Tag: Steve Selvidge

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Music Music Features

DittyTV: A Global Music Network on South Main

I want my MTV! The sentiment may seem dated, but many of us feel the same tug: to regain that sense of discovery we had when new music cascaded out of the screen, all day. Yet the network’s concept, which seemed so revolutionary at lift-off in the 1980s, had difficulty profiting from its innovation, and phased out most of its music-only content more than a decade ago. And honestly, by then we were tired of all the hair metal anyway.

Still, the desire for that viewing-as-discovery experience has remained, and that’s what the Memphis-based DittyTV network is targeting. Since 2014, the storefront studio on South Main has been plying the web-waves with new music, slowly amassing a global reach that most Memphians are oblivious to. And to top it all off, there’s not a trace of hair metal.

Cameraman Jake Hopkins films Liz Brasher and Steve Selvidge for DittyTV

I first met Ronnie and Amy Wright soon after they relocated here from Washington, D.C., in 2010, looking for something beyond the Beltway life. Within a couple of years, they had fashioned the studio space that’s still their headquarters, and were shooting professional live performance videos of bands. And they let bands keep the footage and the multitrack audio masters to use however they saw fit. It seemed too good to be true.

But their labor of love, DittyTV, had legs, especially when they refined their operation with a stronger identity. Being roots music buffs, framing DittyTV as an Americana network was a natural fit. For one thing, the term is increasingly inclusive. “Americana is a wide net, but you’re not going to extremes like EDM or metal,” Ronnie says. “It’s not really a genre, it’s a collection of genres that people seem to love from their 20s into their 60s and 70s. And our viewership bears that out. People write in and say, ‘I put it on for hours and hours.’ That’s what I did in the MTV days. You just let it roll and use it as a soundtrack.”

A major turning point was being invited to broadcast the last Folk Alliance conference held in Memphis before that organization’s move to Kansas City. Ronnie recalls, “The first Folk Alliance we did was in 2012. We slowly grew, and now we’re up to more than five million viewers every month.”

“One of the things we’re trying to do is expand onto other platforms,” Amy adds. “Like streaming apps with their own channel lineups, or ‘skinny bundles.’ We’re at an advantage, because we’re already a digital network. A lot of the traditional channels have to convert their signal to a digital stream, and that’s caused problems. But we’re already digital.”

And they’ve smoothed out the wrinkles of their operation into 12 programs of music videos, ranging from the earthy R&B of Soul Side to the solo songwriters of Campfire. Their 12-hour cycle is further peppered with music news and interviews, and at the heart of it are the live in-studio concerts that DittyTV started with. The live coverage of music festivals has only grown, now including Nashville’s Americana Fest and Memphis’ own Ameripolitan Music Awards, coming up next week.

Soon they’ll be opening the space next door as a retail shop, Vibe and Dime, featuring LPs, musical instruments, and Ditty bling. “We’ll have live music on the weekends,” says Ronnie. “It’s sort of a Swiss Army Knife. We can shoot interviews in the window.” The Wrights hope the shop raises their local profile, which has not matched their exponential growth in other markets.

“Thirty percent of our audience watches from outside the United States. The network definitely has an international feel to it, but most people love the fact that it’s in Memphis, including artists that aren’t from here.” And DittyTV has emulated the same independent spirit that animated other Memphis operations like Sun or Stax. “We can change and adapt,” says Ronnie.” Our programming is more fresh and organic. We’re open to anybody that wants to submit a video.”

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Music Music Features

“Scars” — John Kilzer’s New Record is Homespun and Philosophical

I first encountered singer/songwriter John Kilzer’s name while recording at Ardent Studios over 30 years ago. He had just released a record on Geffen Records, Memory in the Making, produced by the late, great John Hampton. But I knew of him because a tiny plaque had been mounted above the couch in Studio B, with the words “Kilzer’s Spot.” When I mention it to Kilzer today, the air fills with his hearty laughter. “Yeah, it’s still there!” he says. “That’s so funny. I’m sure that little plaque has plenty of verdigris on it by now. It’s probably more green than copper.”

Since then, much more has changed than the plaque’s patina. After releasing another record on Geffen in 1991, Kilzer’s musical career took a 20-year hiatus, as he wrestled with deeper questions of faith and personal growth. “I was going through the ordination process and getting my Masters of Divinity at Memphis Theological Seminary. And then I went straight into the Ph.D program at Middlesex University in England. During that time, I didn’t have time to do much music. But when I got back here and was appointed to the recovery ministry [at St. John’s United Methodist Church], I realized that music was going to be a foundation of that. Resuming that interest naturally prompted me writing. And so the songs came out, and I did the one album, Seven, with Madjack Records.”

John Kilzer

That 2011 release, recorded with Hi Rhythm’s Hodges brothers (Teenie, Charles, and Leroy) came out just a year after Kilzer had begun The Way, a Friday evening ministry at St. John’s that carries on today, featuring some of the city’s best musicians. “Our premise is that everybody’s in recovery. Everybody has experienced trauma, and there’s something about music that just calls out of each person’s spirit, whatever it is that’s keeping them bound. Music is kind of the language of heaven. But we don’t do church music. We do a lot of my material and some gospel standards, but it’s not contemporary Christian music. It’s just good music. And if, say, Jim Spake’s gonna be there, naturally, I’m gonna pick something that would suit him, but it doesn’t matter. They’re all so good, they can play anything from Bach to Chuck Berry.”

A similar appreciation for quality musicianship permeates his discussion of his latest work, Scars, just released on Archer Records. “When you know you’re gonna have Steve Potts, Steve Selvidge, Rick Steff, Dave Smith, George Sluppick, and Matt Ross-Spang, you feel more comfortable. You trust yourself, and you trust those guys.”

Kilzer, who was a college literature instructor before his Geffen days, brings an expansive melodic and lyrical imagination to these songs, which could be about himself or any number of the souls attending The Way, driven more by character and circumstance than any obvious theology. “Some say time’s a riddle/I say time’s a freight train shimmering in the rain,” he sings, before describing scenes in Lawrence, Kansas. And the new songs, effortlessly blending the homespun with the philosophical, are given plenty of space to breathe.

“It’s so understated, and I think a lot of that is because we were cutting live. When you know that you’re live and that’s gonna be it, you don’t try to say so much. It’s like you honor the spaces between the notes. On Scars, I think there’s a lot of creative space in it. It’s not filled with any unneeded stuff.

