“Segreghetto” is surprisingly bass-light, but you’ll barely notice as the layers of percussion send you into a funky netherworld. “The term ‘Segreghetto’ encapsulates the intersection, the crossroads of segregation and ghettoization, perseverance in this human experience,” says Mononeon. “‘Segreghetto’ is a thang where it’s a testament to the enduring spirit of yourself in your community and culture. Like offering a voice to those that are overlooked or misunderstood, carving out your own path even in the midst of systemic inequalities. When me and my friend Davy were writing the song ‘Segreghetto,’ I felt like this junt could be inspiration to anyone willing to defy the odds and chase their dreams, wanting that gold medal.. no matter the obstacles that lie in their path and journey.”
For the video, produced by Texan Twanvisuals, the Mono-man shows off some of his trademark quilted and knit duds. Looks pretty hot to me, on this summer Monday!
If you’d like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
We Memphians know all about Sam Phillips and the legendary Sun Records, but who among us has heard of CZYZ Records? That might have been the name of the label that put Muddy Waters, Etta James, Howlin’ Wolf, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, and others on the map, had not the Polish-Jewish Czyz family followed the classic immigrant’s practice of Anglicizing their name at Ellis Island — to Chess. As a result, of course, Chess Records, founded by the brothers Leonard and Phil Chess in 1950, became as much a keystone of the blues and rock-and-roll tradition as Sun Records or any other imprint in the business.
It’s worth noting the family’s old country surname because now, years after Chess Records was sold and became only an archival catalog, CZYZ Records really is a thing. That’s thanks to the ongoing efforts of Leonard’s son Marshall, who was in the thick of his father’s business from a young age, ultimately moving on after the legendary label was sold so he could head up Rolling Stones Records in the 1970s. These days, half a century later, he enjoys the quiet of the forest near Woodstock, New York.
“My daughter lives up the road,” he says contentedly. “And my son is right across the street. I have two grandchildren, and they come up all the time. So it’s like a little village.”
That’s where he dreams up projects, sitting in a small log outbuilding with a wood stove that serves as the ultimate man cave, stacked to the rafters with records (including God only knows how many first pressings), tapes, CDs, books, and the odd guitar. In the back is his floatation tank, not unlike those featured by Memphis’ own Shangri-La Records in its early days, and perhaps that explains his very active mind and clear-eyed memories. He’ll pivot from tales of recording Maurice White one minute, to his days crashing at Keith Richards’ house the next.
These days, he’s more often telling stories about the making of CZYZ Records’ newest album, New Moves by The Chess Project. Fittingly, it’s a tribute to the label his father and uncle launched, but done in an innovative way. Rather than using players from the blues world, Chess enlisted Keith LeBlanc, an old friend of his who got his start at the legendary Sugar Hill Records, drumming on classic tracks by Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel. LeBlanc, in turn, assembled a crack band that included Memphis virtuosos Eric Gale on guitar and MonoNeon on bass, along with Skip “Little Axe” McDonald (Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five); Paul Nowinski (Keith Richards, Patti Smith) also on bass; Reggie Griffin (Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, Chaka Khan) on keys; Alan Glen (Jeff Beck, Peter Green) on harmonica; and Mohini Dey, an up-and-coming young bass player from India. And then they added the ringer: someone who could deliver the classic songs from the Chess Records catalog.
“We had a bunch of ideas for vocalists,” Chess recalls. “And then we came up with Bernard Fowler. He’s a great vocalist. I mean, just listen to his work in Living Colour!” Fowler worked on that band’s 1993 album, Stain, but he’s even better known for being the Rolling Stones’ go-to backup singer since 1989.
The resulting album, though centered on classic tracks hand-picked by Chess himself (including “Boom Boom (Out Go the Lights),” “Moanin’ at Midnight,” “Mother Earth,” and “Smokestack Lightning,” to name a few), is not a traditional blues album at all. Rather, Fowler reinterprets the songs with his distinctively bold delivery, with the crack band backing him in a free-form funk style. Given the funky underpinnings of the record, it’s no surprise that the thing Marshall Chess loved most about it was LeBlanc’s playing.
“I called up Keith and said, ‘You know, my dad would have kissed your ass! Your foot is just the kind of foot he wanted in the blues.’” He began telling LeBlanc of Leonard Chess’ habit of playing kick drum himself on certain tracks, to ensure a heavy beat (c.f. Muddy Waters’ “Still a Fool”). LeBlanc, Chess said, had that same heavy-footed approach to the kick drum. But LeBlanc interrupted him. “Keith said, ‘Wait a minute. Stop.’ I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘That’s not my style foot. I copied all those records you gave me!’ That was my dad’s style [of playing the kick] that I was hearing, through Keith!”
August 17, 2018, was a historic night in the Bluff City. A new space in the newly renovated Crosstown Concourse, The Green Room, was about to enjoy its inaugural concert — the culmination of years of planning. A sizable audience had gathered to hear the music of celebrated avant-garde pioneer John Cage, and a hush fell over the room as the lights dimmed. Then Jenny Davis, a flutist in the genre-defying Blueshift Ensemble, stepped up and began to play … a cactus.
Jenny Davis (Photo: Jamie Harmon)
Around her was a scene from a gardening shop. Cacti of different sizes were arrayed on a table, and Davis was systematically plucking the thorns of each plant as if it were a drum. Each movement resonated over the sound system; the cacti were outfitted with microphone pickups. It was as if we’d all shrunk to the size of geckos, immersed in a world of desert greenery, every brush of the needles an arpeggio.
