Nelly, Ludacris, Scarface, Ice-T, and Mos Def. Fan or no fan, it’s enough to make the blood boil: early hip-hop, as argued here, was a reflection of political and social realities, a means of honest expression, versus contemporary hip-hop: a cash cow for corporate profits. Conclusion: It’s the American way.

It’s not the way of the Fleshtones in Sweat: The Story of the Fleshtones, America‘s Garage Band (Continuum), by Joe Bonomo, who chronicles, as the publisher’s press release terms it, “the soul sucking pressure of the status quo” (new-wave division). In the case of the Fleshtones, that translates into 30 years of uninterrupted touring, of one time sharing practice space with the Cramps, of one time sharing stages with James Brown and Chuck Berry, and of sticking it out after the East Village scene that spawned the group went the way of all flesh: big bucks.

No telling who first penned the music and lyrics to “The House of the Rising Sun,” but it sure wasn’t the Animals, who made it famous in the mid-’60s, or Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, or Bob Dylan, who covered it. Maybe you can trace the song to Georgia Turner? Alan Lomax did. In 1937, he recorded the 16-year-old in Kentucky singing it. Maybe you can trace it to Homer Callahan? Ted Anthony does in Chasing the Rising Sun: The Journey of an American Song (Simon & Schuster), and to hear Anthony tell it, Callahan learned of the ruin of many a poor boy during corn-shucking season in the Appalachians. That’s a far cry from today, when the ruin of this song is sealed: as a cell-phone ring tone, as a popular item in Chinese karaoke bars, and as the soundtrack for Gatorade ads.

But for the record: The summer belongs to Strummer, in the most anticipated rock book of the season, Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer (Farrar Straus and Giroux) by Chris Salewicz. See the Flyer‘s upcoming literary supplement for a review. In the meantime and for a break from books, cue it and crank it: Verbena’s “Hot Blood.”

Class Acts

It may only happen about three times in your life: that ooey-gooey feeling of being temporarily ill-defined. A new

retiree might feel it, or a college graduate not yet entered into a career. It also describes the thousands of Class of 2007 students across the Mid-South.

“It feels weird,” says Lindsey Johnson, two-and-a-half weeks out of White Station High School, where she had been voted “Most School Spirited.” “I feel a lot older. It kind of hasn’t hit me yet.

“A friend of mine said the other day, ‘When we go to school in the fall,’ and the thought that popped in my head was, high school, like I’d be back at White Station. But I’m not even going to be in the city.” Johnson is off to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

Ashley Brooks is also just a few weeks out of high school — Harding Academy. She’s headed to Middle Tennessee State University next. “It’s awesome,” Brooks says about being out, “because I know I don’t have to go back and deal with all the high school stuff. But at the same time, it’s kind of scary knowing that I’m going to go into the real world.

“I feel like I’ve been [in high school] forever, and so I’m finally going, you know, away from the parents. I get to meet new people. It’s kind of overwhelming, though, thinking about it. Time’s ticking down: This summer’s going by a lot faster than I thought it would.”

What are high school graduates doing this summer? Johnson is working to save up for college (and maybe a sorority), and Brooks is in the job market too, but mostly they’re both logging hours with their friends.

Johnson says, “We hang out at people’s houses, go out to dinner. Sometimes we’ll all go see a movie or something. We have a little hot-wing place [Ching’s] on Getwell that we go to.”

Photo Courtesy of Lindsey Johnson

Catherine Taylor and BFF Lindsey Johnson

Brooks’ best friend is going to Baylor, “13 hours away,” as she describes it, painfully. “We’re trying to hang out as much as possible this summer. … But I told her, ‘You cannot get a new best friend. It’s not going to work.'”

“I’m definitely ready for a new city,” Johnson says on her decision to go to school away from home. “Oh yeah, gotta get out of this one.” She laughs. Why does she say that? “Willie Herenton! [laughs again] And I just want to get away from my parents too. I want to do something on my own.”

Brooks herself is looking for a change of scenery. Her graduating class numbered 80. “It was [hard to be myself]. People knew you way too much. They always know everything about you, and it’s really annoying, like you can’t keep secrets because there’s a big rumor mill.” But for Brooks, here’s the kicker: “I loved high school. During the years I was like, Oh my gosh, I can’t wait to graduate. But looking back, that was the best time of my life. I loved it.”

What’s taking place this summer is a coming-of-age rite that’s been occurring annually since time immemorial — at least since the 1950s. But it’s a brand-new experience for the class of ’07.