“Another thing that’s different about it is, I wrote on different instruments. I wrote a couple on a mandolin, a couple on ukulele, and several on the piano. I would have never, ever considered doing that earlier in my career. So that kind of creative tension manifests in the songs. To be real nervous and have all these conflicting emotions, but knowing you’ve got sort of a protective shield around you in these musicians, I think that’s why there’s something on Scars that I can’t quite articulate. You can hear it, but you just don’t know what it is.”

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Music Video Monday: John Kilzer

Today’s Music Video Monday world premiere is ready to take our country back!

Longtime ambassador of Memphis music John Kilzer is prepping a new album for 2019. Scars was recorded with Grammy-winning producer Matt Ross-Spang and a band of Memphis all-stars that included Steve Selvidge, Rick Steff, Steve Potts, George Suffolk, and Dave Smith.

The album is set for release in January 2019 on Archer Records, and the first single “American Blues” will drop on November 23rd. Kilzer says the protest song is “Jangly, happy, almost languid. It hides the stringency of the lyric.”

He believes musicians must make political songs that both speak to the moment and to eternity. “I hope it has enough polyvalence to last. I think the prototype of the protest song is ‘For What It’s Worth’. It’s germane in any time period.”

The video is directed by Laura Jean Hocking, who has previously done award-winning work for Kilzer. “I was inspired by the courage of the survivors of the Parkland, Florida, shooting, and the wave of activism they inspired in young people.” says Hocking. “I was excited to work with Janay Kelley. I saw her short film ‘The Death of Hip Hop’ at the Indie Memphis Youth Festival and thought she was very dynamic onscreen. I needed that energy for this video.”

Here’s world premiere of “The American Blues”:

Music Video Monday: John Kilzer

Vote on Tuesday, November 6! 

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Music Music Features

Rock Docs: The Story of Memphis’ Black & Wyatt Records

Why would two doctors want to start a record label? Ask Dennis Black and Robert Wyatt of Black & Wyatt Records, and they’ll tell you it’s because they love Memphis music.

Black is a pediatric gastroenterologist, and Wyatt is a pediatric nephrologist. They met through their work at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital and bonded over their love of music, particularly Memphis rock-and-roll.

Wyatt says even though he’s lived and practiced medicine in Memphis since the 1980s, for many years he was unaware of the city’s fertile underground music scene. “When I had a division to run, a research lab, and a family to raise, I missed out. My lab techs were going to the Antenna Club, but I never did.”

Dennis Black (left) and Robert Wyatt (right)

Black grew up in Covington and worked at the town’s radio station, WKBL, in high school, then for Memphis State’s WTGR “Music has kind of been my hobby all along,” he says. “Unfortunately, I can’t really play. But I like hearing live music, and I have a good record collection.”

“About the time $5 Cover came out, I started paying attention to Memphis bands and meeting Memphis musicians,” Wyatt says.

After he got to know several Memphis musicians through the cleaning company, Two Chicks and a Broom (“Valerie June cleaned our house for a fairly long period of time.”), he started hiring bands to play for yard parties at his home in 2012. The Harbert Avenue Porch Show has since attracted Jack Oblivian, the River City Tanlines, Snowglobe, and James and the Ultrasounds, to name a few.

“He’s his own little institution, with the porch shows,” says filmmaker Mike McCarthy, a Memphis punk pioneer whose daughter Hanna Star was also featured in a porch show.
“Mike approached me about wanting to put the Fingers Like Saturn album out,” says Wyatt. Fingers Like Saturn was a band McCarthy formed to feature Cori Dials (now Cori Mattice), a singer and actress he met while working at Sun Studios in 2006. He saw Mattice sing with her band the Splints. “They were good, but she looked like a Chrissie Hynde/Debbie Harry figure — lost in time, full of charisma.”

McCarthy wrote a bunch of songs and gathered keyboardist Shelby Bryant, sax player Suzi Hendrix, cellist Jonathan Kirkscey, and guitarist George Takeda. Then he put guitar wizard Steve Selvidge on drums, which, amazingly, works just fine.

Dan Ball

Fingers Like Saturn

“I introduced Cori to this group of talented eccentrics,” says McCarthy. “She jumped right into it.”

The band recorded at Sun Studios and at Selvidge’s home studio. “I’ve always played in punk bands, but I wanted this band to be a well-produced glam-rock band,” says McCarthy.

Filled with Memphis heavy hitters and held together with Mattice’s powerful alto, the glam influence is palpable, especially in songs like the Bowie-worshipping “Glam Lies.” But, since it’s Memphis, the sounds are more eccentric. “Satin (Pine Box Lullaby)” dabbles in Mexicalia by way of Johnny Cash. “Black Ray of Sunshine,” a ballad about the Black Dahlia, is an early example of the string-arranging skills that have made Kirkscey a sought-after soundtrack composer.

Before the eponymous record could find a label, Mattice’s career took her out of Memphis, and the band drifted apart. Ten years later, McCarthy played the recordings for Black and Wyatt. “We listened to the recordings, and they were really good!” says Black. “It was just a conspiracy of events that it didn’t get a wide release at the time. If we were going to do it, we decided to make it a really nice record.”

Fingers Like Saturn will reunite at DKDC on October 24th for Black &
Wyatt’s first record release party. But the label-mates are already looking forward to their next release: a single by the Heathens, a Memphis high school garage band that recorded at Sun Studios in 1956. Black and Wyatt plan to continue releasing a mixture of contemporary Memphis acts and lost gems from the 60-year history of Memphis rock.

“We’re not in it to become millionaires,” says Black. “We have our day jobs. We want to get the music out there.”

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Music Music Blog

The Hold Steady’s New Single and “Massive Nights” in Brooklyn

The Hold Steady

“Thanks for listenin’, thanks for understandin’/Can’t you see I’m feeling so abandoned,” sings Craig Finn on the newly-released single from the Hold Steady, “Entitlement Crew” b/w “Snake in the Shower.” Recorded this November in Brooklyn, NY, with producer Josh Kaufman, it’s the first new music from the band in nearly four years, and the first studio recording to feature longtime keyboard player Franz Nicolay since 2008’s Stay Positive. 

The Hold Steady exemplify strong Memphis-New York bonds that have connected the two burgs for some time, from Alex Chilton’s “Bangkok” single to Jake Rabinbach’s Brooklyn Hustle/Memphis Muscle, not to mention numerous creatives who continue to tack back and forth, such as guitarist Jake Vest, singer/songwriter Valerie June, and erstwhile Memphis Flyer contributor Eileen Townsend. In the case of the Hold Steady, guitar wunderkind (wunderdad?) Steve Selvidge is the Memphis linchpin, bringing his relish of solid riffage and his trademark venturesome leads to the band. Having joined six years ago, Selvidge has become an essential element of the Hold Steady’s sound. Ostensibly brought in to fill the slot Nicolay vacated, Selvidge is clearly not going anywhere even with Nicolay back in the fold.

