Tag: Rufus Thomas

Categories
Music Music Blog

What We Listened to this Week: Stax Soul Singles Vol. 3

This week was all about the Stax Soul Singles Box set, a 10 disc retrospective that the Concord Music Group was nice enough to release. Volume 2 covers 1968 through 1971 and this box covers 1972 through 1975. Both volumes feature stalwart Stax R&B artists including Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, Rufus Thomas, Johnnie Taylor, Carla Thomas, the Bar-Kays and William Bell, as well as bluesmen Little Milton, Albert King and Little Sonny, and “second generation” Stax hit makers like Jean Knight, the Soul Children, Kim Weston, the Temprees, and Mel & Tim.

What We Listened to this Week: Stax Soul Singles Vol. 3 (4)

While Volume 2 of this collection focuses on the era when Stax was forming its own identity, Volume 3 covers a very different era, one of success and excess, right before Stax was on the verge of shutting down. During this time period the label recorded a wealth of of different styles of popular black music, ranging from jazz and easy-listening to the blues and even the beginning stages of disco. 

What We Listened to this Week: Stax Soul Singles Vol. 3 (2)

In 1976, faced with involuntary bankruptcy and an unsuccessful distribution deal with CBS Records, Stax was forced to close its doors. In his liner notes for Vol. 3, compilation co-producer Bill Belmont writes, “Stax’s difficult and inglorious end in no way diminishes its vital contributions to rhythm and blues and soul. Today, the music of Stax maintains a strong and steady presence, heard continually in cover versions by major artists, in movies and on television. Simply put, the Memphis Sound lives.” 

What We Listened to this Week: Stax Soul Singles Vol. 3 (3)

Stax Soul Singles Volume 3 in all it’s glory.

Categories
Cover Feature News

TCB on Beale Street

CREDIT: Courtesy of Lansky’s Archives

As proprietor Hal Lansky welcomes you into his family’s new store on Beale, he stands in the building that his father and uncles turned into one of the most influential clothiers of the 20th century. Perhaps most famous for dressing the legendarily natty Elvis Presley, Lansky’s has deep roots in Memphis, and the new store features a museum-quality photo exhibit that is a testament to that history.

“This whole story doesn’t exist without Elvis,” said archivist David Simmons, who worked with Lansky’s on the new store and museum on Beale. “But the story is a lot bigger than that, a lot bigger. These are men who changed the way America dressed.”

Courtesy of Lansky’s Archives

During Elvis’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, he was wearing an outfit purchased from Lansky’s on his new credit account. That was September 1956. By then, founder Bernard Lansky (Hal’s father) and his brothers had been in the store for a decade, meeting the peculiar needs of Beale Street.

“Musicians, celebrities, dandies, pimps, and gamblers,” is how Simmons describes the clientele in photos. “Look at that outrageous merchandise. [The Lanskys] were never shy about pushing that envelope.”

Beale Street had quite an envelope. Once a street of white-owned businesses, many of the properties were bought by black businessmen like Robert Church Sr. in the late 1880s. It was named “the Main Street of Negro America” by black businessman George W. Lee. A 1947 obituary for gambler Mac Harris described his dress: “He was known to have strutted down Beale Street in a cutaway coat, striped trousers, and a wide felt hat, twisting his mustachios, his Van Dyke beard trimly cut, his cane flashing in the lights.”

Courtesy of Lansky’s Archives

Lansky’s customers

Hal grew up on Beale Street and has watched his family outfit American culture, black and white, for more than half a century. After a brief interlude operating in other locations, Lansky has doubled down on his roots and returned to the clothier’s original building on Beale. It looks like a good bet.

“The only way [my father] got part of the building was that his father loaned him $125,” Lansky says. “The only space they could find was at 126 Beale. The only reason they got the space was that a man was murdered in the store. When they got it, they had all kinds of ladies’ stuff. My dad was a pretty colorful guy. He said, ‘This ain’t me.’ He took all the ladies’ stuff and threw it out on the street. Then within hours, the stuff disappeared. So they needed something to sell. It was 1946, and the war was over. They started selling Army surplus. Pants, shirts, cots, fatigues for $1.99. After a few years, the stuff started running out. Of course, they were merchants. They needed something different.”

Courtesy of Lansky’s Archives

Hal has a visceral enthusiasm for the space, which is shared by new tenants the Hard Rock Café and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.

