Fans of Big Star and the band’s two chief songwriters, Chris Bell and Alex Chilton, are no strangers to Chris Stamey. Of course, as a solo artist, co-founder of the dB’s, member of the Golden Palominos, and producer of artists ranging from Alejandro Escovedo to Le Tigre, Stamey’s career has gone far beyond Memphis. But his involvement with those two key Memphians predated those subsequent accomplishments. After the North Carolina native graduated from New York University in the mid-’70s, he became immersed in the New York scene. By 1977, he’d founded Car Records, which released Chris Bell’s “I Am the Cosmos” single a year later.
This was also a time when Chilton was testing the waters in New York, and he was a fixture at Stamey’s apartment in 1977. Both frequented CBGB’s and took in the wildly innovative music percolating there. Ultimately, Chilton would produce a single by Stamey, “The Summer Sun” b/w “Where the Fun Is,” for Ork Records. And, when Chilton began playing gigs in the city as Alex Chilton and the Cossacks, Stamey played bass.
By then, Chilton had already recorded “She Might Look My Way,” written with Tommy Hoehn, but when there was an opportunity to submit demos to Elektra Records, he and Stamey included a new recording of the song in the batch (using Patti Smith’s drummer at the time, Jay Dee Daugherty, according to Holly George-Warren’s Chilton bio, A Man Called Destruction). Those demos still have not seen the light of day.
Fast forward to nearly a half-century later, and Stamey’s still tight with Big Star, having become the de facto musical director of the Big Star’s Third tribute concerts since they began after Chilton’s death in 2010. Memphis heard the latest core quintet of that project last December at Crosstown Theater, with Stamey’s singing in the group coming the closest to the subtly sardonic delivery of Chilton on the original recordings, even while avoiding any mimicry. When it comes to the delicate balance of personalities that made Big Star tick, Stamey gets it.
It’s quite in keeping with history, then, that Stamey should revisit “She Might Look My Way” now, still remembered fondly by Stamey from his late ’70s time with Chilton. This time around, it features two world-class fellow producers: Mitch Easter (Let’s Active front man and R.E.M. producer) on drums and Terry Manning (Ardent Studios’ producer/engineer/guitarist who worked with the Staples Singers, Led Zeppelin, and ZZ Top) on bass, guitar embellishments, Mellotron flutes, and harmonies.
The audio track and video go hand in hand with Stamey’s newest album, The Great Escape, the first release in decades on his seminal indie label Car Records.
Terry Manning is best known as a producer and master of the mixing board, having been the first house engineer for Ardent Studios in the late ’60s, and going on to work on many a classic album through the ’70s, ’80s, and beyond. But he’s also a multi-instrumentalist with some very eclectic records in his own right.
In recent years, he’s used some Memphis ringers in his band when, say, paying tribute to the legendary Bobby Fuller, a fellow Texas native. That’s come as no great surprise, for though Manning is living back in his homeland, he’s become a kind of honorary Memphian for life, due to his participation in so many classic records cut here. Indeed, his most recent release was Playin’ in Elvis’ House, which features some classic rock ‘n’ roll cut live here in the Bluff City.
It’s noteworthy, then, that he’s released a new single today on Lucky Seven Records, “What’s the Use?,” that has one of the most fascinating backstories in recent memory. He offers that story below. Suffice it to say that the track is an absolute scorcher, with the same trademark bravado vocals that Manning brought to his considerably more psychedelic, if equally rocking, ’60s album, Home Sweet Home.
Maybe it’s a Texas thing. Read this tale of how it came to be while you crank up his latest track, and marvel at how one man whose career has spanned the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, clear through to the present, can somehow channel the ’50s as well. Here, he tells the story:
How often do you get the chance to co-write a song with one of the biggest songwriters of the late 50s?
The year was 1958 and things couldn’t be going any better for Texan J. P. Richardson, known professionally as The Big Bopper. A few months before he had set a world record for DJ broadcasting, staying live on air for 5 days, 2 hours and 8 minutes. His new record, “Chantilly Lace,” was Top 5 on the charts, and would become the 3rd most played record of ’58. His song “White Lightning” had just been recorded by George Jones and was soon to be George’s first #1 record. If that wasn’t enough, Bopper’s song “Running Bear” had been recorded by Johnny Preston, and was about to be the #1 record in the world. THREE huge hits in a few months, what could be better?