Though not officially released until tomorrow, the single is already available exclusively to members of the official Hold Steady fan community, The Unified Scene. Members who wish to download the single can do so by donating to The K+L Guardian Foundation, a fund set up to benefit the children of Unified Scene founder Mike Van Jura, who died in November 2012.

The single’s release also corresponds with the band’s four night residence at The Brooklyn Bowl, which kicked off last night. Dubbed “Massive Nights,” all four shows quickly sold out, a promising sign that we will continue to hear the Hold Steady, graced with Selvidge’s talents, for some time to come. 

The Hold Steady’s ‘Massive Nights’ at the Brooklyn Bowl, Nov. 29, 2017

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Cover Feature News

Worst Gig Ever! Memphis musicians share the worst nights of their career.

Music is Memphis’ greatest export. But for the musicians, taking it on the road means long drives, long nights, and a lot of weirdness. It can be a hard life, full of ups and downs, but it sure makes for good stories. So we asked some of Memphis’ finest musicians to tell us about their Worst Gigs Ever.   

Amy LaVere

I think it was the Memphis Queen. It was this new concept for a river voyage: A group of cyclists boarded for what was supposed to be a three-day cycling/boating adventure down to New Orleans. They were to port in Memphis in the early mid-morning, then they would depart the boat to go on a 40-mile bike ride. Then they would get back on the boat and have dinner, and we would be the after-dinner entertainment for their cruise.

Then they were going to stop in Tunica, where we would disembark with our gear and get ourselves back to Memphis. So the gig required us driving our van to Tunica with someone following us to bring us back to Memphis.

We get on the boat and waited around for everyone to finish a Cajun buffet dinner that had beignets and etouffee and French bread and alcohol, after they’d finished a 40-mile bike ride. They’re pretty much done. So about two-thirds of the audience goes to bed.

So right before we play, the promoter wants to introduce the band. We’re all on stage, and he gets up there in front of us and proceeds to give a speech to the audience that takes 15 minutes. It included such things as how to operate the toilets in their cabins. And we’re just standing there, wondering what the hell is going on. And then we play, and we put everyone to sleep, and it’s so sad. There were literally people with their arms folded, dozing.

When we get to Tunica to disembark, they had not reserved a docking spot for the riverboat, and the dock was full. There’s no place to dock. There’s a rocky cliff that goes up to a sidewalk/boardwalk along the Mississippi. I’m in a dress and heels, mind you. So what they did was, they basically reversed the boat, trying to stay stationary. But it was still moving down the river! It was going, like, five MPH. They lowered a plank, and I get handed down to a deck hand onto a rocky cliff that I then have to climb up barefoot with my dress up to the top. They were helping us get our gear off, but they were still moving, so by the time they got it all off, we were like a quarter mile strung out down the sidewalk.

By this point, we have a more interested audience watching us disembark than were interested at all in hearing us play. Then we had to walk our gear, piece by piece, all the way back up to the parking place at the dock. I think we made $400 on that gig, in total. Certainly the most comical and worst gig of my life.

Eric Oblivian,
True Sons of Thunder

I’ve played in bands around the world. I’ve played in squats in Slovenia. I’ve played in Croatia where they had no money to give us. But the worst show I’ve ever done was right here in Memphis with True Sons of Thunder. At one point, we had a goal of playing every club in town, which included the Rally Point. We booked a show with some emo band from somewhere. We show up, and the place is dimly lit — no microphones. It was so dark, we couldn’t tell if the turd that was on stage was human or canine. The show went on, and we did the show without vocals. We just sang into the air. We did our set, got out of there, and to my knowledge, the turd was still there while the other band played.

Alicja Trout, Rich Crook, and
John Garland, the Lost Sounds/Sweet Knives

AT: There was one that was just an epic night of bad things happening. The Vibrators wanted to get on our show in Detroit at the Old Miami club. We were playing with the Piranhas and Guilty Pleasures. The Vibrators were playing down the street, and they had this promoter named Lacy, and he says, “We’re playing down the street, and there’s nobody at our show. Can we come down and play with you guys?” And we said, “No, we’ve already got three bands . . .”

RC: We eventually said yes, but we weren’t going to share any money. And the Vibrators were HORRIBLE that night.

AT: I had this Peavy amp that had a phaser built in. I asked the guy if he wanted me to show him how to use the amp, because he was borrowing my stuff, rudely enough.

RC: … and he was like, “I think I’ve played enough amps!”

AT: So the phaser was turned all the way up, because we had ended the set with this big noise thing. And he played the whole show going “wheew … wheew . . . wheew…” He never figured it out. Then, one of the funniest things Jay [Reatard] ever said in his life…

RC: Dude said a lot of funny things.

AT: He said the dude from the Vibrators looked like Jimmy Page’s nutsack. He was balding and like had really wiry, black hair.

RC: Phil Spector-ish.

AT: It ended with this giant bar fight. The promoter walks in with a giant block of concrete. The cops come, and I kept saying, “Yeah, the puff-mullet. You know those guys with the puff mullets?” And everyone was like, what is she talking about?

RC: Turned out the guy had a goiter on his neck with hair growing out of it.

AT: I thought it was a mullet.

RC: I was outside the whole time. I walked in, it was like a saloon piano was playing. John got slid across the bar.

JG: I saw Alicja get punched, so I went in.

AT: Oh yeah. I got punched right in the face. The bartender came up to me, and this dude’s fist was coming right at me. He grabbed me. ‘You gotta get out of here! You’re gonna get killed!” He was carrying me out, and I was like, “Where the hell am I going?” Jay comes out of the bathroom. He’s been doing coke with this guy from the other band. They looked around and realized, “Gahh! We’re enemies!” They started going at it.  

Chris Davis, Papa Top’s West Coast Turnaround

This would have been sometime in the late 1990s. We had just played a gig at Kudzu’s, and we had a little liquor in us. The only piece of parental advice (guitarist) John Stiver’s father ever gave him was, “Stay away from Harpo’s Lounge. You’ll get killed.” So we decided we would see if they would let us play for beer. This is a self-inflicted gig. It was our own fault.

Let me first say that Harpo’s has reopened, and it’s nice. They’ve gentrified it. Back then, they self-described it as the most redneck place on Earth. It was infamous for finding dead hookers out behind it.

The minute we walked in, we could see that there were more people than teeth here. It was all rebel flags and unfinished plywood. There was a lot of drug dealing, a lot of meth. So there were a lot of working ladies. They made it clear we were different and unwelcome.