“This building has a colorful past,” Lansky says. “In the late 1890s, it was the courthouse. [Later] the second floor was a house of prostitution. They were renting the rooms out by the hour. My dad said, ‘This is some valuable space.’ So my dad started renting the rooms out for the day, the week, the month, until he controlled the whole top of the building. Then he started moving his formal wear and tuxedos up there. Now, we’re excited that the story is back on the map.”

Courtesy of Lansky’s Archives

Dewey Phillips and Elvis

Growing up on Beale was a front row seat to American history, Lansky says. He’s still amazed by how hard his family worked and by the people they grew to know and love.

“When I was a young man, there were really no store hours,” Lansky says. “When there was business, my parents were open.”

Simmons adds that Lansky’s was probably the first white-owned store with black salesmen in Memphis.

“Beale Street was an African-American street,” Lansky says. “It was a black man’s street. Whites really did not come on this street. Surprisingly, Elvis did.”

Presley was hip to Lansky through his fascination with Dewey Phillips, who often did remote radio broadcasts from the store. Bernard’s brother, Guy, was frequently quoted in Peter Guralnick’s Presley biography Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. Elvis was a fan of Bernard Lansky before he became the King of rock-and-roll.

Courtesy of Lansky’s Archives

One of Elvis’ coats from Lansky’s

“We hang our hat on Elvis,” Lansky says. “He put us on the map. But we’ve had so many people through our doors before Elvis. Being the ‘Clothier to the King’ is a great thing. People in Memphis say, ‘I don’t want to shop at Lansky’s. I don’t want to look like Elvis.’ But we’ve changed every decade. If we hadn’t changed our looks and our style, we’d have been out of business 30 years ago. I tell people, if we sold white button-down shirts, we’d have gone out of business. If Elvis wore a white button down shirt, he might still be driving a truck. With his talents and our styling, it was a great combination.”

That philosophy outfitted Presley when he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show on September 9, 1956. A telegram from Lansky to Presley hangs among the new shop’s museum-like space. Lansky wishes Elvis well and asks for a plug on the broadcast. Lansky didn’t get his plug, but it illustrates an eye for business that helped him succeed beyond the realm of the King. But Lansky and Elvis are inseparable. Also on display is a photo of Bernard and Hal in a three-wheeler Messerschmitt micro car that Lansky bought from Elvis. The title has two Presley signatures, which Lansky knew were valuable.

Courtesy of Lansky’s Archives

Sam “The Sham” Samudio

“A lot of people begrudge [Elvis’ manager] Tom Parker,” Lansky says. “[He] would always write two checks. Let’s say the bill was $400. One of the checks would be $300 and one would be $100. He’d get Elvis to sign one of those checks because the merchant would keep them. They didn’t cash that check. It was like getting a 25-percent discount.”

The stories are endless.

“Sam Samudio. Sam the Sham. He and my dad were tight,” Lansky says. “During those days [Samudio] was a drinker. He’s found religion now. But he drove his motorcycle into this building and left the motorcycle in this building for probably two years before he finally realized where it was. My dad stored it for him for two years.”

Courtesy of Lansky’s Archives

Steve Cropper modeled for Lansky’s

Lansky was an integral part of Beale Street, a fact that kept the store in business during the 1960s, when African-American Memphians captured the torch of popular music.

In 1967, Stax Records conquered Europe with a tour that is still legendary almost 50 years later. Otis Redding’s performances in Paris are some of the greatest filmed documents in popular music history. It was the label’s global moment. Redding conquered the world. The Stax group’s suits came from Lansky’s.

Wayne Jackson recalls the tour in his biography, In My Wildest Dreams. Jackson was a member of Stax’s first-born band, the Mar-Keys. Going to be outfitted at Lansky’s was a big deal. Jackson writes:

Courtesy of Lansky’s Archives

“It’s where Elvis bought his wild, honky-tonk stuff, and we all knew it. So we looked into the triple mirrors. Holy God! Zoot suit blue! Bernard was ecstatic! ‘I got this number in cat-eyed green, too! All wool to the bone! Hey! You guys gonna take over Europe, man, in MY clothes! Mohair from Lansky’s! I don’t think even Elvis got this suit! I mean it! Would I lie to ya?’

Then it was Andrew and Joe’s turn, and we laughed as Bernard did what made his life a wondrous thing.