So The Big Bopper decided to go on tour with other huge artists of the time, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and Dion…the now famous Winter Dance Party! Sadly this tour ended in tragedy when, on February 3, 1959…the night of the 11th show of the tour…the plane that Buddy chartered carrying The Bopper, Buddy, Ritchie and pilot Roger Peterson crashed nose down at full speed into a frozen snow-covered cornfield shortly after takeoff.
That ended the lives of three brilliant artists, all of whom were “flying high” in the Top Ten. But the music would never die; all three are still idolized as the brilliant stars they were.
As the local Sheriff and his deputies tearfully combed the wreckage, a plaid overnight bag belonging to The Big Bopper was found, and amongst the others’ belongings, was taken to the Sheriff’s office and placed into storage…where these items stayed cached away for many years (even Buddy’s famous glasses!). When the items were finally returned to the families, The Bopper’s belongings came into the possession of his son, Jay P. Richardson, who had been born a couple of months after the tragic crash. Now an adult, Jay for the first time was able to hold in his hands the things that the Father he’d never met carried with him when he died. One of those things was a notebook…a special notebook…which contained NEW SONGS The Bopper had written for upcoming recordings by himself and the many artists who were asking for his songs. But these were only lyrics; no one knew exactly what J. P. Richardson was hearing in his head that the songs would be.
Then in 2012 The Big Bopper’s son Jay Richardson contacted me, and asked if I would be interested in finishing one of the songs and recording it. Naturally, being a huge Holly-Bopper-Valens fan, I jumped at the chance, immersing myself again into the sounds and feels of long ago 1958-59, listening for hours to nothing but songs from the period, and especially to those by the Three Departed Stars. After becoming very “Late ’50s” in my mind, I chose one of The Big Bopper’s long-lost and never-before-recorded songs titled “What’s The Use,” and set it to music. A few lyrics needed a little massaging to fit, but the spirit and intentions of The Big Bopper were always paramount. Next into my studio, and recording began. Using as many vintage instruments and microphones as possible, I recorded this “new-vintage” song for the first time. I played and sang everything (except the saxophone), forming this old/new composition into a hopeful rock and roll classic, one of which Jiles P. Richardson The Big Bopper, as well as son Jay Richardson (who sadly died in August of 2013) would be proud.
So here it is, in this climactic year of 2021…a mere sixty-three years after it began life…
Ah, to settle into these idyllic fall days, with Led Zeppelin ringing in the air. October 5th marked the 50th anniversary of the release of Led Zeppelin III, mixed and mastered at Ardent Recordings, prompting many to reminisce about the impact of the album and the band on the Bluff City. Many a muso has dusted off an old copy with the spinning-wheel cartoon cover sleeve, so at odds with the album’s very autumnal mood, all bracing shrieks and riffs and crackling acoustics ’round the fire.
Terry Manning was the engineer for some of the album’s overdubs, and all its mixing and mastering, and when we spoke, he shared too many memories to fit in one article. Most of the tale can be read in Memphis magazine’s November cover story, taking you all the way from the Yardbirds in Kentucky to Jimmy Page having Manning inscribe messages onto the vinyl’s inner groove. But space did not allow for one bit of our conversation, concerning the interest in Led Zeppelin expressed by one Chris Bell. The founder of Big Star was himself a great fan, even known to spontaneously break out into the entire guitar solo of their song “Heartbreaker” (as described in Rich Tupica’s Bell bio, There was a Light).
When I spoke to Manning about mixing the album and the band playing in Memphis, he brought up Chris Bell:
Memphis Flyer:Did it create quite a stir around town, the fact that Jimmy Page was in town?
Terry Manning: You’d think it would create a stir like that, but it didn’t really. Jimmy wanted it kept quiet and we had work to do. There wasn’t any partying and meeting people and things. John Fry was not even there. He didn’t come for the session in any way. He stayed out. Once we were there, I locked the door and other people didn’t come in. It was very under the table. Kept quiet. courtesy Terry Manning
Terry Manning at the Ardent mixing board, 1971
Now, Chris Bell did know about it, and I think he came in for a second once. But I know later, when they were on tour, and Zeppelin played in Memphis, Chris came over to my house. Because Jimmy and his then-girlfriend Charlotte came to my house for dinner after the Led Zeppelin concert. And I’d had an Indian meal catered by an Indian restaurant, which you couldn’t get in the U.S. on tour very much then. So I’d told Chris to stay away, but he couldn’t help it. He came by sheepishly, with a bottle of wine. So we let him in, and Jimmy and Chris and I hung out. We listened to Gimmer Nicholson all night. And Ali Akbar Khan.