I had on a sequined, knock-off Nudie suit jacket. There was a guy following me around saying, “I’m gonna go home with that jacket!” There was a working girl who looked like Grandma from the Addams Family. She was saying I looked like Elvis, and she was going home with me.

John Whittemore was playing pedal steel, and he had a woman who was reaching around him with one hand on the hand he was picking with, and the other hand he’s barring with. Grandma would walk around behind me, and when I would be singing, and my hands occupied with the guitar, she would reach up between my legs and start squeezing my business. It got a lot easier to hit those high notes.

Was this a bad gig? I guess it depends on how you define gig. We just sort of showed up. They didn’t want us. But by the time it was over, there were people calling out requests. We did our usual set, and played Elvis’ “Little Sister.” That was when the guy who was going to knock me in the head and steal my jacket decided we were okay. He wasn’t going to knock me in the head, but he was still probably going to take my jacket.

Marcella Simien,
Marcella and Her Lovers

We were playing this outdoor festival, and I was handed a note in the middle of a song asking me to announce that a 6-year-old boy was missing and had been for over an hour. They made it sound like this kid just took off — a little renegade. I smiled to myself at first, thinking “Okay, the kid is probably off doing things 6-year-olds do.” Then it started to sink in.

I’ve gotten notes on stage with song requests, marriage proposals, birthday requests. But a missing persons report? This was a first, real “Stop the presses!” kind of stuff. So I made the announcement, and the stage manager motioned for us to continue, to keep playing. So we did. But the whole time there was this feeling, this undertone of … missing kid … impossible to ignore. I mean, how can you not be concerned?   

Several songs later the kid still hadn’t shown up, and no one was any the wiser as to where he might have been. Someone from the sheriff’s department got onstage and made another announcement as the band and I helplessly looked at each other, eyes all big. This person makes the announcement sounding like the conductor of a train and then hands the mic back to me. Somehow we finished the set, packed up, and headed out. But not before leaving behind a suitcase full of our merchandise. Thankfully we got word on the drive home that the child had been found. He pedaled his Big Wheel back on up to the house like nothing had happened.

Steve Selvidge

Big Ass Truck was playing at a fraternity down in Oxford. They paid well. That show would finance a whole tour. And people usually had a good time. It was in our contract that you were hiring us to be us. We weren’t going to play Dave Matthews or Phish. We’re playing outside at this crawfish boil. It’s an all-day thing. People were getting drunk. Some kid thought it would be funny while we’re playing to flip the breakers. So we’re playing, and the power cuts. That happened all the time — it’s no big deal — you just have to sit there and wait for it to come back on. So we start playing again, and the kid flips the breakers again. Power goes off. It keeps happening!

Finally, the sound guy figures what’s going on. “There’s a kid flipping the breaker. We dealt with it.” But it messed up the P.A. The monitors went out, and we couldn’t play. With a DJ, we needed the monitors, because we’re playing to him.

People didn’t understand why we wouldn’t play, and they were getting restless. This entitled little fuck frat kid hops up on stage, grabs the mic, and says “Big Ass Truck sucks!” I was livid. I got up and I was just like, “Get the fuck off my stage you little shit.” Then the monitors come back on, and I’m like, “Hey, sorry about that! Let me tell you what was going on. We’re here to play and have fun. It’s gonna be a good time. But that little fuck who was flipping the breaker on and off, your mother [string of shocking expletives deleted].” Should have taken the high road. But I didn’t. Then we just light into the set. We were furious. It was fun. Next thing you know, there’s a bunch of people who want to kick my ass. I’m looking at guys in the crowd mouthing, “I’m going to kill you!”

Joseph Higgins, Chinese Connection Dub Embassy

The worst gig was one of the first gigs we played out of town. It was just a trip to Nashville. Everything was going great, then 30 minutes out of Nashville, our front tire pops off and drags the car a quarter mile down the expressway.
So we get the tow truck to come and get us, and then we find out we have to go to the nearest place to get it fixed before we can do anything. So our bass player, Omar, and Paul, our guitarist at the time, and my brother David head to the Walmart to change the tire out. This is in the middle of summer, and it’s got to be 105 degrees. Two of us are in the tow truck, and the other three are in the car.

We finally get to Walmart after driving around everywhere looking for it. We’re desperate to get to Nashville to play the gig. This was on a Saturday, and all of the places to get a tire fixed are closed. Then we find out we need over $800 worth of work on the car before we can do anything. We had to call some friends and family to see if we can find anyone to take us to the gig. The guitarist called his family to come and get us. He was so angry at the whole thing, he just wanted to go home. We were like, “No man, we should at least go to Nashville, play the gig, and make some money to pay for the car!” But he was all flustered. “We can’t do this. Let’s just go.”

After we come back to Memphis, we find out later that night that the venue we were playing — it was called Nash Bash — had over a thousand people at the show. We did know it at the time, but we were one of the headliners. We find out there was a big crowd waiting to see us, because there was no reggae on the bill. Then we find out the promoter for the show lives in Franklin. He could have picked us up and taken us to the show and brought us back. It literally could have all been fixed if we had had the promoter’s number on hand. Since then we have a backup plan for everything. 

Jonathan Kiersky, Club Owner
Without naming names, this was the worst: It was a Brooklyn four-piece — three synthesizers and a drummer. They had a bunch of press and a strong booking agent, so I booked them. Not sure how they had so much professional support, except it was the heyday of the indie pop scene in Brooklyn. One of them may have been a model.  

Early on, we realized this show would be a mess, since it was their first tour, and set up and soundcheck were a disaster. Show starts, and the vibe on stage is complete fear. Finally during the third song, the lead singer/synth player just yells “Stop, stop, stop!” and starts weeping on stage. We hoped she would pull it together and the show would go on but that was not the case. They just walked off stage, packed their shit up, and left. My jaw had never been closer to the floor.

Chris Milam
Friday night in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The bar was packed, the crowd homogenous: male, bearded, titanically drunk. Picture the cast of Perfect Storm meets the cast of Jersey Shore. And I was scheduled to play for two hours, solo acoustic.

Somehow, they liked me — too much. A mosh pit formed — onstage. One guy insisted on “freestyling to his lady.”  Another swiped at my guitar mid-song, “helping” me play. The night got later, the crowd drunker, would-be fights started popping up around me. It was a farce; a mostly-improvised, slightly-violent farce.  
When I finished, I hustled my gear out to my car. I came back to find a waitress literally stiff-arming a man away from my night’s pay. Come to think of it: I made it out in one piece, my guitar made it out in one piece, and I got paid in full. I’ve had worse gigs.