“One of my really good friends got a full scholarship to Furman, and he’s already left,” Johnson says. “We’ve had a class together every year since the 7th grade, and it’s really weird. I don’t want to not go to school with him, and I feel that way about a lot of other people too. It’s just strange.”

Brooks says, “It’s going to be hard, I already know. … One class I’m taking, there’s 175 people in my class, that’s going to be so weird for me coming from, you know, a class of 12 to a class of that size.”

Not that the Class of ’07 doesn’t have some advantages older generations didn’t. Johnson and Brooks agree: Geography-negating Facebook and text messaging looks to be a predominant form of communication with old friends.

And the future? If this experience has taught them anything, it’s that things do come to an end and that times do change. In a way, the future is already past. Brooks says, “College to me is one of those things that, once you do it and you’re done with it, you look back and are like, wow, I accomplished something huge.”

A Summer Concert Preview Photo Courtesy of Lindsey Johnson

Lindsey Johnson and Catherine Taylor

The Biggies

The last time the White Stripes performed in the Memphis area was September 10, 2001, at Earnestine & Hazel’s on South Main. If it seems odd now that one of the world’s biggest rock bands played a tiny downtown bar not generally known for its live music only a few years ago, well it was odd at the time too. The blues-fueled indie-rock duo of Jack and Meg White hadn’t quite crossed over at the time, but they were awful close. Even then, it was as odd a combination of band and venue as one could remember.

Nearly six years later, the duo’s return to the Mid-South highlights a diverse, active summer concert season. The White Stripes recorded their 2001 breakout album, White Blood Cells, in

Memphis, at Easley-McCain Recording, and Jack White has been back many times mixing various projects (the White Stripes’ Get Behind Me Satan, his side band the Raconteurs’ Broken Boy Soldiers, and the White-produced Loretta Lynn album Van Lear Rose). But, in support of their new album Icky Thump, the band will give its first post-stardom Mid-South performance on July 31st, at the newly refurbished Snowden Grove Amphitheatre in Southaven.

The White Stripes aren’t the only high-profile act in town this summer that’s managed to blend art and commerce. Hometown boy Justin Timberlake will give his first Memphis concert since August 2006 when he plays FedExForum August 6th. Last year, Timberlake played the New Daisy in a sneak-preview showcase of music from his then-forthcoming album Future Sex/Love Sounds. A year later, Timberlake returns riding a stadium show in support of what has become the biggest pop album of the past year. Punk-poppers Good Charlotte open.

If Timberlake has a rival as the biggest pop/R&B performer in the land, then its Beyoncé, who has dominated the airwaves for much of the past year with ecstatic hits such as “Check On It,” “Ring the Alarm,” and “Irreplaceable.” Beyoncé hits FedExForum July 7th.

And the controversial Crunk Fest concert moves up to FedExForum for its 5th anniversary show July 21st. At press time, the lineup was scheduled to include New Orleans rapper Lil’ Wayne, St. Louis’ Jibbs, and locals Yo Gotti and Eightball & MJG, among others.

Legends

Four of the true living giants of American music will make area appearances in July and August. Though he lives in Memphis, soul legend Al Green rarely performs here. That changes July 21st, when Green is scheduled to play the Live at the Garden series at the Memphis Botanic Garden. Now 61, Green has retained one of the greatest voices in any realm of pop music, as witnessed by recent recorded-in-Memphis comeback albums I Can’t Stop and Everything’s O.K. This summer, Memphis fans will get to hear it live in concert.

A week after Green — almost certainly our greatest living male soul singer — performs, the greatest living female country singer sets down in Tunica, as Loretta Lynn plays the Grand Casino July 28th.

In August, the hard-touring Willie Nelson returns to the area to play the Mud Island Amphitheatre — his first concert within the city since pairing with Bob Dylan at AutoZone Park a few years ago. Finally, while former Beale Street blues boy B.B. King makes annual appearances at his namesake club downtown, he’ll play a bigger venue this summer when he performs at the Horseshoe Casino August 25th.

Country & Roots

Country and roots-music fans of all stripes have plenty to look forward to this summer. Mainstream country fans can catch heartthrob Keith Urban and folk-pop openers the Wreckers at FedExForum June 29th, as well as towering CMT fave Trace Adkins — with opener Tracy Lawrence — at the Snowden Grove Amphitheatre July 6th. Those who like their Nashville cats to sound a bit more traditional can catch Marty Stuart at the Bartlett Performing Arts Center August 16th.