Josh Reynolds
Terry Manning
I told him, do not come. And this was after the concert, not during the recordings. But he just couldn’t help it. And I can’t blame him. Of course not! Now, years later, I’m so glad he did. It’s a wonderful memory, to be thinking of, two o’clock in the morning, Jimmy Page, Chris Bell, and me sitting on the floor, listening to Ali Akbar Khan and Gimmer Nicholson. Acoustic and Indian music, mostly.
Another renowned Memphis guitarist, a generation or so removed from Chris Bell, also noted his connection to Led Zeppelin III last month. On October 5th, guitarist Steve Selvidge (The Hold Steady, Big Ass Truck) celebrated his wedding anniversary with an online post and noted they had married on “the 32nd anniversary of the release of Led Zeppelin III.” An auspicious day, indeed, and it prompted Selvidge to recall the profound effect the band (and guitarist Jimmy Page) had on his musicianship.
And the very different effect they had on his father, the late Sid Selvidge. Rich Tarbell
Steve Selvidge
Memphis Flyer: Do you still have your old copy of the album?
Steve Selvidge: If you’re talking about Led Zeppelin III, that’s a piece of vinyl that I purchased when I was young. I think it was in fifth grade when it first seeped deep into me. I had just started playing guitar. Certainly by sixth grade, I was definitely way into it. I remember a friend’s older brother had The Song Remains the Same [the live soundtrack album of the film of the same name], and I remember playing that. Someone once said, “Zeppelin is nothing if not older brother rock.” I had lost my copy of Led Zeppelin III for years, but my brother was moving and found it. I bought it at Pop Tunes. Talk about the opposite of 180 gram vinyl pressing, this was just the floppiest disc. It did have the sleeve with the spinning wheel! And it had the Crowley quote, too [inscribed on the vinyl].
Do you think it holds up?
I’ve read all the press. I can almost see the words on the page, I’ve read it so many times. And I think they were unjustly criticized at the time, Oh yeah, Crosby Stills & Nash and Joni Mitchell had hits, so they jumped on that bandwagon. And Jimmy Page was like, ‘This acoustic music’s on all of our records. It’s not like we picked up acoustic guitars out of nowhere.’ I mean, ‘Ramble On,’ man! But the first two were released at the beginning and end of 1969. They’re companion pieces. One was born out of Jimmy Page’s initial plan, and one was born out of the road. But I do agree that III was where Plant was able to emerge more fully formed. And honestly I think that’s also when he had more of a sense of job security.
Because, from what I’ve read, even through the second record and touring, it was like, this is Jimmy’s band. Peter Grant’s laying down the law, like, ‘Dude, don’t think you can get comfortable.’ But with III, Robert started to assume this thing of the front man. The center piece, the Golden God. It was a crazy time. That was back when a guitar player could be famous just for being a guitar player. Not just famous, but people who weren’t musicians knew who he was, because they’d tracked his progress in the Yardbirds. It was this burgeoning underground scene. So there were people who knew Led Zeppelin because of Jimmy Page. But then Robert transitioned into that pop consciousness. And it was years, for me, before I realized that the average person takes a band on its front man. I was like, ‘Wait, there are people who know Led Zeppelin and don’t know who Jimmy Page is? Every guitarist in every band is just as important as the singer, right??’ It turns out I was mistaken about that..
And this is speaking to my middle-aged-ness, but I think that’s probably their best nighttime record. With technology these days, streaming music is daytime whatever, just put on something that’s rockin,’ get the dishes done. But for me, vinyl is the nighttime thing. It’s the kids have gone to bed, decompressing and talking about the events of the day, and what are we gonna put on? Zeppelin III is good cranked up, and it’s also good at low volumes.
‘Friends’ was the first time they used a tuning not based on British whatever folk traditions. It was more of a nod to Indian music. And Page was really into Indian music well before the Beatles were. He tells the story of going to hear Indian music and it was him and a bunch of old people. He was the only young person there. So, ‘Friends’ is a big one in terms of that.
The vocal on ‘That’s the Way’ is so gorgeous. As a lifelong Page disciple, as I get older, I get more and more fascinated by Robert Plant. Some say that his wail on ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’ is when he started to lose his voice. His voice changed radically, because they toured so much. He didn’t have a vocal coach. He was just smoking and drinking and shouting. So by ’72 his voice had changed. And some say that shriek on ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’ is the swan song, if you will.