For lovers of unusual sounds and textures, Davis’ performance was captivating. But it also marked the beginning of an avant-garde renaissance that is putting Memphis on the map of all that is strange and fascinating in 21st century music. It was only fitting that Davis was making the sounds, as that night foreshadowed the extent to which she, as programmer of Crosstown Arts’ musical performances, would be making waves. As it turns out, she’s only one of a host of players and presenters who are introducing Memphis audiences to sounds well off the beaten path. Beyond that, she sees no need to define what the music is. It’s here to stay, whatever you call it. “The avant-garde realm is hard to describe,” Davis says. “It becomes kind of tricky. Maybe it’s not even necessary to always describe something as being in one genre or another.”
The Cactus in the Room: A State of Mind
As Davis notes, playing Cage’s “Child of Tree” that night was a prescient grand opening. “That was the first concert we ever did in The Green Room,” she notes, “which I love. We christened the room with some John Cage!” In keeping with that, the space has become a key venue for musicians who want nothing more than to be listened to, and it’s likely rooted in the context of that first show. As part of the 2018 Continuum Festival, also organized by Davis, attendees could learn of the different states of mind that most avant-garde music demands, with talks on “Suggestions on How to Listen to Contemporary Classical Music” or a “Mindful Listening Workshop” based on composer Pauline Oliveros’ sound and meditation activities.
The seriousness suggested by such presentations is often belied by the sheer playfulness of the music. Beyond cacti, for example, the John Cage tribute also included his “Imaginary Landscape No. 4,” in which players adjusted the frequencies and volumes of 12 transistor radios. Whether whimsical or disturbing, the one thing that most avant-garde, experimental, or “out” music has in common is the need for deep listening. While B-Side Memphis or the Lamplighter Lounge have also cultivated scenes for strange music, The Green Room and its big sibling, Crosstown Theater, have set the standard of spaces that encourage silence.
Art Edmaiston, a veteran saxophonist of more conventional R&B, soul, and rock ensembles, has played enough noisy bars in his storied career to really appreciate silence. “You know, people wander into bars just to have a drink, and then they’ll say, ‘What is this? Why is a guy dragging a music stand across the floor? What’s going on with the flame thrower?’” he says with a chuckle. Such a crowd may not be tuned in to the subtleties of experimental music, and that can impact the playing itself. “The other thing is how quiet some of the music can be,” he notes. “We’re all listening. If you’re not in a listening environment, which means the crowd has to be quiet, then it’s hard for us to communicate, almost telepathically, and everybody’s going to miss what’s going on.”
What’s Going On
Edmaiston is a key figure in the local music landscape, and his involvement in the free improvisational group SpiralPhonics is indicative of just how much is happening on the cutting edge here. As he describes it, just having a venue for avant-garde music has made all the difference. “It’s hard for our little group to find places,” he says. “Revenue and venue, it’s all kinda in there together. You’ve got to find people. Listeners needed!” That has usually required staying on the more accessible side of the street. “Playing commercial music, you have a structure and vocabulary applicable to that situation. If you come in playing like Albert Ayler on [a track like] ‘Take Me to the River,’ you’re not going to be called back. So throughout most of my career, I was trying to assimilate, trying to be a studio musician. I’ve had a life of doing that, but never lost my desire to be on the more artistic side of things.”
When drummer Terence Clark proposed collaborating in a more improvisational context, and they joined forces with guitarist Logan Hanna to form SpiralPhonics, the mere existence of a venue helped them to manifest their vision. “We only played sporadically,” he recalls. “So we booked The Green Room in order to make us get our stuff together.” Ultimately, the gig not only brought their group into focus; it led to their debut album. “The Green Room being a listening room, that’s the spot to do it,” says Edmaiston. “That’s where we recorded our Argot Session. It was a live performance that we recorded there, and we couldn’t have done it anywhere else. It would take a lot more tries to get good takes and a quiet environment somewhere else. Your head space has to be right.”
Others note the resurgence of “out” music as well. Chad Fowler, a saxophonist, woodwind player, composer, and producer from Arkansas, studied at the University of Memphis in the 1990s, and the experimental music scene here at that time had a profound impact on him. Having then left town, he was surprised upon his return over a decade later. “I felt, when I first moved back to Memphis six or seven years ago, like there was a real dearth of creative music happening. It was kind of disappointing. I felt it had been stronger in the ’90s. However, since then it feels like it’s changed. A lot of it is due to Jenny Davis and Blueshift. Crosstown and B-Side have made a huge difference.”
The scene’s personal impact on Fowler is in turn reflecting back on the local environment. Having ultimately settled back in Arkansas, he’s nevertheless a regular in the avant-garde music world of Memphis, even as he also increases his profile in the New York experimental scene. His Mahakala Music label, focused on experimental jazz, has built on associations he forged in the ’90s Memphis scene, with players like Marc Franklin, Chris Parker, and Kelley Hurt, and Anders Griffen often appearing on Mahakala releases today. But he’s also used his and others’ connections to New York, Chicago, and New Orleans to create ensembles of world-class players from elsewhere, often bringing them to Memphis.
Dopolarians at The Green Room (Photo: Jack T. Adcock)
As Fowler notes, “It’s kind of weird because the same people might be on, like, a New York Times best of jazz year-end list but then also playing in a room the size of a closet for a tiny crowd in Brooklyn. We might get better audiences in Memphis for the same music.” He points to a gig by one of Mahakala’s “all-star” groups, Dopolarians. “With the Dopolarians show, I think William Parker was blown away by how great the energy was when we were there in The Green Room — by how many people came out, how engaged the audience was. It was a good experience.”
Collaborating with William Parker, a highly respected free jazz bassist and co-organizer of the Vision Festival, “New York City’s premier live free jazz event,” according to TheNew York Times, has been a boon to Fowler and Mahakala, arising quite organically from Fowler’s earliest free jazz experiences. Parker played on the debut album of Memphian Frank Lowe in 1973, as Lowe’s star was rising. Ultimately, Lowe would join Alice Coltrane’s band and enjoy a solo career of some renown, yet would still return to Memphis and jam with the likes of Fowler, Franklin, Chris Parker, and other University of Memphis students. Now, Fowler carries that inspiration back to New York on a regular basis, often playing with William Parker in various ensembles and recording projects. Mahakala’s star is now rising as well. “The first record we put out was on Rolling Stone’s end-of-year jazz roundup list,” says Fowler, “and since then, pretty frequently, we’ve been mentioned in Jazziz, JazzTimes, DownBeat, and all the go-to jazz publications. It seems the label is becoming one of the most respected of the genre, even though it’s very new.”