Alt-country and roots-rock fans can get an early start on the summer this week as a couple of ace ex-Memphian singer-songwriters — Todd Snider and Cory Branan — team up June 21st at the Gibson Music Showcase. But the biggest local show in this corner of the musical world will likely occur July 12th, when alt-country cult-fave Ryan Adams plays the Germantown Performing Arts Centre. Finally, the originally queen of rockabilly, Wanda Jackson, makes an always-welcome local appearance August 12th at the Hi-Tone Café.

Best of the Rest

One of the more interesting local concerts this summer could be the one that pairs much-loved underground songwriter Daniel Johnston with local treasure Harlan T. Bobo at the Hi-Tone Café August 8th.

Expect many a thirtysomething Memphian to take a rockin’ trip down memory lane at the Snowden Grove Amphitheatre July 11th when two of the very best of the ’80s pop-metal bands — Poison and Ratt — kick out the jams. And modern-rock fans can decide if they like their guitar-rock on the mild side (The Fray at Mud Island, July 7th) or at maximum volume (Queens of the Stone Age at the New Daisy, August 7th).

Summer sex toys keep you cool when things get hot.

The White Stripes

“Oh when I look back now/ That summer seemed to last forever/ And if I had the choice/ Ya — I’d always wanna be there/ Those were the best days of my life/ Back in the summer of ’69” — “Summer of ’69”

When Bryan Adams penned those nostalgic lines back in 1980-something, it’s doubtful he was thinking about the naughty implication of the song’s title. These days, who can even say the number “69” without a little adolescent giggle?

Besides, the sexual act of “69” seems way more entertaining than Adams’ lame-ass summer memories. And here at the Flyer, we’re hopeful that some of our readers plan on trying that position and many others as the mercury rises this season. But sex can get hot (and we don’t mean “sexy hot”). We’ve compiled a list of sexual aids to keep couples cool when things get heated:

Glass dildos and butt plugs — Made from the same freezer-safe, heat-resistant material used in Pyrex cookware, these colorful handblown glass pieces can be stored in the freezer for safekeeping. And just like the cookware, these toys can go straight from freezer to “oven” (if you catch our drift).

Now, we know what you’re thinking: Is it really a good idea to put glass in your most sensitive area? Drew (who asked that we not reveal his last name) at Christal’s on Germantown Parkway says these toys are nearly impossible to break with normal use. Just don’t throw yours against a wall.

Glass dildos come in all colors, shapes, and sizes. The largest at Christal’s is a whopping five-pound, 11-inch, studded variety about three inches in diameter. Use with caution.

Good Head Oral Gel — This gel is designed to make the sometimes-unpleasant task of providing a BJ a little more, um, tasty. Fortunately, it comes in Mystical Mint, which makes for a slightly cooling sensation on the receiving end and a fresh-breath effect on the giving side. You won’t even need to brush afterward.

Eros Ejaculator by Lady Calston — Think water-gun-turned-vibrator. This phallic toy can be filled with water and then used like a normal vibrator. When the “squirt” button is pushed, a stream of water bursts out. It’s supposed to mimic ejaculation, but we think it’d be more fun to use the feature to attack friends at an outdoor summer party. Water-squirting dildoes trump the Super Soaker.

Impulse Waterproof Vibrator — Kay Mills, regional manager of Fantasy Warehouse, recommends this waterproof dildo. It works like the famed Rabbit Vibrator, with its bunny-shaped clitoral tickler and rotating shaft filled with stimulating beads. The main difference: This toy has a dolphin-shaped clitoris massager, so it’s perfect for summer evenings on the beach. Just make sure no one else is watching.

Flex-a-Pleasure Anal Edition — This butt plug is waterproof, making it perfect for that, er, romantic evening by the pool. Some plugs look like they could easily slip inside and get lost (an embarrassing trip to the ER, to say the least), but this one has a five-inch wand. At the end of the wand is an adjustable speed dial to control vibration.

Penis Water Bottles — Available at Christal’s, these plastic phalluses hold about 24 ounces of ice-cold liquid and come complete with a catheter-like straw protruding from the tip. Perfect for summer hiking trips, the gym, or even the office (just don’t blame us when you get fired).

Hot Hooters Warming Booby Oil — Now, this product doesn’t exactly promise a cooling effect. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Fortunately, this colorful warming liquid comes in tropical flavors so tasty they’ll whisk couples away to an island paradise. Available in Piña Colada and Strawberry Daiquiri, the oils give new meaning to “sex on the beach.”

If toys aren’t your thing, there are other ways to turn up the steam without turning up the heat.

“Try playing in the sprinklers after dark with the lights out in the backyard or maybe a sexy car wash,” says Drew at Christal’s. Mills at Fantasy Warehouse suggests making flavored ice using Kool-Aid and then taking a few cubes into the bedroom.