It took me a long time to come to terms with that recorded version of ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You.’ ’Cause I was such a disciple of the movie, the Song Remains the Same, and that version of the song from ’73 at Madison Square Garden, I just loved it so much. It’s super stoney. For whatever reason, John Paul Jones didn’t have a [Hammond] B3 [organ] with him. On the ’73 tour, it was all Fender Rhodes [electric piano] with foot pedals. You know, the B3 is like, I’m gonna put you in a specific place right now. And for the longest time, I didn’t want to hear it. Because I was so in love with the Rhodes and the stoney vibe of Madison Square Garden. But now I’ve come to respect it for what it is.
And the guitar solo on that [album version]. That song is one of Zeppelin’s greatest moments. Plant will tell you that. That guitar solo is one of Page’s greatest moments for sure. And that’s what brought me back to that version. It’s the perfect mixture of his technique, which also changed, and his emotion. Of all the big three guitarists in his class, he wrought the most emotion. And that is right there.
Did Lee Baker ever talk about Led Zeppelin?
I probably brought it up some. I knew that Lee Baker played a Sunburst Les Paul from the ’50s. A 1958-60 Les Paul Sun Standard … the significance of it. That’s what Jimmy Page was playing, and Lee Baker had the same kind of guitar. And it was rare. I know he knew Page was bad, but he was into other things.
Justin Fox Burks
The late Sid Selvidge, with son, Steve
Your dad, Sid Selvidge, was a pioneering performer of the blues, among other things. Did you listen to Zeppelin with him?
I played a lot of Led Zeppelin at my house when I was a kid. And my dad happened to be a pretty proficient singer in his own right, with pretty strong opinions about other singers. And he did not like Robert Plant at all! His thing was, ‘I know he can sing! I’ve heard him, he can sing! He just does all that puke music, man!’ That’s what he called it, ‘Puke Music.’ Like he’s straining so hard he’s gonna puke, you know?
But the final nail in the coffin was when it got to the last song, ‘Hat’s Off to (Roy) Harper,’ which is just Fred McDowell, ‘Shake ’Em On Down.’ And man, would that make him mad! He was just like, ‘This British motherf*cker!’ He was just mad about it, man! I remember him specifically zeroing in on it. I remember exactly where I was sitting, in front of the turntable, looking at this old decorative lamp. And he was just so pissed off at the way they were interpreting Fred McDowell. ‘Lee Baker could just smoke this kid!’ They were just defiling Mississippi Fred McDowell. I think it was the histrionics of Robert Plant that really did that. That’s just how he sings.
I will say, Robert Plant’s voice did change. And I kinda liked it, because, as a connoisseur of bootleg recordings, he had the power, and he wasn’t always judicial with it. So there’s a lot of him going over the top, screaming, getting super high, and wailing and stuff. That’s why, for me, ’73 is the peak year. His voice has changed, and he can’t just go high all the time. So it forced him to get creative with the melodies, and kind of lay his shit back a little bit. Which I like. ’Cause I do like it when he croons. And Jimmy Page’s tone was at its apex, and his playing had changed. He laid off some of his go-to things, and was stretching out a little bit more. Then by ’75 it just all goes to shit, in my opinion. But Plant’s another polarizing one. I don’t know, I’ll sit through a lot of bad singers to hear the guitar that I want.
Though his own early recordings are highly regarded by critics and collectors, Terry Manning‘s best known for the records he’s made as a music engineer and producer working with artists like the Staples Singers, ZZ Top, Isaac Hayes, and Led Zeppelin. Before cofounding the storied Compass Point recording studio in the Bahamas, Manning spent time in Memphis, working with both Stax and Ardent, and he can spin terrific yarns about things like the time he walked into Chips Moman’s American Studios on Danny Thomas to discover grown men chasing a rat around the room swinging electric guitars like clubs. Manning’s also a dedicated photographer and has been since the 1960s. “Scientific Evidence of Life on Earth During Two Millennia,” an exhibit of urban landscapes mixed with images from his long and storied career opens at Stax this week. He’s also playing concerts at Stax, the Hard Rock Cafe on Beale, and an intimate showcase in “Elvis’ Living Room” on Audubon, in conjunction with Rhodes College’s Mike Curb Institute for Music.
Memphis Flyer:I want to talk music, of course. But your photography is the bigger mystery for me. You’ve obviously been shooting for a long time, but was your first exhibit really last year? What brought about the move from serious hobbyist to what you’re doing now?