Lately, the links between Memphis and leaders of free jazz from the Northeast have only strengthened, as when drummer Ra Kalam, aka Bob Moses, who’s been on the cutting edge of the free improvisation world since the ’60s, relocated to Memphis permanently. Edmaiston recently played with the drummer on a New Year’s Eve show and was surprised at his embrace of more traditional R&B. Edmaiston recalls, “Ra Kalam told us, ‘Hey man, that was ‘Cleo’s Back!’ I recorded that in 1967 with Larry Coryell and Jim Pepper. We used to play it all the time!’ So that was kind of wild. He can play inside, but he’s developed into something else. When he plays himself, he says, it’s like he’s got to be in Europe to be expressive. Over here, less people want to hear that. Over there, he’s celebrated for it.” Yet now, with improvisational music on the rise here, that’s changing. On January 18th, Ra Kalam will be holding a master class and concert at Nelson Drum Shop in Nashville.
New Music, from Punks to P-basses to Piccolos
If there’s an uptick in free jazz and improvisational groups like SpiralPhonics and Fowler’s various projects, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, since Jenny Davis and Jonathan Kirkscey founded Blueshift Ensemble, a loose collection of Memphis Symphony Orchestra players with a penchant for experimental music, an Iceberg has orbited them — for that’s the name of a composers’ collective that collaborates with Blueshift every August to bring their works to life. “I like to have some new stuff along with some more familiar sounds, and that’s a nice way to introduce new things to audiences,” says Davis. “Blueshift’s work with Iceberg New Music, the composer collective out of New York, encapsulates that idea, too, because it’s a group of 10 composers, some of them more on the experimental, avant-garde side of things and some whose works are more lyrical and tonal, so you have the whole spectrum of what’s going on in new classical music today.”
Other avenues have long been available for the edgier side of the classical world, though they tend to be tucked into programs that showcase more traditional works. Conrad Tao’s “Spoonful,” commissioned in 2020 by the Iris Orchestra in honor of Memphis’ bicentennial, was a New Music tour de force, pivoting from cacophony to explosions of orchestral texture to delicate piano lines in a heartbeat and even a sample of Charley Patton’s “A Spoonful Blues.” It lost none of its power by being sandwiched between works by Haydn and Brahms. And many such experimental works continue to percolate out of the classical world.
A more hybrid approach was concocted by David Collins’ Frog Squad, when they premiered his arrangements of the music of Erik Satie at The Green Room in 2021. Turning the composer’s original sparse arrangements into showcases for a more jazz-oriented octet represented a perfect balance between accessibility and “out” music, as the players took solos with the abandon of a free jazz group, even as they remained grounded in the composer’s classic works. This year, they’re set to release a similar treatment of Horace Silver’s music and an album of all originals.
Misterioso Africano (Photo: Courtesy Khari Wynn)
Frog Squad’s bassist, Khari Wynn, is a virtuoso in his own right. While best known as one of Public Enemy’s go-to guitarists, his real passion is a kind of Afrofuturism first pioneered by his hero, Sun Ra, yet channeled through a thousand other influences he’s absorbed over the years as he plays under the name Misterioso Africano, or a few years back, The Energy Disciples.
But there’s plenty of experimentation coming from less-schooled musicians as well. Goner Records has long waxed enthusiastic for musical risk-takers, and in recent years they’ve brought many edge-walking groups to the city, from the surrealist big band sounds of Fred Lane to the free improvisational textures of Wrest to Tatsuya Nakatani’s Gong Orchestra. The latter wowed music fans gathered at Off the Walls Arts last year, part of that gallery space’s increased staging of “out” musical events under its roof.
The label has also played host to some of the city’s more rock-adjacent groups who test the boundaries of conventional musical ideas through combinations of electronic music and guitar noise, from Aquarian Blood to Nots to Optic Sink, who all offer servings of noise and synth madness to variations on the big beat of rock. Yet other, less-punk groups are dipping their toes into strange waters at the same time. Salo Pallini’s new independently released album advises it be filed under “Progressive Latin Space Country,” and while that obscures the heavy dollop of rock in their sound, it does capture their everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach. They’ll be playing a record release show on January 20th at — you guessed it — The Green Room.
Some of these artists are also featured in the annual Memphis Concrète festival of electronic and experimental music, also centered in and around Crosstown, set to resume this June after some Covid-related setbacks.
IMAKEMADBEATS at Continuum Fest with Delara Hashemi (Photo: Jamie Harmon)
Meanwhile, more hip-hop-adjacent sounds are percolating through the city. Unapologetic, who have long celebrated strangeness and vulnerability in their edgy hip-hop productions, now have a dedicated studio space, and producer IMAKEMADBEATS is enthused about the possibilities for combining traditional beat production with live players free to create new textures in a more spacious setting. “We’re all electronic/hip-hop-based producers who play instruments,” says IMAKEMADBEATS. “Finally having the kind of space that allows us to easily incorporate live instrumentation into our music is a game changer here. Because our minds are decades-trained to think of warping sounds in ways never done traditionally, but now we can combine that with traditional instruments in a space sonically set up to present it in an amazing way. Our producer engineers aren’t just band recording people or rap recording people. They are that and everything in between. We just needed space. Now it’s time to take off.”