Regardless of how you choose to stay cool, don’t let the summer sun prevent you from getting any action. After all, you won’t be attractive forever, and your working parts may not work so well in the years to come.

In the immortal words of Bryan Adams: “We were young and restless/ We needed to unwind/ I guess nothin’ can last forever — forever, no …”

Back here at home and there’s nothing to do? dreamstime.com

“Vacation, all you ever wanted,” but you’re stuck at home and there’s nothing to do? Stop complaining. There are mini-vacation spots all around Memphis, and they’re cheap to boot.

Start at the fountain on the Main Street Mall — the one with jets of water shooting out of the bricks in front of the trolley stop. Wear clothes, wear a swimsuit, or whatever (just don’t violate public decency laws). Run through the fountains! Stand in them! Act like you’re 11 again! How long you spend on this activity is entirely up to you.

Once you’re done, towel down a bit and walk over to the Madison Hotel. On the roof, you’ll find one of the best views of Memphis, with Mud Island to the west. Plus, they’ve got a bar up there.

Now go get something to eat. Hop on the trolley and head down to South Main. Grab a burger at Earnestine & Hazel’s, or perhaps a veggie plate from the Arcade, or a piece of quiche or cheesecake at the Cheesecake Store. After that, get something to drink at Bluff City Coffee and walk around South Main with your beverage.

As long as you’re in the area, stop by the National Ornamental Metal Museum and check out all the statues on the grounds. My favorite is the fountain, because it has a human head coming out the top. Plus, the Indian burial mounds are right out front. If you go past an abandoned hotel and turn right on Cotton Gin Road, there’s an RV park and a clean, isolated neighborhood straight out of the ’60s.

Not far from the Metal Museum, you can see the “old bridge” in the distance (Memphis-Arkansas Memorial Bridge for outsiders). There’s a walkway on that bridge. Which brings us to another time-honored summer activity: feeling like you’re defying death. The bridge sways in the wind, it shakes from the weight of traveling cars, and giant trucks pass so closely you’re almost knocked over.

If that isn’t your style, you can go watch other people beat the snot out of each other. Every Sunday afternoon in Audubon Park, Society for Creative Anachronism members dress up like knights and hit each other with fake swords. It’s fun to cook up some popcorn, plant your ass on the ground in front of the action, and yell, “Have at ye, knave!” My recommendation: dress up like a dragon and charge them. I guarantee that half of them will love it and half of them will be deeply offended.

There are other things to do in this neighborhood. Admission to the Memphis Botanic Garden is free on Tuesdays, and the Dixon Gallery & Gardens is free on Saturday mornings. At 4 a.m., nearby Gibson’s Donuts on Mendenhall starts turning out the day’s delicious treats. For shopping, there’s a cluster of great thrift stores in the Highland/Summer area.

If you want to continue down Summer, be sure to stop at Games Plus, one of the few places left in the city where you can get video games made before 2000. Classic. Then head east to catch a movie at the Summer Drive-In or maybe play mini-golf at Putt-Putt Golf and Games.

The city has so much more to offer. There are the cheap beers at the P&H Café, stumbling down Jackson Avenue to get to Alex’s for post-3 a.m. Greek wings and shuffleboard, walking the abandoned railroad tracks in the southeast corner of Shelby Farms, bar-hopping on Overton Square, getting delicious Ethiopian food at Abyssina on Poplar, and so many other things that don’t involve Graceland, Stax, or Sun Studios (treasures of Memphis, though they be). Get up and go-go. Anyone who says there’s nothing to do in Memphis isn’t looking.

A local program is getting teens worked up. Justin Fox Burks

Main Street Mall; National Ornamental Metal Museum; Memphis-Arkansas Memorial Bridge

“Well, I’m a-gonna raise a fuss, I’m a-gonna raise a holler, about a-workin’ all summer just to try to earn a dollar …”

Eddie Cochran’s dismal account of summer for the working American teenager includes a merciless boss, long hours, and a slender wallet. But for a number of area youth, there is a cure for the “summertime blues.”

The Memphis Summer Youth Employment Program (MSYEP) aims not only to provide participants with summer job opportunities but also to aid in character development.

According to Thurman Northcross, manager of youth services at the Office of Youth Services and Community Affairs, “Many summer youth employment programs around the country focus on crime abatement, but we choose to look at our program as promoting youth development.” Northcross has been involved with the program since November 2006.