Brennan Villines
I was playing with my trio years ago at my uncle’s house for a pool party in Arlington, which is as amazing as it sounds. My music doesn’t necessarily lend itself to a backyard full of Gen X white people who have musical tastes spanning from George Strait to Kenny Chesney. We were asked — yelled at — to play a certain song, the name of which I cannot recall at the moment. I remember being disgusted at the request coming from the drunkest person at the party.

I said I didn’t know the song and continued with my set. He called me a queer and threw a wet towel at my face from about 25 feet away. The towel smacked me surprisingly hard … in mid song. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t impressed with his throwing ability, given the distance factored with his blood alcohol content. But, this was definitely a low point in my career. Just as I was feeling defeated, my uncle pushed him in the pool, and we all had a good laugh.

Andria Lisle, Music Journalist
The worst gig I ever attended was one I knew would be awful going in. I expected, and got, the worst on November 16, 1991, when I walked through the doors of Antenna to see G.G. Allin and the Murder Junkies.
It was the pre-internet age, so what I knew of G.G. Allin was gleaned from the pages of MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL and via first-hand stories from friends who had caught Allin on the road in other cities. Self-billed as “the last true rock and roller,” Allin would take Ex-Lax before his gig, then defecate on stage. When the Memphis stop on his fall 1991 tour was announced, I should’ve wondered “Who on Earth would want to attend something like this?” Instead, I thought, “Who would want to miss it?”

I paid my $5 and cautiously took a post in the back of the room, close enough to the door that I could escape if necessary. I can’t remember who opened or what songs were on the Murder Junkies’ setlist. Allin wore a black hoodie, his pale ass gleaming under the lights. He paced the stage, drinking beers and throwing the bottles into the audience. He had the frightening intensity of Charles Manson — I recall being too afraid to meet his gaze. At some point, the microphone he ranted into went up his ass. Later, Allin leapt off the stage and began antagonizing the audience at close range. Most of us ran out of the door of the club.

He’d chase us outside, then stop at the corner of Madison and Avalon while we raced to the relative safety of the Piggly Wiggly parking lot. For some reason, that happened more than once. I have no idea why I didn’t just leave at that point, but I kept going back in for more. Finally, Allin chased us out again, and one audience member ran to Murphy’s and came back with a knife. She began chasing G.G., and that was too much for me. I went home, took a long shower, and questioned every decision I’d made in life.

Chris Shaw, Ex-Cult, Goggs
Every time a band goes on tour there are shows that inevitably get highlighted for various reasons — you’re playing with friends, you like the venue, the gig pays well, or there’s promise that someone who “needs to see your band” will be there. Ex-Cult had just released a new record, and so we were working with a new publicist who had promised to gather all her industry friends for a show at Mercury Lounge, the Manhattan venue that is known for being a “music industry hotspot,” whatever that means.

This show was on my radar from the beginning of the tour. We performed in Baltimore the night before, but because of a sound ordinance, we had to soundcheck at some ridiculous time, like 2 p.m. the day of the Mercury Lounge show.

We left Baltimore on time, but to make sure all goes according to plan, I decided to drive into Manhattan. I was driving like a bat out of hell, impressed with my band mates that we are all up and moving, hangover-free and ready to hit New York City. Then my phone starts going off. Repeatedly. I’m driving so I can’t look at my texts. Then our booking agent called,  annoyed I haven’t been answering the phone.

What comes next is something I’ve never heard happen to any other band: A pipe burst in front of the venue, and a rather large sinkhole formed outside of Katz Deli, literally next door to the Mercury Lounge. The show was cancelled. Best of all, the publicist with all her industry contacts has gone AWOL. I don’t hear from her again for the duration of our time in New York City. Maybe she fell in the sinkhole?

Do you remember the scene in Ferris Buellers Day Off when Bueller’s buddy Cameron screams as the camera pulls out to show all of Chicago? That’s how I felt. The show eventually got removed to a lovely little club called Fontanas, but as you have probably guessed, no one came. What doesn’t break you makes you stronger, so when this exact same scenario happened to us a year later in San Diego, all we could do was laugh.

Categories
Music Music Blog

Steve Selvidge on the Passing of Memphis Drummer Harry Peel

Harry Peel passed away at the age of 56.

It’s been a rough week for Memphis music, as Chips Moman and Harry Peel have both passed since Saturday. While Moman sent the Memphis sound around the world, Peel kept the beat on the local circuit, playing the Blue Monkey and other clubs after touring with John Kilzer in the late ’80s and early ’90s. I talked with local guitarist Steve Selvidge to get more of a feel for the man who never missed a beat. -Chris Shaw

Memphis Flyer: What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Harry Peel?

Steve Selvidge: Well, first and foremost I think of his groove, and that goes across a lot of different boundaries, both how he lived and how he played.  We talked about grilling as much as we did music, he had a great love for food and cooking things, as do I, and he taught me a lot about grilling.

Not to oversimplify it because he was a big personality, but he just had this magic intangible groove, the simplest but hardest groove. His playfulness and inventiveness behind the drum kit was amazing, but he was a complicated dude, just like any musician worth his salt. After a show or at a party, he and I would be the first to dip out the back and go chill instead of being in the mix and going crazy. We connected on that.

What were you doing before you guys started playing together?

He came to me in such an important time in my life. I was wrapping up with Big Ass Truck and we’d done some things here and there, put out records, and I thought I knew things about music, I thought I knew everything there was to know.

I reconnected with Ross (Rice) and started doing local shows again, but the drummer left us hanging one night, so Ross called Harry Peel, and that was the moment everything changed for me. We started our Thursday night residency at the Blue Monkey, and that led to me playing with Susan Marshall and David Cousar.

All of a sudden I’m playing three nights a week with all these musicians, and I learned so much from those nights. I learned so much about myself playing songs I didn’t necessarily want to play.

I wouldn’t be a fraction of the musician I am today, whatever that is, without Harry. Playing with Harry was invaluable musical education. I was obviously aware of the concept of a local residency because my dad did it for so many years, but it wasn’t until I started playing with Harry as part of this sort of Blue Monkey “house band” that I realized it’s true worth to a musician. And truthfully that was mostly in retrospect.

He made me see the value of playing in that situation, and how playing to a handful of people could be the best experience there is.

Rich Tarbell.

Steve Selvidge.

How often did you and Harry play together?

Three nights a week. I continued to play with Susan and Harry after Ross moved to upstate New York, and we played on and off for about a five or six year period. I just always thought that Harry would be around, we knew he had health problems, but there is this continuum for those gigs, there was no starting or stopping point, they just always happened.

What’s your fondest memory of your time together?