MonoNeon and Daru Jones (Photo: Jamie Harmon)
Of course, the kitchen-sink approach has also been perfected by MonoNeon, whose transpositions of Cardi B tirades into carefully pitched bass solos and whose jams in his YouTube offerings may be the most experimental music of all. While he often records at home, he’s also branched out with other producers, including his work with Unapologetic. Like most of these artists, he’s appeared at The Green Room and/or Crosstown Theater multiple times. So it is that we must give credit where credit is due, as Crosstown Arts sits squarely at the center of the avant-garde revival. As Amy Schaftlein, co-host of the Sonosphere podcast and radio show, notes, “Jenny Davis has been doing such an amazing job of getting great artists to come to Crosstown Theater and The Green Room. She’s continued in that vein of ‘Let’s try to get folks to Memphis who may not hit us on their tour.’” Often recruiting acts on their way to or from Knoxville’s Big Ears Festival, Davis has brought a steady stream of experimental and jazz artists to town, the likes of which have not been seen in decades. This March and April alone, Crosstown will feature Deepstaria Enigmatica, Makaya McCraven, SpiralPhonics, The Bad Plus + Marc Ribot and the Jazz-Bins, Tarta Relena, Ami Dang, and Xiu Xiu.
All of which is making the city a richer, more connected community. As Davis says, “I like the challenge of hearing something new. And [it] can be jarring at first. But then if you go back a second time, you start to see the patterns and it’s like learning a new language. I think that keeps things interesting.”
Recorded before Bobo’s battle with lupus, these songs offer his intriguing songcraft in stripped-down form. “Around 2016, I went to see this guy in Perpignan who’s got an old 8-track set up,” he says. “It sounds very Sun Studio-y.” These minimalist tracks bring Bobo’s heart-piercing lyrics to the fore.
Cory Branan – When I Go I Ghost (Blue Élan)
Pairing slice-of-life writing with all manner of musical worlds, Branan pulls out all the stops in this literary stroll through the dark corners of American life, running the stylistic gamut. With contributions from guests like Jason Isbell, Garrison Starr, and Brian Fallon.
Frog Squad – Frog Squad Plays Satie
One of classical music’s most minimalist composers re-imagined by an eight-piece free jazz ensemble? It might just be crazy enough to work. Indeed it is, for David Collins assembled a heavy band for this Green Room show, guided by his unexpected arrangements and the players’ own flights of improvisation.
Eric Gales – Crown (Provogue)
This triumphant assertion of the Memphis guitar master’s indomitability is graced with a cameo from Joe Bonamassa, but Gales hardly needs that feature to claim the throne. This funky, inventive mission statement by a true virtuoso of blues guitar brings a newfound urgency to Gales’ playing, with electrifying results.
GloRilla – Anyways, Life’s Great…
It’s GloRilla’s world, and we’re just living in it. Yet the vision she offers in massive hits like “Tomorrow” (one version with Cardi B, one on the massive Memphis mash-up by Yo Gotti and Moneybagg Yo, Gangsta Art) and “F.N.F. (Let’s Go)” (with Hitkidd) is a communal one, a fly-girl community where she reigns as the bird-flipping queen.
Elizabeth King – I Got a Love (Bible & Tire)
King’s voice has always combined a tender intimacy with soaring passion, and this second album since she re-energized her gospel career takes it all to a new level, with funkier and more imaginative arrangements. Yet it’s the classic, dark gospel blues of the title song that shakes you to your core.
Charles Lloyd – Trios: Ocean (Blue Note)
When Lloyd played GPAC this year, he reminisced generously about his Memphis youth, then showed how his post-bop experience here evolved in brilliant directions. Here, he explores the trio form with onetime Crosstown resident artist Anthony Wilson, a sterling guitarist with family roots here, and the otherworldly piano of Gerald Clayton.
The Love Light Orchestra – Leave the Light On (Nola Blue)
You’d think you had just scored an old LP on Duke Records from the 1950s. Like Bobby Bland, singer John Németh’s dynamic range goes from a silky purr to a growl in a heartbeat. And the nine jazz players backing him up in these jump-blues originals get it. Matt Ross-Spang’s mix cinches it.
MonoNeon – Put On Earth for You
This has been MonoNeon’s year, as Fender released a bass in his honor. This album reveals why: finely crafted George Clinton-esque, kitchen-sink funk that veers into the scatological, but always keeps a soulful, philosophical message at its heart. And this virtuoso knows how to play to the song.
North Mississippi Allstars – Set Sail (New West)
The Dickinson brothers have always experimented with rootsy blues grooves, and their latest has them looking both backward (with Stax legend William Bell) and forward, as singer Lamar Williams Jr. weaves his magic into their soul stew. Sonic surprises mix with tasty licks from the Mississippi mud.
PreauXX – God You’re Beautiful (Unapologetic)
If steez is the perfect blend of style and ease, PreauXX himself has all of that. But the rapper is working on many levels here. “This is my most vulnerable project,” he says. “This is my Handsome Samson persona. I’m very luxurious, my skin glowing. I’m being who I am.”
Mark Edgar Stuart – Until We Meet Again (Madjack)
Produced by Dawn Hopkins and Reba Russell, under the name “The Blue Eyed Bitches,” the focus here is on Stuart’s voice. The results are easy, breezy, and natural, thanks to the producers’ focus on feel above all else. That suits Stuart just fine. As he says, “It’s just about the emotion.”
Best Archival Release: Various Artists – The D-Vine Spirituals Records Story, Vol. 1 & 2 (Bible & Tire)
This slice of ’70s gospel, from Pastor Juan Shipp’s old label, is a must-have for all soul fans.
MonoNeon with his signature bass (Photo: Heather Youmans)
“Seeing my dad holding my bass is really crazy,” says local bass phenomenon MonoNeon. “He’s like my first musical hero. He’s a very funky player. I’d just practice to all of his records, try to find anything he played on and just learn it. I wanted to be just like him and I still do.” It’s a moving testimony to the power of musical families to keep the spirit of creativity flowing across generations. But when MonoNeon refers to his father playing “my bass,” it’s not just his personal axe. It literally has his name on it: the new Fender MonoNeon Jazz Bass V.