‘I’m not kiddin’! You guys think I’m KIDDIN’ but I am not KIDDIN’! You guys are gonna make ’em crazy for you in these suits, you watch what I tell ya!

By the way, y’all need shoes?'”

Courtesy of Lansky’s Archives

Another client, Rufus Thomas, based his “Ain’t I Clean?” bit — showing off his suit lining with his trademark grin — on his Lansky duds and was a major proponent of the Miami Stomper, thigh-high, red, python boots. Lansky’s was the leading store in the country for selling the Stomper.

Lansky’s will share the building with two musically themed tenants, the Memphis Music Hall of Fame and the Hard Rock Café, an international company with Memphis roots.

“I was working in the store in the late 1960s or early 1970s, and I kept seeing this guy with Rolls Royces,” Lansky says. “I could see him turning right [in front of the store]. This was going on for a matter of months. Finally I asked, who is this guy driving the Rolls Royces? His name was Isaac Tigrett.”

Courtesy of Lansky’s Archives

Tigrett, of course, is the son of financier John Tigrett and the founder of the Hard Rock Café and House of Blues.

“He would go over [to London] with his dad,” Lansky says. “Isaac would be flipping these Rolls Royces, bringing them back and selling them. He was a business-minded guy. I think that’s cool. And in 1972, they opened the first Hard Rock Cafe in London.”

The first Hard Rock was housed in the former Rolls Royce dealership.

As we walk through the new Hard Rock, Lansky is proud of what his family has accomplished. He beams with pride about a life and a story that he didn’t always appreciate.

“All my friends’ dads were professionals: They were doctors or lawyers. [My dad] sold clothes to black people. Back then it wasn’t too cool. My dad made a good living. But it’s cool that 50 years later, after my dad is gone, people around the world know him. His obit was in the New York Times. People from around the world know the Lanskys. Now it’s cool. We’ve met all these people and lived this story. The tables turned. I know Robert Plant. Back then, young people were into the British Invasion. But they never witnessed what I saw on the street.”

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: Reuters | Bernadett Szabo

After every Memphis Grizzlies game, my brother-in-law is fond of getting online and posting, “I am a Grizzlies maniac,” with several exclamation points, depending on the closeness of the game. As of this writing, the opening series of the NBA playoffs is still undecided, but win or lose, how exciting has this been for Memphis?

It’s a wondrous thing to see this city come together and rally around a common cause. Just think, if we could only get the City Council to do the same.

For this community, the Grizzlies mean so much more than basketball. They are a focal point around which all Memphians can unite, and those occasions have proven so rare, it’s worthy that we celebrate when it happens. My only problem is, with three overtime games in a row, the Griz are fixing to throw me into cardiac arrhythmia. Thank God for Obamacare.

I now understand how, once you know a player’s background and watch his attitude on the court, you become more invested in the games and individual performances. Your spirits rise and fall throughout the season until the storyline plays out. Judging from the past couple of games at FedEx Forum, Grizzlies fans’ spirits are pretty damn high. My wife has attended several games this season, while I am content to watch from the couch. It’s tinnitus. My ears just can’t take it anymore. But the entire Forum nearly burst right through the flat screen the other night. It’s no wonder the Grizzlies were named “best overall professional sports franchise” by ESPN The Magazine. And that includes baseball, football, and hockey. 

The city’s adopting of this team and these players is nearly as heartwarming as all the work these guys seem to so happily do for the community. This group has a workmanlike ethic for a blue-collar town and the fit seems just right. The league needs a team like this precisely because they play as a team. I just hope the new owners don’t screw it up and try to turn the Griz into the run-and-gun Lakers. Why mess with a good thing?

How can you help but admire these guys, especially the Grindfather himself, Tony Allen? This guy is everywhere. Statistics can’t begin to show what he adds to this team. I am hesitant to admire him too much, however, for fear that they’ll trade him. His defensive play is an art, and speaking of the same, I’d like to add a word about defense. When you speak of, say, the secretary of defense, or say a game was a “defensive struggle,” the accent is always on the second syllable. So why does a sports crowd always scream “DEE-fense?”

Because Memphis is supposed to be different, I’d like to urge our citizens to be the only fans in all of sports to shout, “de-FENSE!” That will mess with the other teams’ minds. That aside, the past two games, the Forum was rocking with chants of “Z-Bo,” and I thought I saw paint chips falling from the ceiling after Mike Miller went on a three-point tear. Even before we learned the name, Beno Udrih, Melody and I were screaming, “Way to go, new guy!” at the television screen. What’s better than watching Mike Conley’s calm under pressure? And we definitely got the right Gasol.

