Valerie June has a new album for Concord Records ready to drop on April 11th. The 14-song Owls, Omens, and Oracles was recorded with producer M. Ward, and includes collaborations with the Blind Boys of Alabama and Norah Jones. The singer/songwriter will be hitting the road on March 27th for a tour that will wind through the U.S. this summer. No word on a Memphis date yet, but we hope Val will come home to play for us.
“Joy Joy” is the first single, giving you a taste of what to expect on the new album. “Everyone has felt moments of darkness, depression, anxiety, stress, ailments, or pain,” says June. “Some say it takes mud to have a lotus flower. This song reflects on the hard times we might face: to fail, to fall, to lose, to be held down, to be silenced, to be shut out yet still hold onto a purely innocent and childlike joy. I come from a heritage of ancestors who lived this truth by inventing blues music. Generations after they’ve gone, the inner joy they instilled in us radiates and lifts cultures throughout the world. From the world to home, what would a city council focused on inspiring inner joy for all of a town’s citizens look like? As the times are changing across the planet, what would it look like to collectively activate our superpowers of joy?”
This gorgeous video is directed and edited by Taylor Washington. Take a look, and get some joy in your Monday.
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
“With modern times often full of heaviness and darkness, how do we find the strength to survive and grow? From the changing climate to wars and our personal stories of loss, it can be overwhelming to dream of a more harmonious life for the entire planet,” says June. “I recorded my cover of ‘Ordinary World’ because, despite the challenges we face every day, there is beauty to be found in the ordinary. Though we often think of change as an enormous process, it is the little things that make significant shifts when multiplied; one small and simple act of caring for the Earth or a stranger is a way to see the extraordinary hidden within the ordinary. The toolbox that helps us create a world of joy and peace must have simple, tiny actions.”
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
[l to r] Mark Edgar Stuart, Amy LaVere, and Will Sexton chat between performances at the Folk Alliance International conference in Kansas City. (Photo: Karen Pulfer Focht)
The folk music old guard that dominated the Folk Alliance International conferences for the past 35 years has passed the guitar to a new generation that is younger, energized, and mostly female and non-white.
And the kids are all right.
In the BC years (before Covid), the annual five-day conference that draws more than 1,000 musicians from around the world was largely the province of aging performers and music lovers.
This year, the beat has changed. Most of the performers were young, female, and non-white, lending a whole new energy to the event that was held this past weekend in Kansas City, Missouri. The LGBTQIA+ community was also well-represented.
Memphis was everywhere, chosen as the first “City of Honor,” with Memphis-oriented workshops, speakers, and a slew of talented performers including Amy LaVere, Bailey Bigger, Talibah Safiya, Yella P of Memphissippi Sounds, violinist Alice Hasen, and the brilliant Aquarian Blood.
Valerie June (Photo: Karen Pulfer Focht )
Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, poet, and actor Valerie June astounded with her keynote speech that said love and hope can defeat hate and fear. As she spoke about the global crisis, the “technological hacking of the human mind and body,” and nuclear war, she abruptly stopped and flashed her trademark smile. She walked to center stage, picked up a banjo, and played a delicate version of “What a Wonderful World” in defiance of the doomsayers.
Wherever she walked, she was treated like royalty. Women and children rushed up and hugged her.
She now lives in Brooklyn but said she would always consider Memphis her home. Like the rest of us, June went from concert to concert to hear the young artists.
The annual gathering is designed to allow music critics, agents, disc jockeys, and concert and festival bookers to get up close and personal with new artists and discover new talent.
It’s also a chance for singers and musicians to strut their stuff in the smaller, intimate venues of the Westin Hotel and gather new fans. There are organized workshops and concerts during the day and evening, though much of the action started at 10:30 p.m. and continued almost to daybreak in hundreds of hotel rooms converted into makeshift music spots. Sometimes a performer played for just one or two people, a memorable experience.
There were a few older performers here, like Tom Paxton and Janis Ian, who acted in more of a non-performing, advisory capacity. Ian received a well-deserved lifetime achievement award. Paxton said he was just there to be inspired by the young people.
Instead of the usual performances by folk icons like Livingston Taylor, John McCutcheon, and Eliza Gilkyson, visitors chose between blues singers from Memphis, storytellers from Ireland, brash bands from Australia, and new Americana voices from everywhere.