Fender electric basses have long been the go-to axes for most professionals, and MonoNeon has been no exception, often seen playing a Fender Jazz Bass over the years. But he’s also been known to deviate from that standard, with a penchant for five-string basses. The new signature instrument combines all of that, not to mention a whole lot of MonoNeon’s aesthetics. The alder body sports a brilliant yellow polyurethane finish, setting off the neon orange headstock and pickguard. Other unique features include an active preamp and a three-band active equalizer to dial in the desired tone.
Other Memphians have been so honored, as with the Peavey Steve Cropper Signature Telecaster, the Magneto Eric Gales RD-3 Signature Guitar, and the Fender Donald “Duck” Dunn Signature Precision Bass, but the new MonoNeon Jazz Bass V is the most distinctive, visually speaking. And it’s surely the only signature model that the artist himself plays upside down; the left-handed player has noted before that he favors “a right-handed bass. I guess it’s upside-down, you’d call it. I flipped it over, so the G string’s on top and the E string’s on the bottom.”
Beyond the experimentalism of his music, MonoNeon, aka Dywane Thomas Jr., has always followed his own sartorial star. Lately, his love of neon colors has morphed into a taste for quilted fabrics with subtler hues. A video celebrating the new instrument on Fender’s YouTube channel features the bassist in all his quilted glory, speaking with his mother, grandmother, and father. Narrator George Clinton intones, “I’ll be your guide through the Monoverse, where cities were built on foundations of funk and adorned with microtonal detail.” The video’s animated portions amplify the whimsical hues of the new bass and its player.
In the video, MonoNeon further explains the new model’s aesthetics and design: “I love how the construction workers look on the highway, you can see them far away. It’s inspired by that. Chose the gold [hardware] because I wanted to, you know, pimp out the bass a little bit. I chose the HiMass string-through bridge because of the sustain. And I’ve got my own custom MonoNeon jazz pickups.”
But there’s more: Reflecting the bassist’s love of decals and his habit of hanging a sock over his instrument’s tuning pegs, each MonoNeon Jazz Bass V comes with a MonoNeon sticker pack and a custom headstock sock.
Segments of the video featuring MonoNeon’s family are especially moving, as when he speaks of his Grandma Liz. “I really got close to my grandma because of music. The older I get, I’m starting to realize I get a lot from her, especially vocally,” he notes, adding that she’s also behind his love of quilts. “There’s a lot of love that’s put into making quilts, so I think I just feel that. I like to be covered up because it’s like a force field. I like to be safe.”
Scenes of MonoNeon playing with his father, Dywane Thomas Sr. (son of jazz pianist Charles Thomas), reveal more about the family’s musical history. “I got to work with a lot of people just from being me,” recalls Thomas Sr., a celebrated bassist in his own right. “You tell me to go right, I go left. So that’s why I embrace what he does. It’s out of the norm, and it isn’t out of the norm. It’s something new. His style is his style.” Reflecting on his son having his own signature bass, Thomas Sr. muses, “I’m not surprised. It was going to happen, and it’s going to continue to happen.”
Reddit user Campyteendrama asked the MEMernet to play “That’s So Memphis!” last week. It started with a photo showing a car parked Downtown with two wheels missing, jacked up on an electric scooter.
Neon Magic
Posted to Facebook by MonoNeon
In the video above, a man gets choked on a shot of Hennessy, coughs, drools, and yells “cut” at the camera operator who hilariously fails to comply. Memphis bassist MonoNeon plays riffs based on the sounds, adds a beat and other instruments, and magically creates a song.
There’s more, too. Don’t miss the one with the baby talking on the phone. Find them on Facebook.
Moon shot
Posted to Reddit by u/JattWalker
Astrophotographer u/JattWalker posted this shot to the Memphis subreddit last week. For full effect, check it out online so you expand the image for amazing detail.
Here’s a roundup of your faithful Flyer music editor’s favorite Memphis music from the year that felt far too much like the year before.
Julien Baker
Little Oblivions (Matador)
Opening with the crass tones of a broken organ, this is an enervating shot across the bow from an artist typically associated with delicate guitar lines. Here, the production has widened. The constant is the hushed-to-frantic intimacy of her voice, and, as the album develops, she sings from darker, grittier depths than she’s ever plumbed before, propelled by a full-on rock band.
Cedric Burnside
I Be Trying (Single Lock)
With a new dryness and sparseness, Burnside has crafted a unique approach to the blues that sidesteps preconceived riffs or licks; even those you’ve heard take on a new urgency and gravitas. Made with only guitar, drums, the occasional light touch of a second guitar (including Luther Dickinson), or cello, it’s the hushed vocals that cut to one’s soul.
The City Champs
Luna ’68 (Big Legal Mess)
In which the instrumental boogaloo trio evokes the space-bedazzled sounds of yesteryear. In this group’s hands, even cymbal rolls and an organ can sound futuristic. Sitting comfortably in this minimalist mix is a new sound for the Champs: a synthesizer. Superbly composed like their earlier works, the grooves are peppered with stinging guitar and growling organ.
IMAKEMADBEATS
MAD Songs, Vol. 1 (Unapologetic)
The founder of Unapologetic gets personal: The beats are atmospheric, the chords are a little odd, the lyrics, whether MAD’s or his guests’, skew to the philosophical. MAD’s trademark slippery bass and beats in space underpin stellar guest artists, from deft raps by PreauXX, R.U.D.Y., Austyn Michael, and others, to silky melodies from Cameron Bethany and U’niQ.