Reuters | Bernadett Szabo

Jerry Lee Lewis

A year ago, I wrote a column that said the Grizzlies were great, but the music sucked. Since then, I’ve heard Willie Mitchell, Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, and James Brown over the arena’s speakers. So, all praises to the tune selector, and I hope my rant helped. Now, if I could just make a couple more suggestions. If a player on the opposing team travels, play a snippet of Rufus Thomas singing, “Justa, justa, justa walkin’.” When our big men block an opponent’s shot, Elvis’ “Return to Sender” would be appropriate. And when one of our guys hits a three-pointer, play Jerry Lee Lewis singing, “Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire.” Also, the Bar-Kays’ “Soulfinger” needs to be the team’s fight song, only the crowd can scream, “Go Grizzlies,” where they shout “Soulfinger,” in the original recording. One more thing. Why must they play that same inane chant in every arena right before tip-off? Let’s chant “Na, Nas” with Wilson Pickett’s “Land of 1000 Dances.” While we’re at it, “We Will Rock You” is one of the worst grooves in popular music and is awkward for Memphis folks used to clapping on the two-and-four. And were you aware that every time that heavy, guitar-drenched song where everyone yells, “Hey!” is played, you are profiting Gary Glitter, a sexual deviate so depraved that they kicked him out of Thailand?

Keep it simple, fellas. It might be enjoyable to watch an entire arena full of crazed fans doing the “Funky Chicken.” Even more fun to be there doing it.

Randy Haspel writes the “Born-Again Hippies” blog, where a version of this column first appeared.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter From the Editor: Blues, Balls, and Memphis Legends

When I moved to Memphis in the early 1990s, my first job at this company was running the special-publications division, helping put together magazines for customers needing a promotional or informational print product. One of my first customers was a woman named Pat Kerr Tigrett, who had an idea for a big party called the Blues Ball.

She wanted to create a colorful, magazine-type program for the party and have it bound into Memphis magazine’s October 1994 issue — which is where I came in.

If you look up the phrase “force of nature,” you will see a picture of Pat Tigrett. If you’d looked up “bumfuzzled” in 1994, you’d have seen a picture of me, trying to keep up with Pat, who was simply bursting with ideas and to whom the words “final deadline” meant “the day we might possibly think about starting to wrap this up.”

Every day there was a new idea, a new story to write, new (or old) photos to find, new people to call and schedule for interviews or pictures. I spent so much time at Pat’s downtown condo working out details, people were starting to talk.

“Just call Sam at home. Here’s his number. He’d love to talk to you,” she’d say.

“Sam?” I said.

“Sam Phillips, you know, Sun Records, the man who discovered Elvis?”

“Uh, okay.” And Sam was happy to talk, a lot. In fact, I felt like I needed a translator to parse his stream-of-consciousness rap.

And when Pat mentioned calling Isaac, I soon realized she was talking about Isaac Hayes. In fact, she was seemingly on a first-name basis with every living Memphis music legend: Rufus Thomas, Willie Mitchell, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Al Green, Booker T. & the MG’s, the Bar-Kays, David Porter, the Memphis Horns, B.B. King, Sam and Dave, Sid Selvidge, Jim Dickinson, Big Star, the Staple Singers, etc.

As a new guy to Memphis who grew up listening to most of these icons, it was thrilling to be able to meet them and, in some cases, get to know them a little bit.

After a few years, the program got so big it wouldn’t fit in Memphis magazine, so our company got out of the Blues Ball business.

And I hadn’t been to the Blues Ball for a few years, but last weekend was the 20th anniversary of Pat’s big party, so my wife and I went. My, how it has grown. Outside dinner seating in downtown Memphis for a few hundred people, anyone?

This year’s honoree was Sam Moore, of Sam and Dave, whose performance at the Obama White House this spring may end up being noted by historians as the highlight of this president’s second term.

At 77, Moore hasn’t lost a thing. Backed by a stellar group of Memphis session men, he transported us all back to the glory days of Stax. It was transcendent, and I am grateful to have been able to experience it — and proud to be able to say I live where so much musical greatness was spawned.

And so, in this issue, when we talk about the “Best of Memphis,” just remember, that’s really saying something.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Cover Feature News

A Hall of Our Own

CREDIT: Deanie Parker Collection. Center for Southern Folklore Archives.