Terry Manning: About five or six years ago another music friend from Boston who’s the head of the photography department at MIT called me up. I’d let a couple of my pictures go into some magazines. Like I have Dusty Springfield sitting with Tom Dowd when they were recording Dusty in Memphis. That got into Mojo magazine. So my friend called up and said, “Look, I know you take these photos. I know you mentioned you have some of Martin Luther King. We need to do a show. I said, “Sure!” Then I’d always go back to music. On to the next album and the next album. Finally he called back and said this exhibit was never going to happen. Well, he said “never.” So I started going through thousands of pictures and getting things I thought might work.
And it was a big success. Great reviews. Tons of attention.
It got so much coverage online with Facebook and Twitter and social media that people started calling and asking, “Can we do the show?” I got a phone call from China from a bunch of the principles with Hard Rock Café. They are building a lot of new hotels. Very exclusive, five-star hotels where they want more things going on than just butts in beds. They want lots of opportunities for experience and one thing they wanted was art galleries. They’d seen this online and asked if they could get my show to open their galleries when they come on line. I said, “Sounds great.”
You mentioned the King photographs, which are incredible.How did that opportunity come about?
Al Bell was a friend of Dr. King’s and of course at Stax we were all involved in the Civil Rights feelings if not being actual protesters. Stax was such an island of racial harmony in a time and place where that shouldn’t have been. It was wonderful to be around Stax where nobody cared what color you were or what religion you were or anything like that. All that mattered was what kind of person you were and what kind of music you made.
Did Al Bell make the introduction?
Al had been a DJ in Washington and was quite well known there. And he’d been friends with Dr. King and Jesse Jackson and Ralph Abernathy and all the people involved in the movement. So you could occasionally be the Stax offices on Union Ext. and see him walking down the hall. He was so charismatic and just exuded goodness. So what happened was, I just bought a new car. It was one of the first cars I bought with my own money without my dad helping me. Actually John Fry helped. But I got a brand-new Ford Fairlane. It was wine red. I’d told Al Bell about it, so he called up one morning and said, “I know you’ve got that car and we need people to go to the airport because Dr. King’s coming in, and he’s got a lot of people with him.” Of course King had been back-and-forth with a whole “I Am a Man,” march that was going on with the sanitation workers. I wasn’t chauffeuring Dr. King or anything, but I went and he was just coming off the plane when I got there. Him and Ralph Abernathy and the whole crew— all of the people involved in the movement. And then bunch of newsmen came up. l had one of my cameras with me. In this case I think it was a Nikon SLR. So I thought, “Heck, why not take some photos?” I took 13 shots. All my pictures are literally normal focal length. I don’t use telephoto lenses or crop pictures. What you see is all from my viewpoint. So I had my camera literally in his face. In a couple of the shots his face takes up the full frame. Just inches away. You can see the stubble on face or where he may have nicked himself shaving. Stuff you don’t see normally. I took those, then I got a couple of bags and drove to the Lorraine Motel and everybody got out. And then I drove on to Ardent out on National for a session. Then that night I went down for Dr. King’s speech at the church — what turned out to be the, “I have been to the mountaintop” speech. And there was a terrible storm going on. It was lightning and thundering. Really electric.
“One day she’d had enough. Couldn’t stand any more of me being a pestering little idiot, I guess. So she leaned around, took her pencil and jammed it right into my leg. Right into my right knee. And a piece of lead that broke off in there. I still see it every day, right under the skin.”
So those were all taken the day before he was assassinated. I didn’t think there were any pictures from that period we hadn’t seen already.
Nobody knew what to do. I told Al I had these photos. He said maybe we should get them to Time magazine or something because they’re really historic. But I never felt right about it. So I put everything in a box and until this last August. So for 47-years nobody saw them.
And now they’re back at Stax. A literal homecoming for you and these photographs.
Such a homecoming. I’m really kind of in shock doing all of this.
Terry Manning On photographing MLK, Recording with Chris Bell, and Being Stabbed by Stevie Nicks
I’ve got to be honest. There’s so much I want to ask you about music I don’t know where to begin. That Texas rock scene where you get your start with Bobby Fuller is underappreciated, I think. But you’ve really surfed the wave of rock-and-roll working with Isaac Hayes, the Staples Singers, Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top — even Iron Maiden. I wish there was a question in there, but I’m hoping you can maybe share personal high points.