John Paul Keith
The Rhythm of the City (Wild Honey)
“There’s little Easter eggs all over the record,” says Keith, meaning the hints of Memphis music history that litter the tracks. With Box Tops-like jet, stray Stax licks, electric sitar, or two saxes cut live, the sound of a live-tracked band really pays off with Keith’s one-take guitar playing, some of the finest of his career.
Elizabeth King
Living in the Last Days (Bible & Tire Recording Co.)
King’s voice is as indomitable as a mountain, as many have known for decades. Bible & Tire released King’s tracks from the ’70s in 2019, but label owner Bruce Watson wanted to capture her voice now. The band, relative youngsters compared to King, evokes classic gospel, and it gives her work a unique stamp in a genre now deeply shaped by jazz fusion and funk.
Don Lifted
325i (Fat Possum)
Don Lifted’s music has always been rooted in hip hop’s rhythmic rhyming, while including elements of shoegaze rock and even smooth R&B. His third album ramps up the artist’s sonic craftsmanship, with lyrics mixing the dread of quarantine with the determination to unpack one’s self. This solidifies the artist’s reputation as a performer with staying power, with a surer sense of sonic hooks than ever.
Loveland Duren
Any Such Thing (Edgewood Recordings)
The duo’s third album is the Platonic ideal of pop. Exquisite arrangements for the material include strings, French horn, flute, and a perfectly Memphian horn section. And while there are some flourishes of classic rock guitar on the stompers, the album as a whole is a keyboard-lover’s dream. But the heart of this album is the songwriting, with lyrics and melodies you can chew on for years.
MonoNeon
Supermane (self-released)
Known as a bass virtuoso, this album presents the songwriter’s most focused material ever. The result is his idiosyncratic, yet more disciplined, take on the classic early George Clinton sound. Still, he makes it his own with the strongest singing of his career. “Supermane,” the song, also features the sax playing of Kirk Whalum. Its classic gospel feel is made more universal by MonoNeon’s pop instincts.
Young Dolph
Paper Route Illuminati (Paper Route Empire)
The artist/label svengali’s horrific murder last month robbed us of future creations, but his swan song captures his spirit. “My office is a traphouse in South Memphis” tells you where his heart lived, as he and featured artists (including Gucci Mane) drop witty boasts of money and women. When he spits, “Have you ever seen a dead body?” a chill comes over the album, but when he raps, “I go so hard, make ’em hate me, my whole life a movie — HD,” it’s pure truth.
MonoNeon released a killer album earlier this year called Supermane, which is full of the insanely good grooves and goofy humor you’ve come to expect from the colorful bass master. If you’ve spent time on his YouTube channel, you know that he’s also a master of snack-sized clips combining sick riffs with found sound, like “KEEP ON YOU LIZARD!” (NSFW).
That’s how the low-end lunatic finally got to collaborate with Flea — although we can’t be sure the legendary Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist knew he was collaborating (also NSFW).
For something much safer for work, here’s Dywane Thomas Jr. jamming with his grandma.
The standout track on Supermane, an album filled with bangers, is “Invisible,” where MonoNeon wishes to hide from the eyes of the world. “You can be whoever you wanna/And no one’s gonna judge ya.”
The spectacular video for the song was directed by Kii Arens, who takes MonoNeon’s expansive color palette and just runs rampant with it. At one point, he even gets the artist to put on a black suit! Check out all the colors of the rainbow:
If you’d like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
“The other night I ate at a real nice family restaurant. Every table had an argument going.” — George Carlin
The term “family values” is bandied about in political discourse a great deal, but what it really means is hard to pin down. While some bemoan the loss of the family life portrayed in Cold War textbooks, a look at the institution at street-level reveals a more complex picture. For many, leaving the family can have a liberating effect, as with countless alienated youths, be they counterculture or LGBTQ, who establish their own “family” of friends. And that’s not just a contemporary phenomenon. Memphis Minnie regularly ran away from the hard scrabble farming life of Walls, Mississippi, to play on Beale Street in the years before World War I, eventually staying gone for good while still in her teens. It all started when they gave her a guitar.
And yet families need not be so oppressive, as so many of us know. Indeed, families are a distinctive feature of this region’s musical heartbeat. The late Herman Green’s father played in W.C. Handy’s band, and his stepfather was a pastor whose church piano further sparked Green’s love of music. Phineas Newborn Sr. led a local orchestra that fostered the storied careers of his sons Calvin and “Junior,” the latter becoming one of the 20th century’s greatest pianists. Al Jackson Sr. fostered the talent of Al Jackson Jr., celebrated worldwide as the pulse behind Stax Records. From that same milieu arose Rufus Thomas, his daughters Carla and Vaneese destined to become celebrated singers, his son Marvell a distinguished soul pianist, composer, and arranger.
Though a full listing of contemporary performers with musical family roots would take a book, we highlight three such artists here whose kin inspired them. Once upon a time, people talked about the “generation gap,” with rock-and-roll marking the hard divide between young and old in the ’50s and ’60s. Now, in the 21st century, it’s all about the Generation Jams.
Meet the Burnsides
True, Cedric Burnside’s latest release, I Be Trying, might be seen as the culmination of his family’s story, grounded in the talent and guidance of his legendary blues-playing grandfather, R.L. Burnside. But Cedric’s latest, perhaps the greatest of his career so far, also represents the confluence of several families. Around here, when families befriend families, you wind up with a lot of kin.
The haunting collection of sparse blues, their unique aesthetic echoing African bluesman Ali Farka Touré at times, was produced by Boo Mitchell, himself the keeper of a family legacy. Willie Mitchell went from success to success as a band leader, then as a producer of megahits for Hi Records; he treated and taught the three musical Hodges brothers like family, and they became the Hi Rhythm Section. Along the way, Willie raised his grandson Boo as his son. “Every night he’d come home, I’d be messing around on the piano, and he’d come lean over my shoulder, those whiskers hitting me, and show me some stuff,” Boo recalls.