I remember when John Hampton died, I played his service and Harry played drums, and we played the Al Green song “Jesus is Waiting.” Ostensibly it’s a simple beat, but it was just so deep the way he played it, I get emotional just talking about it. I didn’t know he was going to be playing drums until I got there.

Again, the gigs we did at the Blue Monkey, they were weekly transcendence for me, they sent me way up into the stratosphere. We always had a phrase that we shared between the two of us that came from when we were playing a casino gig, just a Biloxi gig that you have to do to make money. We were staying down there, and these two custodians walked by and said “what’s happening ding dong daddy?” We loved that and every time either one of us saw each other it was the first thing out of our mouths. 

Steve Selvidge on the Passing of Memphis Drummer Harry Peel

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Cover Feature News

Shell, Yeah!

How many times did Memphis almost lose the Overton Park band shell? The Depression-era amphitheater, now called the Levitt Shell, was slated to become a parking garage in the 1970s, but that didn’t pan out. History repeated itself in the 1980s, when a parking lot was proposed. Plans for a $2 million walk-in theater were scrapped in the 1960s, when Memphis Concert Orchestra conductor Noel Gilbert — a former leader of the house orchestras for both WMC and WREC radio — successfully organized against the development.

Over the years the Shell experienced its share of disasters. It was flooded, storm-battered, and set on fire. It’s been riddled with toxic mold, covered in graffiti, occupied by hippies, and nearly buried underneath an interstate. By 2007, it was falling in on itself with repair costs estimated at more than $500,000.

So the city, which had given up on the historic performance venue long ago, declared the Shell a liability and shut it down. It reopened a year later, following significant renovations made possible by support from the Mortimer & Mimi Levitt Foundation. And with that, after decades of nagging uncertainty, the stage where Elvis Presley, Scotty Moore, and Bill Black performed their first professional concert as a warm-up act for country yodeler Slim Whitman was saved for good.

Since its rechristening seven summers ago, the Levitt Shell has produced 50 free concerts a year, showcasing a diverse slate of artists and genres. This season, following an extensive, $2.1 million makeover, it’s back with 50 more concerts and looking better than ever. The remaining portion of a $4 million fund-raising campaign goes toward insuring the model’s sustainability.

In spite of the work done in 2008, upgrades to the 80-year-old facility were inevitable and necessary.

From dances to donation buckets, Anne Pitts (below) gets hyped about the Shell.

Anne Pitts, Levitt Shell’s executive director, says, “Before the first renovation, we went around to different businesses and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this idea of taking the Shell and presenting a bunch of concerts, and we’re not going to charge anybody a dime.’ Well, everybody thought that idea sounded pretty insane so, consequently, funding was limited.”

The first renovation was just enough to stabilize the building and get the summer music series started. Basic sound and lighting was added, and dilapidated wooden benches were removed to create an open space where families could picnic.

“The sound system held up, but it was literally held together with duct tape,” Pitts says. “Lights that were state-of-the-art eight years ago have been discontinued, and you can’t even buy them on eBay. Couple that with a lack of infrastructure and electricity and plumbing that hasn’t been upgraded since the 1960s. That’s where we were when this all started.”

From drainage issues and cable management to spacious, tree-friendly decks and new restrooms, all the venue’s shortcomings were addressed in this year’s makeover. There’s more vendor space, a loading dock for musicians, an expanded, puddle-free dance floor, towers for improved lighting options, and an all-new, site-specific sound system.

“Our old sound system had speakers that sat flat against the stage,” Pitts says. The vibration was problematic in a space already designed to be a natural acoustic powerhouse. Worse, the sound was aimed directly at the peak of the hill and bounced into adjoining neighborhoods. The new system was assembled with the Shell’s unique needs in mind. Instead of sitting on the ground, speakers are mounted on custom-bilt AV carts designed to throw sound to the back of the audience, not into backyards along Kenilworth.

“It’s a huge improvement,” Pitts says.

summer.

Musician Steve Selvidge searches for the right word to describe how he feels about the Shell. “Grateful,” he says, finally. “Especially as I get older. I’m so incredibly grateful for the Shell and for all the people who saved it. It’s such an important place — a family gathering place. And by family, I mean my blood family and also my family of musicians.”

Selvidge, who plays guitar with Sons of Mudboy, the Hold Steady, Big Ass Truck, and the Secret Service, grew up attending shows at the Shell. His dad, folk singer Sid Selvidge, also played the venue frequently by himself, and with Mud Boy and the Neutrons, a Memphis superband with Jim Dickinson on keys and Lee Baker on electric guitar. When the elder Selvidge passed in 2013, his memorial was held at the open-air theater, where a video clip from the 1968 Country Blues Festival was projected on the wall.

“And there’s Dad at the Shell singing with Moloch,” Steve says. “He’s such a baby, standing and singing right there, exactly where I’ve stood and played so many times — on the stage where my daughter has seen me play, and loved it. On the same stage where my daughter’s about to have a ballet recital. That’s pretty incredible.”

Selvidge has a special connection, but he’s not the only person able to measure out his family history in visits to the Shell. The venue was built in 1936 by the city of Memphis, in conjunction with President Franklin Roosevelt’s Work Progress Administration. Described as “a pledge to the future of music in Memphis,” it opened with a heavily attended concert under the stars.
Of the 115 similar outdoor theaters once scattered around the country (27 of which were WPA generated), fewer than 10 are still standing, and only three remain in use. “It’s hard doing concerts outdoors,” Pitts says. “At some point our culture changed and everybody wanted to go inside. But this place, this Shell, became such a part of the bloodwork of Memphis, and people have always come out to support it.”

Well, almost always.

The Shell endured lean times in the 1980s, and might not have survived the decade if not for the tireless, sometimes single-handed efforts of an enthusiast named John Hanrahan. But Hanrahan died in a carpentry accident in 1985, while the theater’s fate was still up in the air. That year, 1985, was also the first year since its opening that the venue was completely dark, with no booked events.

Photographer, cinematographer, and longtime Shell advocate, David Leonard, describes Save Our Shell, Inc. — a ragtag coalition that kept the building standing and sporadically booked — as a big Irish wake for Hanrahan that never ended.

“John’s funeral was on a Friday,” he says. “We put a wreath on the stage, and a bunch of people gathered and started talking about what we could do for the Shell. By Sunday there was an article in The Commercial Appeal, and support was flowing in.

“The city had run out of ideas,” Leonard says, explaining how the building would have been leveled to create temporary parking for the 1987 “Ramses the Great” exhibit, if the ambitious prototype for Memphis’ Wonders series been installed at the Brooks Museum of Art, instead of at the Cook Convention Center, downtown.