On the constellation of Memphis music attractions, the Smithsonian Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum doesn’t burn quite as bright as Graceland, Sun Studio, or the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. But since its founding more than a decade ago, the museum has served a useful purpose in pulling the different strands of the Memphis music story into one narrative.

This month, with the launch of the first Memphis Music Hall of Fame, Rock ‘n’ Soul steps into the spotlight.

The general idea of a Memphis-specific Hall of Fame has been in the air for decades, but the current realization — with an inaugural class of 25 inductees that was announced last month and will be feted at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts next week — has its origins in a Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum strategic planning meeting roughly seven years ago.

The museum had incurred debt in its original setup at the Gibson Guitar Factory and then relocation costs when it moved to its current home at FedExForum. It took awhile to get those issues under control.

“As we were feeling like our head was coming above water, we were able to really focus on what is our mission,” says museum executive director John Doyle. “And we felt like this was something that’s an extension of our mission to preserve and tell the story of Memphis music and to perpetuate its legacy.”

Kevin Kane, the head of the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau, who also serves as the chairman of the Rock ‘n’ Soul board, was a big proponent of the project.

“This should have happened 20 years ago. If any city deserves it, it’s Memphis,” Kane says. “We felt like we were the obvious entity to do this. Us or the Music Commission or Music Foundation. It makes sense for it to be us. We’re that portal to tell an overarching story that transcends Sun, Stax, etc. And we have a facility, unlike the commission or foundation. People walk through on a daily basis. We have a footprint.”

Doyle says he and the museum’s planning committee consulted other music attractions in town before launching the project.

“We wanted to make sure it wasn’t a faux pas to do this,” he says. “No one was biting at the bullet to do this because it takes a lot of work, and it takes a lot of money to do it right. We felt like we were the people to do it, because we tell the complete Memphis music story. But we’re not looking to pound our chest and say Rock ‘n’ Soul’s doing this. We think it’s something that’s right for the city.”

The Parlor Game

In order to make this idea a reality, Doyle assembled a 12-member nominating committee of music professionals only partly rooted in Memphis, a group that included, among others, authors Peter Guralnick and Nelson George, former Commercial Appeal music critics Larry Nager and Bill Ellis, former executive director of the national Rhythm & Blues Foundation Patricia Wilson Aden, and former Smithsonian curator and Southern historian Pete Daniel.

This May, on the weekend of the annual Blues Music Awards, Doyle brought most of the group to Memphis for a two-day session in a suite at FedExForum, where, facilitated by the Recording Academy’s Jon Hornyak and former Stax Museum director Deanie Parker, they came up with the first class of inductees for the first Memphis Music Hall of Fame.

It was the best Memphis music parlor game ever, with, after several rounds of initial nominations, 52 names arranged on a wall, whittled down to an inaugural class (see sidebar on p. 21) after two days of deliberations.

“We limited it to 25, which was more than we’ll do in other classes,” says longtime journalist and music-industry executive David Less, who was on the nominating committee and in the room for live deliberations. “We may do five names next year, but if you do five in the first year you don’t really have a hall of fame. You just have five guys. So we wanted to frontload it a little, but we didn’t want to say here’s everybody.”

“They wanted to know from the planning committee standpoint what we wanted from them,” Doyle says of the process. “Their first question was, Do you want the expected list of nominees? And I said I want what you consider the right list of nominees.”

There were no longevity guidelines. No “birth requirement.” No separate categories for non-performers.

“We set all of that aside,” Doyle says.

The class of inductees that emerged included obvious names (Elvis Presley, W.C. Handy), obscure names (Lucie Campbell, William T. McDaniel), and controversial names (Three 6 Mafia, ZZ Top). With the knowledge that this is meant to be an ongoing process, the group produced a representative list of key players in Memphis music history rather than 25 definitive names.

“We went around the group once and had everybody nominate somebody and observed that no one picked the four people we all knew other people would pick,” Less says. “No one wanted to waste their vote on Elvis or Sam Phillips or W.C. Handy or B.B. King. So after the first round we just said, these four people, let’s put them up there. We know they’re going to be there, so that frees us all up and we don’t have to talk about them anymore. We all agreed that those would be the ones who in any scenario had to be there.”