Now Boo co-manages Willie Mitchell’s Royal Studios, and working on Burnside’s album took on a uniquely cathartic aspect after Boo’s son fell victim to a vicious gun attack that left the Mitchells wondering if he’d ever walk again. “I didn’t know I Be Trying was going to become the soundtrack to my life,” Boo reflects. “When that thing went down with my son, all I kept hearing were Cedric’s songs. ‘The world can be so cold. …’ It was stuck in my head for a long while. Because he means that stuff. It is not an act.”
Cedric has inherited the gravitas and heartfelt approach to the blues of his grandfather. “I was born into this music,” Cedric says. “It was in my blood when I was birthed into this world. I have a very musical family. My Big Daddy [grandfather] and Big Mama [grandmother] had 13 children. Just about everybody turned to music, to have as their passion.
“My first instruments was the cans and buckets. We’d get done cooking, clean all the grease outta the jug, and I’d use that jug for a drum, you know? And my Big Daddy and my dad would play house parties around, and somehow I just found the courage to step up on the drums when they took a break. Instruments were all around me as a kid.”
Having been raised in his grandparents’ home, long before he mastered guitar, drumming for R.L. Burnside gigs at juke joints was an easy jump for Cedric. “It was fascinating, being that young, knowing I wasn’t supposed to be in the juke joints, me or my Uncle Garry. I was 10, he was 12, and we were in the juke joint! But there was something so special about that. Being kids that young, we’d know that we weren’t supposed to be there, but every grown-up in there welcomed us. They would hide us behind the beer coolers when the police came in because if we left, they didn’t have no band to play music! It was really, really cool, just knowing that you were one of the cool kids, at the juke joint with all grown-ups. It was scary, it was weird, and it would get your adrenaline pumping. You think of any scenario, and we probably went through all of those at that juke joint.”
Nowadays, Cedric is able to pay the tradition forward. “My youngest daughter, Portrika — she just turned 16 — sings on ‘I Be Trying.’ She always loved to sing, which makes me proud. And I’m just trying to feed her all I can give her, you know? While I’m here to do it.”
Direct descendants aside, for Cedric, “family” was never merely the classic nuclear arrangement, but an extended flock, some not even related by blood. Among the latter were Jim and Mary Lindsay Dickinson and sons. “With some musicians I play with, I have been around them for so long that they are like family to me. Like the North Mississippi Allstars. Luther and Cody Dickinson, we’ve been around each other since we were kids. Luther was the big brother of the group, the first one who could drive. That’s 30-plus years we’ve been knowing each other. So they are really like family to me. Even though we wasn’t blood. Just the closeness that we had made us family.” To this day, when Luther makes a cameo on Cedric’s album, you can hear the telepathy between them.
Sid and Steve Selvidge (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
Meet the Selvidges
It turned out the Dickinsons weren’t the only family bonding with local geniuses of the blues and forging whole new family legacies. While Jim Dickinson was an early champion of under-recognized blues musicians of the area, he wasn’t alone. Standing right by his side at those first blues festivals of the ’60s was Sid Selvidge, whose family in Greenville, Mississippi, had not been particularly musical, but who nonetheless made his own way in the musical world of Memphis with the raw talent of his voice and fingers and his deep understanding of the blues and other song forms.
Today, Sid’s son Steve carries the tradition forward, best known as a guitarist in The Hold Steady. He says his early love of the guitar was sparked by his father’s encouragement — albeit with a light touch. “He was absolutely perfect,” recalls Steve. “Because he was not a stage dad. He was just so smart about it. He made everything available but didn’t push it on me or my brother. There was music around a lot, but all he offered was his enthusiasm.”
Showing young Steve a handful of chords was enough to get him started; from there, the son taught himself licks by rock gods like Led Zeppelin while the father looked on, adding only the occasional detail. “The biggest thing he showed me was open-G tuning and how to play ‘Cassie Jones’ and stuff. And while I played, he’d be shouting at me from downstairs, ‘It doesn’t go to the V chord!’ That’s literally something that happened,” laughs Steve.
Perhaps more than the technical niceties, Steve picked up a unique feeling for the blues via his father’s friends, namely the composer of “Cassie Jones” himself, the great Furry Lewis. “I only got fully hip to North Mississippi when Luther started digging deep down in there. My dad knew who R.L. Burnside was, but we hung out with Furry because they were friends. I have lots of memories of going over there and sitting on Furry’s bed and him being really sweet and really cool. And as he got older, the visits fell off a little bit. And I got into other things. I was still in single digits when he died.”
But there were other friends to learn from. As it turned out, Sid Selvidge, Jim Dickinson, Lee Baker, and Jimmy Crosthwait had a little band known as Mud Boy and the Neutrons. They were mostly local heroes but, by forging their own brand of heavy roots rock, have become highly regarded in hindsight. And the band itself was a kind of family. “They were still holdling on to the ethos of the counterculture,” muses Steve. “Even though they were middle-aged men by that point, there was still that ‘don’t trust anyone over 30’ vibe. I remember the smell of marijuana, and it was all very attractive. It was all connected with fun.”
Sons of Mudboy (Credit: Stevan Lazich)
Indeed, for young Steve, the visceral elements of musicianship were as alluring as the actual playing. “I can remember on Sundays, or after the weekend, I would open my dad’s guitar case, and this almost visible plume of aroma would come out, a cigarette smell, basically. Which is not that great, but it was really intoxicating as a kid. I would open it up and you could almost see the vapors, the smell of the bar. I was like, ‘Wow, man!’ I wasn’t even able to put it into words, but it was like, ‘This is a working musician’s instrument. He did something. And now he’s done for the weekend.’ It was like battle scars and it took on its own energy. It was almost like a living thing.”