The toughest challenge is choosing who to see since every concert choice means missing hundreds of other mini concerts going on elsewhere.
In one, Josh White Jr. seemed a little baffled when his co-performer, 92-year-old jazz genius, composer, and orchestra conductor David Amram asked him to play “House of the Rising Sun” a second time. But he smiled and acquiesced.
Amram impulsively invited young musicians he just met hours earlier to join them. Violinist Rahel-Liis Aasrand of Estonia and percussionist Natalia Miranda from Guatemala nervously joined Amram and White in an impromptu jazz number, as if they had played together for years.
Amy LaVere has a voice much larger than her lithe frame which was dwarfed by the stand-up bass she played. Her voice is at once sweet and powerful, and her accompanying guitarist and violinist could not have been better.
Alice Hasen showed just how versatile the violin could be, switching gears from classical to folk to almost hip-hop.
There was music around every corner. In one room, Brit Shane Hennessy played an instrumental tribute to Chet Atkins. In another, the laid-back Aquarian Blood’s J.B. Horrell played the guitar upright between his knees while his wife, Laurel, sang along.
And the talent goes on and on, stretching out through the halls and into the early morning hours as it expands the definition of folk music far, far beyond the notion of a guy with a guitar.
For more information on the Folk Alliance and how to attend next year’s conference, go to folk.org.
Valerie June is currently on the road in support of her 2021 album The Moon and the Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers, and is selling out venues like the legendary Filmore in San Francisco. MVM caught up with her prodigious video output earlier this year, and now she has a great new video of her and the band covering a classic from the alternative era. “Fade Into You” was a big hit for Mazzy Starr, who emerged from the L.A. Paisley Underground scene in the early 1990s. Valerie June breathes new life into Hope Sandoval’s ethereal vocal lines. Val’s appearance in Louisville, Kentucky, tomorrow night (Tuesday, May 24) looks like your last chance to catch her before a late spring swing through the Pacific Northwest and a summer tour of Europe. Meanwhile, here’s a little beauty for your Monday.
Valerie June got her start playing Bluff City coffee houses. Now she’s a major Americana star, bringing her spiritual folk to people all over the world. She recently earned her first Grammy nomination for “Call Me A Fool,” a duet with another of Memphis’ favorite daughters, Carla Thomas, from her most recent album, 2021’s The Moon and the Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers.
The video for “Call Me A Fool” was directed by Sam Cannon, with art direction by another Memphis ex-pat, acclaimed photographer Tommy Kha. We can’t embed the “Call Me A Fool” video here, so you should slide over to YouTube and watch it at this link.
What’s better than one Valerie June? TWO Valerie Junes!
You can keep up with all the latest from Valerie June at her very prolific YouTube channel, where she leads guided meditations and drops gems like this one, a cover of Daniel Johnston’s “True Love Will Find You In The End.” This simple clip shows you Val’s raw talent. Even though she’ll be appearing with her band in big venues during her upcoming spring tour, she’s still got the charm and chops Memphians remember from the coffee shops.
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Carla Thomas in the 1960s (Photo courtesy of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music)
Tonight will represent an apotheosis of sorts for one of the most original voices to emerge from Memphis, via that crucible of unique voices, Stax Records. Carla Thomas helped create one of the very first hits for the precursor to that label, Satellite Records, with “Cause I Love You,” which she sang with her father Rufus Thomas in 1960. Now, over 60 years later, she’ll be honored with an Inspiration Award at the 20th Annual Americana Honors & Awards show in Nashville, during a ceremony at the Ryman Auditorium. It’s the hallmark event of the association’s annual Americanafest, taking place Sept. 22-25.
It’s fitting that she’s being recognized as an Americana artist. After Valerie June released her recent track “Call Me A Fool,” she told NPR that her collaborator on the vocal duet, Thomas, “remains a queen and total superstar, Aretha-equivalent.” And for June, that had a very personal dimension. As she told the Memphis Flyer this past spring, “I needed her, because the record is a bunch of songs to inspire dreamers. I think the world needs more dreamers now, and as we look around at all the things that need to change, it’s like a dream journey. You always have to have what I call a fairy godmother, that wise voice. And Carla was the fairy godmother of this record. She might be the Queen of Memphis Soul, but for me, she’s my fairy godmother. She’s the wise voice.”
