The absence of Shawn Cripps and his band, Limes (aka The Limes), on the local scene is still difficult to process for many. His death in a highway accident at the age of 55 in 2021 was so sudden as to seem surreal, especially because his art — in the form of three celebrated albums and even more unreleased material — lives on so vividly. As reported in 2019, The Limes’ “mesh of crunchy guitar tones, sharp rock rhythms, and Cripps’ acerbic lyrics” occupied a niche all their own in the local scene.
This weekend, as part of the ongoing River Series at the Harbor Town Amphitheater, a group of his friends and fellow musicians will offer some closure as they honor Cripps’ unique, unflinching talent. They’ll be opening for headliners Spider Bags, who were also friends and fans of Cripps.
I spoke with Chris Owen, who helped organize the ad hoc group known simply as “Limes Tribute,” about the challenges of recreating the sound of The Limes, the way Cripps’ songs captured the imaginations of die hard fans, and how those songs inspired them to form groups of their own.
Memphis Flyer: Who will be playing in Limes Tribute? Were they all in The Limes at some point?
Chris Owen: Yeah, the core is me and Jack [Oblivian], who played with Shawn a lot, and Tim Prudhomme, who played with Shawn a few times. And then the Spider Bags guys — we went on tour with them twice. There were a few bands that idolized Shawn for whatever reason. He was kind of an enigma, in the sense that he was just a normal person sitting at the bar, like many of us here in Memphis, and then you go out on tour with them and inevitably at every show some crazy fan would come up who just worshiped him. It was an era when it was really cool to know a band that no one else knew, when I was playing with him, which was around 2008-10. Because Shawn was my friend, he was just another musician. But once we got on that first tour, it was like, ‘Oh, this guy is very well liked!’ So it was always fun to meet people that were just obsessed with his music. Dan [McGee] from Spider Bags was one of those people, and so we ended up going on tour with them.
I guess the bands and artists who dug him so much are real songwriters’ bands. Was it his unique lyrical approach that they dug most about him?
I think the inclinations of a songwriter would certainly guide you to Shawn’s music, but also I think his guitar playing was so strange that people had a hard time figuring it out sometimes. I know for a fact that everybody that’s ever played with him was constantly trying to figure out what the hell he was doing. And I don’t think anybody ever did. Playing with Shawn was very seat of your pants. Sometimes it would be a disaster and other times it would be euphoric. He would use standard tuning but he he stayed in this G chord kind of thing — I think most of his songs are in G, but he could make a G chord sound 10,000 different ways.
Did he lead The Limes through their arrangements?
Well, his picking style was really strange. He didn’t have any training. It was all just him sitting in his apartment with a guitar and singing all the time, and it created this very unique sound. The songs are built off of the nuances that those of us that have played with him could hear, enough of to sort of form an arrangement around them. He had no idea that that was even there. Like he couldn’t say, ‘Oh, yeah, it goes like this.’ It would just be something that came out of the garden of his music, and we all just tried to pick those things out. Make sense? Some of the more unique arrangements are just things that Jack and Harlan [T. Bobo] picked out of Shawn’s craziness and said, ‘Okay, well, you’re doing this here. Let’s make that a part of the song, let’s make that a theme.’ I don’t know what you’d call that but he was like a genius who doesn’t know they’re a genius.
What was your time in The Limes like?
I got to know the most of those guys, Jack and Harlan and everybody, and started hanging around, and at some point Shawn asked me to play drums. I was like, ‘Dude, I’m not a drummer.’ And he was like, ‘I know, that’s why I want you to play drums.’ Finally he convinced me and I went on three tours. So that that line up was me and this girl Stephanie Richards. She was part of the co-op scene and played bass with us. She was very melodic and complex, and she had an innate ability to key in on what Shawn was doing. She passed away about seven or eight years ago, from gastrointestinal cancer. She died super young too; it was really sad.
So we went on three tours with that line up: west coast, east coast, and then a little southern/southwest tour. And we recorded probably three records that no one has ever heard. Shawn probably recorded 20 albums and only three of them have ever been put out. We did some stuff with Doug Easley, and he’s got a reel somewhere in his collection. We actually mixed it and everything and Shawn just never did anything with it. He was was never finished with anything. You know, it was always, ‘Oh, I’ve got a little bit more work to do on that,’ and then years would go by and nothing would ever come of it. He was so prolific, but had a hard time getting it out there, you know?
Will you be playing any of that unreleased material on Saturday?
Yeah, I’m going to play a song called “Hey Killer” that was part of that period of his writing. Eventually there’s potentially going to be a collection of his unreleased stuff. They located all the reels and his notebooks and everything.
He tended to record to tape, didn’t he?
He was recording on reel-to-reel tape machines he had in those later years. He had a fascination with those things. And one of his frustrations was that could never find somebody to work on them. So he just started tearing them apart and putting them back together again, and ended up being able to fix a lot of the old stuff that he was buying. He got them working and so he did a lot of recording on old ’70s-era, reel to reel machines.
It must be difficult, putting together a set without him.
We’re going to try not to be trying, so as to embody Shawn’s ethos, and not be stressed about anything. It was really hard to get Shawn to do anything if he didn’t want to play music. He wasn’t like a regularly disciplined kind of guy. He’d say ‘Hey, I got a show, you know, let’s practice.’ So I guess it’s apropos for The Limes to be slapdash. It’ll be quick and dirty, for sure. We’re anticipating having a couple of acoustic jams. Just people playing songs that they like, and sort of ramping up to a full bands for a few numbers, depending on what Spider Bags want to do. And then of course, the Spider Bags are amazing.
You know, you never really think about how valuable people are to you until they’re gone. And Shawn was a perfect example of that, because we spent so much time together and that was just a normal part of life, to have him around. Now that he’s been gone for a year and a half, I’m realizing he inadvertently had a huge effect on my life. And a lot of other people’s, too. Without even trying! He could just so casually change somebody’s life. He was a magic man, for sure.
The River Series at the Harbor Town Amphitheater, featuring Limes Tribute and Spider Bags, takes place Saturday, May 20, 4-7:30 p.m., behind the Maria Montessori School. $10 for adults, $5 for children. All proceeds support the Maria Montessori School.