“Some of the big names on that inaugural list are there because they’re the biggest names,” says Ellis, who wasn’t in town for the meeting but contributed via e-mail and conference call. “But then outside of that is where we all sort of bring our own perspectives and fight for somebody, like a Jimmie Lunceford or a Lucie Campbell or even a Memphis Minnie, who was as important a blues pioneer as Muddy Waters in a way.”

Ellis pushed for gospel pioneer Campbell, while both he and George made a case for Three 6 Mafia, the youngest inductees. Less was a booster for jazz sideman George Coleman and educator William T. McDaniel.

“Music is more than just the stars, right? It’s a collective achievement, especially in a place like Memphis, where so much of what’s happened of historical merit has happened outside the purview of the hits, and there have been plenty of those,” Ellis says. “But the chart and sales success doesn’t explain the significance of a Lucie Campbell or a W.T. McDaniel. I was thrilled to be involved if only to see Campbell and Three 6 Mafia make the inaugural inductee list, the past and the future broadly laid out there.”

“My feeling is that it’s pretty easy to go Elvis, B.B. King, Isaac Hayes,” George says of pushing for Three 6 Mafia. “But I wanted to embrace the panorama and have it not just be people from the ’50s. And the Mafia winning the Oscar, that was a historic event.”

The curious-to-some inclusion of ZZ Top also seemed to emanate from a desire for a more contemporary presence in the initial class of inductees.

“ZZ Top, in truth, kept Ardent Records alive,” Less says in defense of the choice. “All of their first records were recorded here. They lived here while they were recording. You can’t count Sam & Dave if you don’t count ZZ Top.”

No one thinks the list is perfect, of course. Not even members of the committee that made it.

“I nominated Carla Thomas, but we decided you can’t put Rufus and Carla in the same year,” says longtime Memphis broadcaster Henry Nelson. “But Carla’s gotta go in the second year.”

Ellis, for one, echoes the common refrain about Johnny Cash’s absence from the list.

“Johnny Cash?” Ellis asks, with a hint of incredulity. “I can’t speak for the committee, but he’ll be on the next list.”

“Where’s Johnny Cash? Where’s Justin Timberlake? Where’s Carl Perkins? That doesn’t mean we don’t think they’re great or they won’t be in a Memphis Music Hall of Fame,” Less says. “It’s just the first blush, it’s not the last look. It’s not a definitive list. Our charge was not to produce the obvious, definitive people.”

Follow Through

Starting a hall of fame and picking a list of inductees is one thing. Making something of it is another, and where exactly this endeavor heads is still somewhat unknown. A website, including inductee profiles written by nominating committee members Guralnick, Ellis, Nager, and Robert Gordon, launched when the inductees were announced last month.

Next week, an induction ceremony will be held at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts, produced by Willy Bearden, who will try to tell the story of the 25 inductees in roughly two and a half hours, including a series of musical performances with a house band of ace Memphis session musicians backing some of the living inductees as well as some of their children and artists they’ve influenced.

“It’s a tough thing to do, but I think we’ve been able to approach this in a little different way,” Bearden says. “There won’t be people standing at a podium inducting people. I can guarantee that this is going to be a really good show.”

Some time next year, according to Doyle, the Rock ‘n’ Soul will open an interactive Memphis Music Hall of Fame exhibit inside the current museum, while Kane says the group is exploring other avenues for some kind of “external public tribute.”

Left open is the prospect of a more extensive physical space for a Memphis Music Hall of Fame, either on its own or as a component of a larger Rock ‘n’ Soul space, something of which nominating committee members seem to be in favor.

“If there’s a way to incorporate it into the Rock ‘n’ Soul, that would be great,” says Less, who helped with the Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum’s initial launch. “I’m a proponent of synergy. I don’t think you make people go to two locations for essentially the same thing. Rock ‘n’ Soul is a limited story of Memphis music. When we started it, we set the parameters of it with the Smithsonian, and I think it’s a definitive portrait of that time frame. I think the Memphis Music Hall of Fame expands that conversation a little bit, but why send people to two places?”

“Will it be a separate building? We think that’s something the community needs to decide more than us, but it’s definitely not something that needs to happen immediately,” Doyle says. “It’s usually a 10-year process, because you’ve got to have that many inductees in order for it to be a compelling exhibit. Plus, here in Memphis, you’ve got icon buildings such as Sun Studio, Graceland, Stax, as well as our own museum. So we don’t know that there’s a need for another building.”