Of course, “Cause I Love You” was just the beginning of Carla Thomas’s run of recordings for Stax and Atlantic Records through the 1960s, which made her the “Queen of Memphis Soul.” With an effervescent and romantic voice that laid bare her teen and 20-something emotions, Thomas bridged soul, country, and gospel as one of the key artists of a great musical and social movement.
She practically grew up at the Palace Theater on Beale Street where Rufus was an emcee. Inspired by singers Jackie Wilson and Brenda Lee, Thomas was singing early, joining WDIA’s Teen Town Singers at age 10. After recording “Cause I Love You” with her father, she hit early as a solo artist with the pop and R&B charter “Gee Whiz (Look At His Eyes).” She’d be popular on the label for more than a decade, appearing on American Bandstand and cutting a full album of duets with Otis Redding months before his death in 1967. She was also a top performer at the influential Wattstax concert of 1972.
In later years, Thomas turned more of her energy to Artists In The Schools, a youth-focused non-profit. The Rhythm & Blues Foundation honored her in 1993 with its exclusive Pioneer Award. The Inspiration Award has been granted only once before, to Thomas’s Stax/Atlantic colleague Mavis Staples.
In this edition of our summer reading guide, the Flyer staff has dutifully compiled a list of local (and farther afield) tomes we think will wrinkle your brain or send your imagination on a ride. From Memphis to Mississippi to Nashville, this list brims with fiction and nonfiction, volumes of poetry, and two examples of YA fiction — a bildungsroman and a dystopian thriller.
So enough delays — we hope you enjoy this list of some of our favorite books from 2021.
Maps for the Modern World
by Valerie June Hockett
(Andrews McMeel Publishing, $14.99)
This is your time.
Enjoy this life.
Learn its lessons.
You will never come this way
In this same body
Again.
— “Sacredness of All Things”
Some of you may have met Memphis songstress Valerie June many moons ago, before the world met her, when she gigged in town and worked at Maggie’s Pharm. She radiated an inner light. Her warmth stretched across the room like a hug. It was as if there were secrets to the universe that she knew the answer to.
These days, she’s gracing late night TV and some of the biggest venues and festivals in the nation (and the world, when international tours are a thing). Browse her Instagram, and you’ll see that knowing smile, read of her meditations and yogic rituals, her ceremonial offerings of gratitude in alignment with a full moon, deep in the woods or alongside a flowing stream — where she finds harmony between herself and Mother Earth. A harmony that exists for us all.
In her life, and in her book of poetry and original illustrations, Maps for the Modern World, June acknowledges that all humans suffer — that “somewhere at every moment there lives a tragedy,” but, she muses, if we sit still — very still — and become more aware of our interconnectedness with all things, decide which seeds we wish to water (personal or within our communities), we can and will endure, embracing each precious moment as we go. — Shara Clark
The Heathens
by Ace Atkins
(G.P. Putnam’s Sons, $27 hardcover)
Things are heating up in Tibbehah County again, and Quinn Colson has really got his hands full this time around. The Heathens is Oxford writer Ace Atkins’ 11th tale featuring the wild and wooly denizens of his fictional North Mississippi county and their intrepid Sheriff Colson, and it hits all of Atkins’ trademark notes; meaning, it delivers satisfying dollops of action and suspense.
The tale centers around young Tanya Jane Byrd, who is suspected in the brutal murder of her mother. Before she can be brought to justice — or some semblance of it — she scoots off for parts unknown in a stolen minivan with her boyfriend, her 9-year-old brother, and her best friend Holly.
Colson gives chase, as do the real killers. (You knew there’d be real killers, right?) The plot is twisty and quirky, but the best part of Atkins’ Tibbehah County tales is usually the insanely weird and often-violent supporting cast. One suspects these bottom-of-the-gene-pool types — Chester Pratt, Chastity Bloodgood, Johnny T. Stagg, to name three — are probably based on real-life counterparts, with some exaggeration, of course.
The Heathens is a fast-paced page-turner, perfect for summer. Just stay out of Tibbehah County if you know what’s good for you. — Bruce VanWyngarden
The Son of Mr. Suleman
by Eric Jerome Dickey
(Dutton, $27 hardcover)
The new novel by Memphis-born New York Times bestselling author Eric Jerome Dickey was published posthumously. Dickey passed away in January of this year, but his final novel, published in April — one of 29 written by the prolific wordsmith — stands as a last gift to his many fans.
