Tag: The City Champs

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Music Music Features

Memphis Music: 10 from ’21

Here’s a roundup of your faithful Flyer music editor’s favorite Memphis music from the year that felt far too much like the year before.

Julien Baker

Little Oblivions (Matador)

Opening with the crass tones of a broken organ, this is an enervating shot across the bow from an artist typically associated with delicate guitar lines. Here, the production has widened. The constant is the hushed-to-frantic intimacy of her voice, and, as the album develops, she sings from darker, grittier depths than she’s ever plumbed before, propelled by a full-on rock band.

Cedric Burnside

I Be Trying (Single Lock)

With a new dryness and sparseness, Burnside has crafted a unique approach to the blues that sidesteps preconceived riffs or licks; even those you’ve heard take on a new urgency and gravitas. Made with only guitar, drums, the occasional light touch of a second guitar (including Luther Dickinson), or cello, it’s the hushed vocals that cut to one’s soul.

The City Champs

Luna ’68 (Big Legal Mess)

In which the instrumental boogaloo trio evokes the space-bedazzled sounds of yesteryear. In this group’s hands, even cymbal rolls and an organ can sound futuristic. Sitting comfortably in this minimalist mix is a new sound for the Champs: a synthesizer. Superbly composed like their earlier works, the grooves are peppered with stinging guitar and growling organ.

IMAKEMADBEATS

MAD Songs, Vol. 1 (Unapologetic)

The founder of Unapologetic gets personal: The beats are atmospheric, the chords are a little odd, the lyrics, whether MAD’s or his guests’, skew to the philosophical. MAD’s trademark slippery bass and beats in space underpin stellar guest artists, from deft raps by PreauXX, R.U.D.Y., Austyn Michael, and others, to silky melodies from Cameron Bethany and U’niQ.

John Paul Keith

The Rhythm of the City (Wild Honey)

“There’s little Easter eggs all over the record,” says Keith, meaning the hints of Memphis music history that litter the tracks. With Box Tops-like jet, stray Stax licks, electric sitar, or two saxes cut live, the sound of a live-tracked band really pays off with Keith’s one-take guitar playing, some of the finest of his career.

Elizabeth King

Living in the Last Days (Bible & Tire Recording Co.)

King’s voice is as indomitable as a mountain, as many have known for decades. Bible & Tire released King’s tracks from the ’70s in 2019, but label owner Bruce Watson wanted to capture her voice now. The band, relative youngsters compared to King, evokes classic gospel, and it gives her work a unique stamp in a genre now deeply shaped by jazz fusion and funk.

Don Lifted

325i (Fat Possum)

Don Lifted’s music has always been rooted in hip hop’s rhythmic rhyming, while including elements of shoegaze rock and even smooth R&B. His third album ramps up the artist’s sonic craftsmanship, with lyrics mixing the dread of quarantine with the determination to unpack one’s self. This solidifies the artist’s reputation as a performer with staying power, with a surer sense of sonic hooks than ever.

Loveland Duren

Any Such Thing (Edgewood Recordings)

The duo’s third album is the Platonic ideal of pop. Exquisite arrangements for the material include strings, French horn, flute, and a perfectly Memphian horn section. And while there are some flourishes of classic rock guitar on the stompers, the album as a whole is a keyboard-lover’s dream. But the heart of this album is the songwriting, with lyrics and melodies you can chew on for years.

MonoNeon

Supermane (self-released)

Known as a bass virtuoso, this album presents the songwriter’s most focused material ever. The result is his idiosyncratic, yet more disciplined, take on the classic early George Clinton sound. Still, he makes it his own with the strongest singing of his career. “Supermane,” the song, also features the sax playing of Kirk Whalum. Its classic gospel feel is made more universal by MonoNeon’s pop instincts.

Young Dolph

Paper Route Illuminati (Paper Route Empire)

The artist/label svengali’s horrific murder last month robbed us of future creations, but his swan song captures his spirit. “My office is a traphouse in South Memphis” tells you where his heart lived, as he and featured artists (including Gucci Mane) drop witty boasts of money and women. When he spits, “Have you ever seen a dead body?” a chill comes over the album, but when he raps, “I go so hard, make ’em hate me, my whole life a movie — HD,” it’s pure truth.

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Music Video Monday: The City Champs

Music Video Monday IN SPACE!

Memphis instrumental researchers The City Champs are back with a spacey new single, “Luna 68.” Organist Al Gamble, guitarist Joe Restivo, and drummer George Sluppick reunited after years as hired guns for folks like St. Paul and the Broken Bones and The Bo-Keys to record a new album, and it’s unlike anything they’ve ever done before.

Filmmaker Andrew Trent Fleming created this far-out video for the song. “I’m incredibly humbled to get to direct a video for The City Champs. I love their music. I met them 10+ years ago as a huge fan, have annoyed them ever since, and will continue to do so. I always like to find a way to invest personally in a song and came up with the idea to contemplate and wrestle with my own perspective on the priorities of an artist, told visually through the paradox we all come to at some point as an artist in this city. This is for you, Memphis.”

Music Video Monday: The City Champs

If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com. 

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Music Music Features

Return of the Champs

Fans of local trio The City Champs rejoiced last week when the group’s guitarist, Memphis native Joe Restivo, announced on social media that the original lineup was rehearsing again. Having gained popularity between 2008 and 2010, the group’s subsequent appearances were limited after drummer George Sluppick left town. With his recent return, the group has been woodshedding, writing new material, and making plans for bigger things.