Leonard and his Save Our Shell compatriots rolled up their sleeves and got busy fixing things. They kept the building booked and mostly operational for 18 years, with very little money, and nothing more than a handshake agreement from the Memphis Park commission.

“The city wouldn’t give us a real deal,” Leonard says. They wanted someone to step up, but hadn’t anticipated SOS’s eccentrics. Also, Memphis was still paying debt service on the Mud Island Amphitheater, and any competitive threat — remote as it might be — was cause for concern.

Enthusiasm for the preservation effort waned as Save Our Shell entered its second decade, with no resolution in sight. “After a certain amount of time, it just started to feel like a fire sale,” Leonard says. “How long do we have to keep on saving it until it’s finally saved?”

As funds and physical support dried up, the last years of Save Our Shell were essentially sponsored by Memphis musicians. “We couldn’t pay anybody,” Leonard says. “But there was never any doubt we could keep putting on shows, because people loved that place and wanted to play there.”

If musicians never stopped wanting to play the Shell, why was it so hard to stabilize the venue? As was the case with so many cities during that period, the urban core was becoming less dense as people and investment migrated to the suburbs.

“There was also a kind of cultural backlash,” Leonard says, recalling a more turbulent period in the 1970s, when a chain-link fence surrounded the Shell, and music promoters took advantage of cheap rental fees to book big ticket bands like Black Sabbath, the Allman Brothers, Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes, the James Gang,  Deep Purple, and the Marshall Tucker Band. “Nobody was going to let anything like that happen again,” he says. “And they didn’t.”

“Christ, I guess it must have been 1972?” Puppeteer and percussion wizard Jimmy Crosthwait can’t quite remember what year it was when he built the 10-foot-tall puppet to introduce ZZ Top and “One Toke Over the Line” duo Brewer & Shipley at the Shell. He remembers that the latter group was pissed off because he made a remark about Nixon and Agnew, and suspects it went down not long after Memphis legalized liquor by the drink, and somewhere near the beginning of what he calls his 16-year weekend. “It was a wild time,” he says.

Crosthwait first visited the Shell in 1963, when he dropped in on a 20-act hootenanny his friend Jim Dickinson had organized. “It was like a folk festival. And that’s where I saw Sid Selvidge and Horace Hull doing a kind of bluegrass thing,” he says. “Sid played guitar and Horace played banjo, and they sang these haunting harmonies like two guys returning from the Civil War. It made a huge impression on me.”

Shortly thereafter, Crosthwait, a blossoming avant-garde percussionist who’d been banging on garbage cans with homemade mallets, took up the washboard and joined forces with Dickinson and Selvidge in a jug band-inspired outfit called the New Beale Street Sheiks — a precursor of Mud Boy and the Neutrons. He also became a regular fixture at the Shell, where he emceed the landmark 1968 Country Blues Festival, an event that attracted the attention of Sire Records, the Goodyear Blimp, and eventually, the city of Memphis.

“We were hoping the festival would get some kind of support from the city,” Crosthwait says. “And support was in no way forthcoming.” Institutional Memphis has often had a hard time understanding the value of Memphis’ musical heritage and its heritage sites. Civic leaders had no idea what to make of the hippies producing mixed-race blues concerts in Midtown.

“Well,” Crosthwait adds, “they weren’t interested, until they realized the Goodyear Blimp was going to be there. Oh, and that PBS was filming. When they found that out, they immediately sent someone down with a big Memphis Chamber of Commerce banner and hung it on the wall.”  

When Leonard describes the “cultural backlash,” he refers primarily to the ’70s and the Shell’s fenced-in period. But the roots of this particular conflict date back to the dawn of rock-and-roll and crescendo throughout the civil rights era.

The second Memphis Country Blues Festival was held July 20, 1968, three months after Martin Luther King was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel. “We had a complete roster of black and white musicians and a complete audience of black and white people at the show,” Crosthwait says. Nationally, there was unrest, but not at the Blues Festival. “I didn’t really think about it until until years later. In its own way, that was a very special event, and an interesting unification of black and white participants on both sides of the stage.”

Memphis-connected filmmaker Augusta Palmer agrees. “These festivals had an amazing trajectory over a short period of time,” she says. “In 1967, it was put together on a wing and a prayer with almost no money. By 1969, there were two film crews shooting and multiple articles in Rolling Stone.”

Palmer recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to crowd-fund a documentary about the festival’s producing body, the Memphis Country Blues Society, of which her father, New York Times pop-music critic, and Deep Blues author Robert Palmer, was a founding member.

“Having these concerts at the Shell was really important, because it was in the heart of Memphis and it was open to anybody,” Augusta says, pointing out that a less-well-attended Ku Klux Klan rally was held at the Shell only a week before the first Country Blues Festival. “It was a place to create this community that hadn’t really existed before,” she says. “It still feels aspirational to have people of all races together celebrating American culture. It happens sometimes, but it doesn’t happen all the time.”

Palmer’s thoughts about the Blues Festivals mesh well with Pitts’ thoughts about the nature of outdoor spaces. “They make you more comfortable trying things you might not try otherwise,” she says, referring to the way concertgoers feel more comfortable sampling bands they’re not familiar with. “The barriers for entry are low.”

The online trailer for Palmer’s Kickstarter campaign features a vintage clip from a nationally aired PBS special hosted by actor, musician, and culture critic Steve Allen. It opens with Allen talking about a time in the early 1960s when young black and white men based in and around Memphis embarked on an effort to revive interest in regional blues traditions. “The result,” Allen concludes, “is a new, far out, modern Blues sound.”

Allen’s chair swivels about, and a curtain is pulled back to show a large space-age video screen and a tight closeup of, “The Band Shell in Overton Park.” It’s an impressive reveal, but not nearly as impressive as the improvements being unveiled this week.

“We feel like 80 years is a huge accomplishment,” Pitts says, acknowledging the anniversary. “But, right now, our focus is on getting to year 100 and making sure we’re ready for changes we may have to face.”

After living out of state for many years, former Collierville resident Kati Hoffman had an opportunity to relocate to West Tennessee. She and her husband considered returning to their old stomping ground but decided instead to take a house in the High Point Terrace neighborhood. On their first night back in town, friends invited the prodigal family to a Levitt Shell concert. “And that was it,” Hoffman says. “This was exactly the community we had been looking for.”

Shortly thereafter the Hoffman family moved closer to Overton Park and the Shell, where their 6-year-old daughter Thea has become a Thursday-Sunday regular.