“When gods became bored in heaven they walked among mortals.” So begins The Son of Mr. Suleman, with what feels like divine poetry. The novel follows Professor Pi Suleman, a Black man working as an adjunct professor in the final throes of Trump’s America. Pi must navigate the power dynamics of academia as well as confront a blackmailer, even as he also embarks on a whirlwind romance with the beautiful London-to-Memphis transplant Gemma Buckingham. Then, upon learning of his absentee father’s death, Pi is summoned to Los Angeles to collect his inheritance and learn about his famous father, a celebrated writer who the world knew better than Pi himself did.
The Son of Mr. Suleman deals with weighty concepts — racism, power dynamics, culture differences, politics, love, and death — but not at the expense of true-to-life prose, steamy romance, or a propulsive plot. And the pages are dotted with references to the Bluff City and its history. “That’s scary,” Pi tells Gemma at one point. “Your mood turned like Memphis weather in wintertime.”
The dialogue rings true, and the ending, when it comes, is a happy one made authentic by the acknowledgement of life’s many complexities. — Jesse Davis
Indestructible Object
by Mary McCoy
(Simon & Schuster, $18.99 hardcover)
Written by Mary McCoy, Printz Honor author and Rhodes College alum, this YA novel embraces what it’s like to come of age in Memphis. Lee Swann, a recent high school graduate, has always lived in the Memphis art scene and can’t imagine her life anywhere else. She even plans to attend college in Memphis, but a break-up with her long-term boyfriend, followed by her parents’ announcement of their separation, leaves her in a crisis of identity and purpose. Unable to cope with the present, Lee, with the help of some friends, turns to the past and to her love of podcasting to tell her parents’ love story, her origin story. Along the way, Lee uncovers secrets about her family, her friends, and herself.
Told from Lee’s perspective and interspersed with transcripts from her podcast, the novel explores themes of art, friendship, family, romance, and love. McCoy’s writing is funny and self-aware yet raw as its plot is brought to life by the complicated and flawed relationships among the diverse set of lovable characters. And for someone who typically avoids any novel marketed as a rom-com on top of being a YA, I found myself rooting for the characters so much so that I read the book embarrassingly quickly. (To be clear, I have nothing against rom-coms. I love a good rom-com movie, but I hold my books to a different standard. Or maybe that’s what I tell myself, so I don’t feel like a book-snob.) Part of the appeal of a rom-com novel is its predictability, but McCoy subverts that predictability enough to keep up the reader’s interest without breaking the rom-com contract of a happy ending. We just get there in an unexpected way, and even the ending itself is unexepected. As such, Indestructible Object is perfect for anyone — book-snob or not, young adult or not — looking for an easy-to-read, delightful summer novel. — Abigail Morici
Hot, Hot Chicken: A Nashville Story
by Rachel Louise Martin
(Vanderbilt University Press, $19.95)
We’ve all tried that wonderful poultry inferno that is the Nashville specialty of hot chicken (if you haven’t, you should). The spiced flaming bird came to Memphis a couple years back with the opening of Hattie B’s, but hot chicken identifies as a staple of our neighbor three hours to the east. But as is the case with many iconic American dishes, the line between food and folklore is blurred. In Hot, Hot Chicken: A Nashville Story, Rachel Louise Martin dives into the mythology surrounding the dish and how hot chicken came to be.
But Martin’s book reaches for greater heights than just a focus on Nashville spiced meat. Hot chicken has a long and complex history that is intertwined with Nashville’s growth over the past century and inexorably linked with the city’s Black population. The legend goes that a jilted wife of James Thornton Prince created the dish in a fit of rage to punish him after a night out cheating, but apparently Prince loved the flaming-hot chicken so much that he told all his friends about it and eventually opened a restaurant to serve it. The James Beard-recognized business is run today by his great-niece, André Prince Jeffries, but the identity of the original “chef” is a puzzle.