To participate in MSYEP’s lottery — the program’s selection process — youth must be 14 to 21 years of age. Fourteen- and 15-year-olds who land spots in the program earn $5.15 per hour for a 20-hour workweek; 16- to 21-year-olds work 30 hours a week for $6 per hour.

This year, out of about 7,000 applications, the program had enough funding for 1,150.

Over the eight-week course, the teens work in a wide range of city-funded positions, including several not-so-typical jobs. “We have 20 kids researching the history of the downtown area,” Northcross says. “We have 16 other kids working on neighborhood mapping with GPS [Global Positioning System] equipment.”

As part of MSYEP, many of the participants also take classes that teach them skills they can use when they join the workforce. For instance, there are classes specializing in air conditioning, electrical, auto mechanics, welding, and graphic arts/advertising. Fifteen to 18 students are in each class.

Northcross says, “If businesses could agree to host and fully fund classes at the worksites, they would help develop a pool of kids working harder next summer. The classes connect the youth to aspects of the businesses.”

No matter what jobs the participants land, they learn the fundamentals of working in the real world, such as responsibility. “Even when they show up for orientation, we make sure they’re orderly and well-dressed,” Northcross says. “You have to have a zero-tolerance policy. Once you implement that message, they follow it. We’re trying to get kids to understand that this experience mirrors the real world of work.”

Northcross feels that regardless of their reasons for working, this year’s participants will find themselves more capable of success at the end of the eight weeks. All they needed was a little help. “They need some type of support to open doors for them. We owe it to the youth and the city to do that,” he says. His ultimate goal, though out of reach at present, is a zero-percent summer unemployment rate for city youth.

“Some kids don’t realize the potential they have,” Northcross says, and MSYEP aims to open their eyes. “Every kid who wants to work should have the opportunity. We need to give them all we can so they can be all they can be in life.”

Tags activities, hobbies, live, Memphis, Music, preview, school, summer

Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter from the Editor: Portland is the Model

Post author By Bruce VanWyngarden
Post date June 21, 2007

It had been a long flight. I dropped my bags on the floor, walked into the hotel bathroom, and snapped on the lights. There was a brief flicker, and then the room was illuminated. I looked at the lightbulbs. They were the curly-cue energy-saving kind. Hmmm, I thought, nice touch.

I relieved myself and flushed the potty. There was a small, quick gurgle that lasted about a second. Ah, I thought, water-saving loos. I sat on the bed and opened my laptop to check my e-mail. The little wireless icon popped and asked me if I wanted to connect to the Internet via the city’s free wi-fi system. Yes, I did. How convenient and simple, I thought.

I spent four days in Portland, Oregon, at a newspaper conference last week, and each day I saw clear evidence of what a difference in a city’s quality of life an enlightened and progressive government can make.

I took light-rail trains all over town. I rode in hybrid taxis. The streets were immaculate. Roses and other flowers bloomed on every corner. The downtown was booming. I saw no vacant buildings, no blighted blocks.

So how do they do it? For one thing, they started 30 years ago by forming Metro, a consolidated elected governing body that is responsible for all urban planning, county-wide. Portland has no sprawl, due to a strictly enforced “urban growth boundary” that separates urban from rural land. The idea is to encourage redevelopment of Portland’s inner core and preserve its tree-lined city neighborhoods.

The Metro consists of seven elected commissioners who oversee transit, waste and recycling, parks, the zoo, the convention center, and fish and wildlife management. There is a mayor, but his role is strictly limited and mostly ceremonial. The current mayor, Tom Potter, lobbied for a reorganization to a “strong mayor” form of government, a measure that was on the city’s May ballot. It was rejected by a three-to-one margin.

As far as I know, the mayor didn’t blame unnamed “snakes” for the defeat. Maybe he just took it as a sign from God.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Tags city government, Mayor, Memphis, Portland

News

Memphis Sweaty, Other Cities Sweatier

Post author By
Post date June 20, 2007

CREDIT: nationalgeographic.com

Old Spice has released its annual ranking of the country’s 100 sweatiest cities. Last year, Memphis made the top 20 at number 18. This year, Memphis is again ranked at 18.

Phoenix was named the sweatiest city for the 3rd time in 4 years. In honor of this distinction, Old Spice sent a year’s supply of its Red Zone antiperspirant to Phoenix’ mayor.

According to a press release issued by Old Spice: the “rankings are based on the amount of sweat a person of average height and weight would produce walking around for an hour in the average high temperatures during June, July and August of 2005 for each city.”

San Francisco was judged the least sweatiest city.

Tags Memphis, Old Spice, San Fransisco, sweatiest cities