“My favorite musicians are Dolly Parton and Cory Chisel,” Thea says, professing her love for the country music icon who hasn’t played the Shell and the Wisconsin folk rocker who has. She excitedly recounts the time she met Chisel when he was playing a set with his girlfriend Norah Jones. She’s a Sons of Mudboy fan, too, the band where Steve Selvidge and Crosthwait perform with Luther and Cody Dickinson, Paul Taylor, and others. But Chisel and Jones played the night Thea celebrated her birthday, so they won special places in the young audiophile’s heart.

Thea says she writes songs now, but wants to write better songs when she grows up. She started going to Shell concerts when she was 2 and will be 26 when it celebrates its centennial in 2036. She doesn’t get mad, exactly, when she finds out there was a time before the Levitt Foundation intervened, when her favorite summertime haunt was neglected and in danger of going away. But her soft voice takes on a distinct edge and the passion comes out. “If it was torn down, I wouldn’t be inspired to play any music. Because when you go to the Shell, kids can be inspired and they can grow up and they can write songs. If it was gone there wouldn’t be any music. And music is what makes people happy and joyful. Yeah.”
Yeah.

The 2016 Levitt Shell season launches Thursday, June 2nd, with performances by the Beale Street Flippers and New Orleans hip-hop ensemble the Soul Rebels. Admission is free. For a complete 2016 schedule, go to LevittShell.org.

Categories
Music Music Blog

Cory Branan at the Levitt Shell

This Saturday, July 4th (U-S-A! U-S-A!), the Levitt Shell will host a homecoming gig of sorts for the immensely talented singer-songwriter and former Memphian Cory Branan.

Branan is currently riding high after the release of his most recent LP, last year’s critically acclaimed The No-Hit Wonder, and a long, successful tour run that included a string of dates with Justin Townes Earle. And while most of Branan’s live shows tend to be of the solo/acoustic variety, he has something special planned for his upcoming appearance at the Levitt Shell:  a full-band performance featuring two local all-stars – bassist Mark Edgar Stuart and lead guitarist Steve Selvidge – alongside drummer Robbie Crowell, a Nashville musician who is best known as the keyboard player for the indie-rock group Deer Tick.

“It’s actually been a personal goal of mine to play the Shell,” says Branan.  “I’ve had so many good times there over the years. I’m really impressed with what they’ve done with the place.”

Here’s the 3-D video for The No-Hit Wonder‘s lead single, “You Make Me”:

Cory Branan at the Levitt Shell

Cory Branan
Saturday, July 4, 7:30 p.m.
The Levitt Shell
Free admission

Categories
Music Record Reviews

Record Reviews: Three Memphis songwriters wrestle with mortality.

Rob Jungklas

Nothing to Fade

Self-release

There is a striking contrast between Rob Jungklas’ last two albums. Where 2013’s The Spirit & the Spine was a tortuous exploration of religious dread, his latest, Nothing To Fade, opens with the expansive acoustic universe of “Mary Sees Angels.” Anchored in tuned-down guitars and a five-string bass, a tone of redemption emerges from the depths. This tone continues in “Cop For You,” which has a hint of Cat Stevens amid the whooshy, compressed drums. Jungklas produced with Chad Cromwell and Jack Holder. Cromwell is a Nashville-based Memphian who has drummed for Neil Young and Mark Knopfler. Holder is known for his work with Black Oak Arkansas and Cobra. Jungklas has an affinity for religious language. But he never gets far from the edge. The black hounds gather for “Crawl the Moonlight Mile,” but the dark mood doesn’t dominate this record like it did his last one. The notions of faith and doubt permeate Jungklas’ work, but what sets him apart from “Contemporary Christian” music is his willingness to descend into Hell and the fact that he knows what good acoustic guitars sound like. It’s good to hear his voice emerge from the darkness.

Jesse Winchester

A Reasonable Amount of Trouble

Appleseed

Recordings

Jesse Winchester recorded A Reasonable Amount of Trouble shortly before his death in April. The album sounds much larger and more rambunctious than one might expect from a last effort. But producer and guitarist Mac McAnally lets Winchester’s voice hover in its own space among instruments that do more than support the song. Recorded at the Blue Rock Artist Ranch in Wimberley, Texas, this record is an acoustic marvel. McAnally has written for Jimmy Buffett, Alabama, and Kenny Chesney, among others. His acoustic palette is marvelous and does justice to Winchester’s melodies. Winchester’s voice is a grey line between himself and the air. The instruments don’t sit behind the voice as much as they mix with it. It’s refreshing and no small feat given Winchester’s leaf-on-the-wind vocal approach to delivering a lyric. Winchester had dramatic sense of melody and knew when to whisper and when to start a fire. The liner notes address Winchester’s aversion to writing from a dark place, even though the songs were written during his treatment for cancer. The album closes with “Just So Much.” “There is just so much that the Lord can do.” The last verse is an unflinching final testament to a writer, thinker, and musician.

John Kilzer

Hide Away

Archer Records

The Reverend John Kilzer’s Hide Away comes out on October 14th. It’s his first offering from Archer Records. Like Jungklas, Kilzer wrestled with the music industry in the 1980s, signing and releasing two albums on David Geffen’s DGC in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Kilzer was an All-American forward for the Memphis State Tigers in the late 1970s. That level of Memphianity gets you a backing band composed of Rick Steff, Greg Morrow, Sam Shoup, Steve Selvidge, Alvin Youngblood Hart, and Luther Dickinson. Kilzer delivers contemplative songs, which one would expect from an ordained minister. The struggle between the divine calling and our earthly vessels is evident througout the record. But Kilzer took musical bona fides into the pulpit rather than taking the pulpit to the stage. That’s an important distinction and is aurally obvious from how much Kilzer’s voice gets wonderfully seduced by temptation.

“Lay Down” is a call to peace that transcends the stupid platitudes of hippies and casts the dialog for peace in biblical dogma. This record amounts to a nuanced and honest approach to a civic Christianity that sadly goes unnoticed in the culture wars. “Uranium won’t feed the hungry.”

“Until We’re All Free” marches a foot or two behind the Staple Singers, but is on the same path. The band Kilzer has assembled allows him to craft each song into its own sound. Throughout, the record benefits from the assembly of talented guitarists. Steff’s organ parts stand out in particular. “The White Rose and the Dove” is a sonic blend of “Stairway to Heaven” and “Blind Willie McTell” and therefore a bit of divine inspiration. On “Babylon,” Kilzer pulls out his judging finger, but he points it the right way. “You think God can hear your prayers/ You ignore their hungry stares.” The album might be a little long in places. I could live without “Love Is War.” But for the most part, Christianity as practiced in this country and this state in particular could use more leadership like Kilzer. He offers a soulful, compassionate alternative to the louder sort of God squadder. And he did so by making a great sounding record. Here’s to that.