The City Champs were distinguished by primarily being an instrumental group. This arose naturally from the group members’ passion for organ trios and quartets of the 1950s and 1960s, as featured on classic records by Jimmy Smith, Brother Jack McDuff, or guitarist Grant Green. Early on, Restivo found kindred souls in brothers Al and Chad Gamble (on organ and drums, respectively), Muscle Shoals-area natives who had relocated to Memphis. “It was a jam situation,” says Restivo. “In the late ’90s, Al was in town as well as his brother. … And we would just get together at Al’s house.”

Soon after, Restivo left Memphis. His return in 2006 also marked the return of Sluppick, another Memphis native, whose life in New Orleans had been disrupted by Hurricane Katrina. Al Gamble, Restivo, and Sluppick began playing together, and when not on the road, saxophonist Art Edmaiston would join them. They formed The Grip, mixing 1960s Latin-tinged boogaloo sounds with Memphis roots, as with their cover of the Mar-Keys’ “Grab This Thing.” When Edmaiston hit the road again, The City Champs were born.

The City Champs

The new group focused squarely on the stripped-down, funky organ trio sound. Notes Restivo, “We were all fans of that music before we met each other. And so it was a natural fit.” The new combo soon was honing its sound on the road in 2008, opening for the North Mississippi Allstars.

The Champs’ debut album, The Safecracker, was released on Scott Bomar’s Electraphonic label in 2009 to glowing reviews. It was marked by their eclectic approach to the organ trio sound, with inventive versions of “Ol’ Man River” and Amy Winehouse’s “Love Is a Losing Game.” Their 2010 sophomore release, The Set-Up, further expanded their palette, adding horns, Latin percussion, and a cameo from Motown legend Jack Ashford on percussion.

The combo developed a devoted local following, but Sluppick was lured to Los Angeles by the Chris Robinson Brotherhood. The Champs would continue to play Memphis occasionally when Sluppick was in town, but these appearances were rare. Restivo began working with The Bo-Keys and his own quartet, and Gamble began touring and recording with soul revivalists St. Paul and the Broken Bones. While these affiliations remain, things changed last year when Sluppick settled in his home town once again.

Now the group is once more developing new material, with an even more eclectic bent. Restivo notes the influence of “Willie Mitchell Dance Party records … a little bit of that honky-tonkish Memphis instrumental thing.” He adds that they’re perfecting their own take on the 1971 classic Blackrock “Yeah Yeah” and exploring more psychedelic flavors as well. The Champs are itching to record their third album, planned for later this year.

“Since we started this project, it’s been 10 years,” Restivo says. “We’ve all played in a ton of different groups and played a ton of shows with a lot of different artists. So, there’s a lot there to add. I know I’m a much more seasoned musician than I was when I started this thing. I think we’re just a better band. But at the end of the day, it’s a labor of love. More than any band I’ve ever been in, we have more fun just going over to Al Gamble’s house and just cooking up songs and arrangements. And we try to present that in our shows and our records.”

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Curb Alert

Do you know about Nextdoor.com? It’s a social media site that links you with your neighbors, providing an online forum for discussing common concerns: garage sales, lost and found pets, garbage and recycling, criminal activity, references for chimney sweeps and handymen, and curb alerts, where someone announces they’re putting, say, an old couch on the curb. First come, first served.

Last Sunday, the greatest curb alert of all time was posted on the Central Gardens Nextdoor.com site. It read:

Curb Alert – Ole Miss Football Season

The Ole Miss football season is on the curb by the Liberty Bowl.

Frankly, it was a rare example of wit on the site. Most posts are pretty mundane and some are borderline paranoid. “Suspicious” is perhaps the most-used word on Nextdoor.com. As in, “suspicious-looking teens walking down alley behind my house on Vinton at 4:45 p.m. Be aware.” I leave it to you to guess what usually constitutes a suspicious-looking teen. But, occasional paranoia aside, the site is pretty useful.

As is a big win over that SEC team from Oxford.

I was out Friday night, listening to the City Champs at the Buccaneer. During a break, I got into a conversation with a couple of Ole Miss fans from Nashville. I could tell they were Ole Miss fans because they were dressed entirely in red and white, and they were a little drunk and a little loud. But they were raving about Memphis. Seriously.

“There’s no music like this in Nashville,” they said. “There are no little clubs like this. It’s all that country shit.” They’d just had a large time earlier in the evening in Cooper-Young, and then in Overton Square, where someone had told them that they’d hear the best music in town at the Buc.

Then talk turned, as it must when talking to people dressed in garish school colors, to football. The Rebel fans conceded that Memphis had a nice offense and that Paxton Lynch was a “good college quarterback.” But, they explained, helpfully, Memphis was not ready for SEC competition. “Y’all’s defense won’t know what hit them,” they said. “SEC football is on a different level. It might be a game for a quarter or so,” they said, “but our depth will wear y’all down.”

I blush to admit now that I sort of agreed with them. Like most Memphians, I was hoping the Tigers could score enough to make the game interesting, but I had few illusions that Memphis could actually beat Ole Miss.

I’ve never been happier to be wrong about something in my life. And I’m happy the Ole Miss fans at least had a great night in Memphis before their team got kicked to the curb.

They were right about one thing: It was a game for a quarter or so.