Mostly, it always seems to me, like I’ve been very lucky in the places I’ve been and the times I was in them. Such as being at that airport when Dr. King came in. For instance, when I was in junior high school, the girl in front of me in homeroom was really, really cute. I mean I really had a crush on her. Probably my first real crush. But I didn’t know how to deal with girls, and to be honest still don’t. So I’d poke at her, or pull her pigtail if she had one, or whatever. Just stuff. You know, thinking maybe she’ll notice me. One day she’d had enough. Couldn’t stand any more of me being a pestering little idiot, I guess. So she leaned around, took her pencil and jammed it right into my leg. Right into my right knee. And a piece of lead that broke off in there. I still see it every day, right under the skin.
“I’ve always seen myself as a sponge. Imagine a very young teenager sitting in with Steve Cropper, and Willie Mitchell, Teeney Hodges, and Bobby Fuller.”
You know, I have the same story. I think most guys probably carry a piece of lead from failed early flirting experiments.
Well, shortly after she stabbed me, the teacher announced that we were having a class party and that it would be a dance. Every boy in the class was supposed to ask a girl to go with him, and the parents would chaperone. We’d all be learning manners, and ballroom dancing or whatever. So I asked the girl in front of me whose name was Stephanie. She was still new and didn’t really know anybody because she was an army brat. El Paso’s got a big army base with lots of military. Anyway, she said okay and we went to the dance. Dad took us. Mom spent the whole week before teaching me how to dance and it was so embarrassing. So awful. Because musicians don’t dance, anyway. And I knew immediately I didn’t like to dance.
So we went to the dance and Bobby Fuller happened to be playing. And we tried. But the girl said, “I don’t really like dancing.” And then I said, “I REALLY don’t like it. Would you mind sitting over here on these chairs in the corner while I go try to sit in with the band.” Because I’d been banging away on a guitar. And I loved Bobby Fuller and hadn’t met him yet. He was quite a bit older, but he was kind and sweet and come the break he said band could go but, “Me and my new friend Terry are going to do a couple of songs.” So, for my class I did “Peggy Sue,” and “Donna.” We both had Strats and Bobby accompanied me. Now here’s the thing.The girl got in a band later too and changed her name from Stephanie to Stevie Nicks. She was my first date. How lucky is that? There was Bobby Fuller and me and Stevie Nicks together in a room doing or listening to music at one time. Just a freaky coincidence. So, to me so much seems like luck. I guess I have some talent at music and whatever. But a whole lot of any of this is just getting up early, working hard, and doing a good job, and meeting people, and making friends. Turned into an incredible journey.
Terry Manning
Dusty in Memphis
But you and she have never worked together, have you?
We have but… See, I didn’t know for a while that Stevie Nicks was her. I remember seeing that first Buckingham Nicks album where she’s almost partially nude on cover. The second I saw that, I fell in love. I fell in love with the album cover. There was just an attraction. But I didn’t realize it was the same girl. We did indeed work together on a record by a guy named Rick Vito. He was in Fleetwood Mac after Lindsey Buckingham left. He got Stevie to sing. By that time I realized it was her, of course, but we didn’t talk about it at all. I’d love to do that some day though.
You’ve been making your own music again, which is a good thing in my opinion. Was the time just right?
You have to make a living. You keep working, keep working, keep working. You get into music to do what you want in it. You love music. You love playing music. You love writing, or singing. And that’s what you want to do. In my first year I didn’t think, “I’ll become an engineer and a producer.” It was about writing songs and singing and playing, and whatever. Then other things take over. And it paid me pretty well and it was alright, and it was able to get me through life. And I was able to have houses and do the stuff you do. So, at that point, if you stop to do the things you want to do for you, you’re depriving your family part of their livelihood while you have fun and experiment. So it becomes a job rather than fun, although it is a fun job. But my wife had passed away, and I just got to a point where I was like, “I don’t have to work all day, every day every month of every year.” And we closed Compass Point in Nassau. So I said, I’m taking two weeks or four weeks for me. I’m not taking a job, I am the job. I don’t know if other people will like what I do, and it’s really not important if they do. If they do, great. Of not, I like it so there. I just got to a point in life where— It’s like the guy in Boston bringing up the photo thing and then saying it was never going to happen. Well, everything’s, “never.” Everything’s finite. There’s an end to all of this, and this isn’t all I was meant to do. So let’s do that.
Terry Manning On photographing MLK, Recording with Chris Bell, and Being Stabbed by Stevie Nicks (2)
Which is great. I was listening to your recording of “Savoy Truffle” right before this interview, with that crazy Moog intro from before many people had even heard of synthesizers. And it made me think about Jim Dickinson for some reason. He’d worked on everybody else’s projects for his entire life, but had so very little that was just his. Then one day all of that changed. He started recording his own material and putting out records fast. And it was all great because you could hear his thing, but you could hear all the places he’d been musically. And then I think about your early stuff and all the artists you’ve worked with since. You’ve got to take away a little bit from all that, don’t you?