“If it warrants it or the opportunity presents itself to open another facility, we’ll look at that,” Kane says. “We’re not married to anything. With technology, you don’t need [as much space].”

Whatever road this project takes, it’s already been a conversation-starter.

“The great thing about a hall of fame is that everybody wants it. The bad thing is you can never do it right,” says Doyle, who is already planning to reassemble his nominating committee next spring to select a new class of inductees. “People are so passionate about music. But this will be decades for us. Ten years from now, we’ll be inducting Grammy winners and chart toppers.”

Among the names mentioned by various committee members as potential future inductees are Cash, Thomas, Timberlake, Big Star, the Blackwood Brothers, the Memphis Jug Band, Chips Moman, and on and on.

“There are only a handful of cities that could do this,” Less says. “Chicago. Detroit. New York. Los Angeles.”

“It’s another piece to providing a sustainable identity of Memphis as a major music capital and not just for the tourists,” Ellis says. “But for those who live in the city and take great pride in being part of something much larger than themselves.”

First Class …

The 25 Inaugural Inductees to the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.

Jim Stewart & Estelle Axton

The brother/sister duo who put the “St” and “ax” in Stax as co-founders of the city’s signature soul label.

Bobby “Blue” Bland

The soul-blues titan who honed his craft alongside other future stars in the 1950s vocal group the Beale Streeters.

Booker T. & the MGs

The Stax house band and hitmakers-in-their-own-right who embodied one version of the Memphis sound.

Lucie Campbell

The gospel composer who was a contemporary of the more famous Thomas A. Dorsey and who helped shape the black gospel sound of the pre-soul era.

George Coleman

The Memphis jazz great who was a saxophone sideman for B.B. King before joining up with the Miles Davis Quintet.

Jim Dickinson

The producer/sideman/bandleader who was a musical sponge and bridge between distant eras of Memphis music.

Al Green

The last soul legend who was the purest Memphis vocalist since Elvis Presley — and remains productive.

W.C. Handy

The “Father of the Blues” whose published compositions popularized the regional form.

Isaac Hayes

A Hall of Famer even before Shaft and Hot Buttered Soul who evolved from essential sideman/songwriter to superstar.

Howlin’ Wolf

The Delta-bred blues powerhouse who cut classic sides with Sam Phillips before migrating north to Chicago.

B.B. King

The “Beale Street Blues Boy” who started his career on radio and on stage locally before becoming the blues’ biggest modern star.

Jerry Lee Lewis

The piano-pounding revolutionary who traveled up from Louisiana and was introduced to the world via Sam Phillips’ Sun label.

Jimmie Lunceford

The Manassas High School gym teacher who evolved into the King of Swing.

Prof. W.T. McDaniel

A segregation-era music teacher at Manassas and Booker T. Washington high schools who trained multiple generations of Memphis musicians.

Memphis Minnie

The “Queen of Country Blues” who first hit Beale Street as a young teen and emerged as one of the signature blues artists of her era.

Willie Mitchell

The bandleader and producer who forged the sophisticated Hi Records soul sound and “discovered” Al Green.

Dewey Phillips

The original wild man of rock-and-roll radio who gave Elvis Presley his first spin.

Sam Phillips

The idiosyncratic producer and Sun Records founder who cut classic blues sides and then presided over the great wedding ceremony, marrying country and blues to create rock-and-roll.

Elvis Presley

The kid from Tupelo who waltzed into Sun Records and announced that he sang all kinds. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.

Otis Redding

The soul man supreme who gave Stax Records its first true superstar and then left us too soon.

The Staple Singers

The family band who blended soul and country, gospel and blues into a distinctive sound — and had something to say.

Rufus Thomas

The prankster, patriarch, and pop-cultural preacher who drove Memphis music from the Rabbit Foot Minstrels to WattStax.

Three 6 Mafia

The Southern rap pioneers who graduated from selling self-made mixes out of their trunk to claiming Oscar gold on behalf of crunk.

Nat D. Williams

The “Beale Streeter by birth” who took the mic at WDIA to become the first black disc jockey on the country’s first all-African-American radio station.

ZZ Top

The dusty Texas blues band that honed its sound and emerged as superstars out of Memphis’ Ardent Studios.

The Memphis Music Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony

Cannon Center for the Performing Arts

Thursday, November 29th • 7 p.m.

Tickets are $100, $50, or $30.

memphismusichalloffame.com