Today, with Crosthwait the only Mud Boy member still living, Steve, Luther and Cody, and Ben Baker carry on that living thing as Sons of Mudboy, playing their fathers’ classic repertoire at free-ranging gigs that often include an extended family of other players. As he continues playing his father’s songs, Steve’s appreciation for what he achieved only grows. “Later, I got hip to how intricate and deep my dad’s self-accompaniment on guitar was. Originally I was looking for flash and guitar solos and crazy stuff,” Steve recalls, “but later I realized his whole playing and singing by himself was so hard to do. I can remember being in the first grade and being asked what your parents do. I said my dad was a magician. And maybe that was true, after all.”
MonoNeon (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
Meet the Thomases
Steve and Sid Selvidge came to play together, including the time Steve accompanied his father at Carnegie Hall at age 19. Luther and Cody also joined their father Jim starting in their teens, Jim often dubbing the Dickinson family outfit the Hardly Can Playboys. But one local virtuoso didn’t have a chance to do that until very recently. Dywane Thomas Jr. bears the name of his father but mainly admired him from afar as a kid. “My dad, the bassist Dywane Thomas, is my first music hero,” writes the son in an email. To clear up any confusion, the son goes by a different name: You likely know him as MonoNeon, also a bassist, so renowned for his jazz, funk, and soul chops that he even played with Prince in the Purple One’s final days.
“Even though my dad moved to Europe when I was young,” MonoNeon writes, “his influence was just in me (the blues, funk, Southern-soul). Till this day I’m always searching for records my dad played on. I actually found an old vinyl record my dad played bass on with J. Blackfoot, entitled Physical Attraction (1984).”
Searching for records involving his family has been a long-time obsession for the bass wunderkind, for the family ear for music goes beyond his father. “My grandfather, Charles Thomas, a jazz pianist, was a later influence on me. I became aware of who my granddad was musically in my early teens. My granddad played with Ron Carter and Billy Higgins on the album called The Finishing Touch! by the Charles Thomas All Star Trio. I used to listen to those recordings a lot during high school wishing I had a chance to play with my granddad Charles.”
Grandma Liz with MonoNeon (Photo: Courtesy MonoNeon)
More recently, MonoNeon has taken to celebrating his grandmother Liz as well. It’s most obvious in the song “Grandma’s House,” on his 2021 album Supermane, a Funkadelic-tinged celebration of piling into the car to visit his grandmother and eat her fine cooking. “I’ve always just wanted to play some music with Grandma Liz,” he reflects. “I used to go to choir rehearsal with her with my bass and play. The whole thang with me and my grandma jammin’ together started when my mom brought her over to come hang and I told my grandma, ‘Let’s do a quick jam thang’ on a song she use to sing in church, ‘Oh, When I Come to the End of My Journey.’ Since I’ve started singing more, I’ve noticed I kinda sound like my grandma. My early gospel influence comes from going to the Baptist church with my grandma and aunties. Now I’ve just taken all those influences and made it neon I guess.”
As MonoNeon has become more celebrated, he seems to value family more than ever in his work, and recently he too was able to accomplish what the Selvidges and the Dickinsons did: create music with his father, keeping the cycle of family influences ebbing and flowing — “a living thing,” in the words of Steve Selvidge. As MonoNeon relates, “Me and my dad had a chance to record and jam recently at Niko Lyras’ Cotton Row Studio, with Steve Potts on drums. That was a dream I had to bring to realization in some way.”
Cedric Burnside plays an album release party, featuring Luther Dickinson, at B.B. King’s Blues Club, Wednesday, August 25th, 7 p.m. $20. He plays the 2021 Memphis Country Blues Festival at the Levitt Shell Thursday, October 7th, 7 p.m. $35.
Steve Selvidge plays with Big Ass Truck at the Levitt Shell, Saturday, September 11th, 7 p.m. Free.
MonoNeon plays Railgarten, Wednesday, September 1st, 8 p.m. $10.
Railgarten has long been a leader in supporting local musicians, as was clear when they were among the first clubs to resume presenting live music last fall. At the time, co-owner Jack Phillips noted, “We’re seeing a lot of musicians, and talking to a lot of artists in town, and people are struggling. Not to say that everyone in the hospitality and restaurant business isn’t hurting, but we’ve got somewhat of a captive audience and wanted to see what we could do to go the extra step and really show our love for Memphis musicians. Music is in our blood, and I hate to see musicians struggling.”
It wasn’t just because national acts weren’t touring that the venue remained committed to local performers: They want to see the local scene flourish. Now, to that end, Railgarten and their partner Old Dominick Distillery have announced the first ever “901 Fest,” celebrating everything that is Memphis, musically speaking. Starting on Wednesday, September 1, and running through Labor Day weekend, the Railgarten stage will host some of the crème de la crème of Memphis music.
Mononeon’s Supermane
The scheduled acts will include Mononeon (September 1); Lucero (September 2); Detective Bureau and Lord T & Eloise (September 3), Obruni Dance Band, The PRVLG, CYC, and Dead Soldiers (September 4); and Lucky 7 Brass Band, Max Kaplan & The Magics, and The Sensational Barnes Brothers (September 5).
As Mason Jambon of Railgarten emphasizes, “We are committed to promoting local Memphis musicians, so we thought that having a festival centered around all local acts would be something music lovers in the city would embrace.”
There will also be specialty cocktails for purchase for the extended weekend, provided by Old Dominick. “We love events like this that promote the culture of our community, and we are excited to be a part of it,” says Alex Castle, master distiller and senior vice president of Old Dominick Distillery.
And local Memphis artists from Arrow Creative will be selling their goods that Saturday and Sunday, September 4 and 5. “As a new business in the Central Avenue community, we love the idea of teaming up with neighborhood businesses to help promote our artists. Railgarten always does a great job attracting a diverse group of customers, and we look forward to having a similar offering with our local artists and makers,” says Abby Phillips, executive director at Arrow Creative.