Oh yeah, I’ve always seen myself as a sponge. Imagine a very young teenager sitting in with Steve Cropper, and Willie Mitchell, Teenie Hodges, and Bobby Fuller. I met Robert Moog in 1968 and he taught me synthesis. I remember feeling like a sponge then and making sure I was taking it all in. I had guitar lessons with Jimmy Page. Stuff that most people don’t get. I was so lucky. Specifically, I thought in the front of my mind, “watch this, learn this, absorb this.” You do soak it up.
Guitar lessons with Jimmy Page. Of course. Did that happen when you were working on Led Zeppelin III?
No it was backstage at Yardbird shows. I’d ask, “How did you do this?” And he’d get a guitar and teach me little things. Not long lessons but tricks, and how he did things.
Was he a patient teacher? I require very patient teachers.
Jimmy was very patient. Teenie Hodges I’d get from sitting right in front of him in sessions. I’d sit right on the floor and just look at his hands.
I’ve got to play fanboy for a minute. You played a cover of Chris Bell’s “I Am the Cosmos” at the Hi-Tone a few years back that really stands out as one of the most magical performances I’ve ever seen in Memphis. Here’s this performance of a song I never expected to hear live, and it was incredible. After it happened I didn’t believe it had happened. That it could have happened.
You know, it’s funny. Several people have said almost those exact same things about that performance. But during it… whew. First of all, I was really channeling Chris. It was the first public acknowledgement or anything I’d ever done of Chris, and he was my best friend for 10-years. I told a little story before about how he asked me to finish a real recording of the song for him. Because what we know as “I Am the Cosmos” is just a demo. He really swallowed his pride. I got him started at Ardent. Got him started on my early solo stuff. Brought him into the Ardent fold and into John Fry’s world and everything. Mentored him for years, as did John. Then we had a big fight at a time when he’d gone a little off kilter. He was burning tapes and trying to blow everything up. And he had a fight with me. We literally had a fistfight. “I’m doing everything on my own,” he said. “I don’t need you or anybody,” and he went off to Europe. So, anyway, he’d come back and he knew “Cosmos” was great just like he knew #1 Record was great. It depressed him so much that #1 Record never made it at the time. And he doesn’t know it ever made it. But he knew “Cosmos” was great and he knew it was his next best chance. And he’d done it two or three times. Some of it at Abbey Road. Some of it other places. He’d asked me to do hand claps over the solo in the version that we know, which is the late last version. So we went into Ardent B and overdubbed some hand claps, just him and me. He had already apologized for some horrible things he’d said, and I told him, “No problem, man. It’s okay. We’re friends, we’ll get through anything.” So he asked me to help him re-record it because it never sounded technically great. It was kind of mushy, although I love it and I’m not putting it down at all. But it wasn’t what Chris had envisioned sonically. So I said I’d be honored to do it, but I was working on a ZZ album and it was probably going to be 2 or 3 months before I really had time. Of course he died before we ever got to do that. And so that got me very emotional that night at the Hi-Tone. I told some of that story while I was strumming “Cosmos” in D-minor so nobody would know what it was. Then I went to major which is probably part of what made it pop up. During the performance of it, especially the guitar solo, I remember looking over at Steve Selvidge, and he looked like Chris with his long curly hair and a bit of a beard. And I was freaking out. It was like it really was Chris over there, and it had me emotional.
Terry Manning’s best known for the records he’s made as a music engineer and producer working with artists like the Staples Singers, ZZ Top, and Led Zeppelin. Before cofounding the storied Compass Point recording studio in the Bahamas, Manning spent time in Memphis, working with both Stax and Ardent studios, and he can spin terrific yarns about things like dating Stevie Nicks before she was Stevie Nicks or the time he walked into Chips Moman’s American Studios on Danny Thomas to discover grown men chasing a rat around the room. Manning’s also a dedicated photographer and has been since the 1960s. “It’s as much a part of my mind or soul as music,” he says.
Manning’s back in Memphis this week to perform a concert at the Hard Rock Cafe on Beale and more intimate shows at Stax and in “Elvis’ Living Room” on Audubon, in conjunction with Rhodes College’s Mike Curb Institute for Music. He will also open his photography exhibit “Scientific Evidence of Life on Earth During Two Millennia” at Stax. The exhibit showcases Manning’s urban landscapes alongside portraits of people he’s known and worked with, ranging from British soul diva Dusty Springfield to civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr.
“Stax was such an island of racial harmony,” Manning says, recalling how he took a series of 13 extreme close-ups of MLK on the day before he was assassinated. Manning had just purchased a brand new wine-red Ford Fairlane with some assistance from Ardent Studios founder, John Fry. Stax’s operations director Al Bell called one morning hoping Manning might drive his new car to the airport to help transport King and his entourage to the Lorraine Motel.
Terry Manning’s photography exhibit at the Stax Museum through June 30th. opening reception March 12th from 6-8 p.m. Free.
Tribute albums. It’s hard to gin up enthusiasm for most of these affairs. They typically involve taking a great artist who made great recordings and handing the songs out to not-as-great artists who make not-as-great recordings. Terry Manning’s second solo album in some 40 years is not the typical tribute album.
West Texas Skyline is Manning’s tribute to his friend Bobby Fuller, who is known mostly for the single “I Fought the Law.” Fuller was an acolyte of Buddy Holly and further developed Holly’s synthesis of high-lonesome mountain singing, wild rhythms, and California guitars.
Manning hails from West Texas and knew Fuller in the early 1960s. These were the days when Fender guitars and amplification were in all of their rickety, not exactly standardized glory. The Stratocaster sounds of that time and place endure, and Manning does a fantastic job bringing them into focus.
If anyone other than Terry Manning had made this album, you could round-file the thing. But Manning has a few tricks up his sleeve. He may be the most accomplished Memphis-based producer ever: Ike and Tina, Otis Redding, Led Zeppelin, James Taylor, ZZ Top, Joe Walsh, Molly Hatchet, Jimmy Buffet, and Shania Twain. He recorded Wattstax. What Manning does with these guitars and arrangements is notable.
The album opens with a bold take on “Love’s Made a Fool of You,” a song recorded by Holly’s Crickets and the Bobby Fuller Four. Manning takes liberties: The guitar has its Californianess turned up with a wavelike tremolo that suggests early-onset psychedelia. This cover highlights the West Texan take on frying-pan-hot clean guitars played in precise phrases. The album is a master class on classic sounds and approaches. It’s also a labor of love for a place and the people who made great music there. That’s something every Memphian can identify with. — Joe Boone
(Archer Records)
Memphis favors its winners: Blues and barbecue dominate our headspace. But there’s a lot more to Memphis than the usual suspects. On musical terms, that drives Lily Afshar nuts. The world-renowned classical guitarist and University of Memphis professor is a passionate advocate of not only the wider musical community of Memphis but also that of the world at large. Her latest recording is another example of her drive to expand the repertoire of both her instrument and our love of music.
Musica da Camera finds Afshar breaking new ground. The album begins with the first-ever recording of Musical Sketches on Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, a work by an obscure Russian composer, Vladislav Uspensky, for an eight-piece ensemble. The piece is programmatic: It tells a story. In this case, it’s Pushkin’s novel in verse Eugene Onegin, a story of pride, love, jealousy, and regret set in 1830s St. Petersburg. Uspensky divines eight scenes from the story of a world-weary old goat whose cynicism gets the better of him when he dismisses the writings and affections of a young woman named Tatyana.
The opening piece, “The Ball,” sets the mood, creating the atmosphere of a dance but with a tinge of melancholy rather than excitement. It renders the mind of the over-it-all Onegin being hauled through another social affair. The tight orchestration and muted dynamics paint the picture and establish the mood. The following piece renders Tatyana’s romantic earnestness with rising and falling dynamics and expectant harmonies, all laced in a sweetness that does not become bothersome. It’s remarkably redolent of the emotional roller coaster that is expressing love — or anything sincere, for that matter.
The “Onegin” piece exemplifies the guitar technique that earned Afshar spots in master classes by Andrés Segovia, the Spanish master. Afshar is on a personal quest to expand the vernacular of the instrument beyond the body of work established by Spanish composers. Her earlier album Hemispheres incorporated modified guitars that could play intervals found in Persian music. Afshar has transcribed work by Persian, Turkish, and Azerbaijani musicians.
Musica da Camera marks another example of Afshar’s curiosity and technique coming together in a way that motivates both the artist and the listener to expand the scope of their musical understanding. — Joe Boone
courtesy Terry Manning 
Josh Reynolds 
Rich Tarbell 
Justin Fox Burks 
Terry Manning 