The dish’s origins present a mystery for Martin to unravel. Which woman first made the dish? As a womanizer, Prince left many viable candidates to be the inventor of hot chicken. But the difficulty in pinning this down is the sadder side of the tale. It’s the story of Black families and communities being torn apart for the sake of new developments in Nashville, and how much of Black history in America has been intentionally erased or simply left unrecorded. So don’t go into Hot, Hot Chicken expecting a simple food parable. Martin weaves a tale of the history of Nashville itself, with all the social, political, and culinary issues that entails. — Samuel X. Cicci
Drained
by Marc Daniel Acriche
(Sunken Island Books, $14.99)
Predicting the future is hard and getting harder. In a world of 7 billion people and counting, there are a lot of moving parts to keep track of. In the sci-fi YA novel Drained, Marc Daniel Acriche builds a convincing New York City of 2048 by not ignoring the elephant in the future room: climate change. Manhattan is still a teeming wonderland of towers, as long as you’re north of the “light border.” That’s where teenage Casey lives and attends school at the exclusive Roosevelt Prep. Her best friend Jennifer is the daughter of Michael Hargrove, the man destined to be the next mayor of the decaying city. Casey’s father was a respected DA, until he mysteriously vanished a year ago. He’s not the only person who is missing. Jennifer’s boyfriend Martin disappeared from his home in the section of the city where electricity is intermittent, at best. When the friends go looking for him, Casey uncovers a plot by Hargrove to build his private militia into an army of mind-controlled soldiers. She must tap into bravery and resourcefulness she didn’t know she had to save what is left of the world.
Unlike the extravagant villains of The Hunger Games, Hargrove is a recognizable American politician whose glad-handing exterior hides the heart of a brutal tyrant. Casey is an urban Katniss Everdeen whose battlefield is her own mind. The technology in Acriche’s world is all too plausible, given Mark Zuckerberg’s and Elon Musk’s fascination with brain implants. Most plausible of all are the games of high-tech, high-stakes hide-and-seek among the drowned streets of New York. “It was October, it was well over ninety degrees, and it had been like this for days,” Acriche writes. Drained is a fast-paced novel of post-cyberpunk action that reads like a weather report from the near future. — Chris McCoy
The Survival Expo
by Caki Wilkinson
(Persea Books, $15.95)
In this book of poetry, there is a recurring character named Hope. “Hope Comes to Elvis Week,” “Hope Brings Back Half a Rack of Ribs,” and “Hope and Superstition” are just a few poems featuring this character. You might be starting to get a picture of Hope. Hope boxes, picks up shifts at Wendy’s, and steals. She’s more familiar than we’d like to admit, perhaps even a part of our own id, ego, and super-ego.
The two standout poems for me were “Flyover Country” and “Georgics.” The former resonates with me, quite simply, because I love to drive. It spoke to me by listing places between Memphis and Bristol. Each line has four city names. I struggle to make them make sense in some way — even if they shouldn’t, I make them make sense. The last line: “Needmore Prospect Liberty Moons.”
The latter, “Georgics” seems to allude to a poem published by Virgil in 29 B.C. about agriculture. It has four parts. Wilkinson’s poem by contrast admits that she is bad at husbandry. Okay. Fine. And yet, Wilkinson’s poem cultivated another part — a part five. In part five you get the all-too-familiar by now kick in the teeth. Oh, yes. The beauty of Wilkinson’s work can be found in the gut-wrenching punches. In part five, she ruins her relationship “like all the others.”
Wilkinson is a brilliant poet who takes her reader more often than not on a trip “in a borrowed car with a guy called Nuh-Uh.” You can meet Nuh-Uh in “Juvenilia.” — Julie Ray
Music, Math, and Mind: The Physics and Neuroscience of Music
by David Sulzer
(Columbia University Press, $27.99 paperback)
What is this thing called music? Readers devoted to the auditory arts will delight in this 300-page exploratorium, which covers every facet of the sounds we register as meaningful: how a sound wave propagates through air; why the same pitch played on different instruments registers as “violin” versus “flute”; how simple math — with whole numbers! — leads to scales, simply by halving or otherwise dividing lengths of string or pipe. Delving further, Sulzer explains why some sounds present as “noise” versus “notes,” or how compelling rhythms can be better understood mathematically. The grand finale draws on Sulzer’s work as a neurobiologist at Columbia University, as he explores the physiology of brainwaves and neuronal clocks, or of sound waves moving from the ear to the brain and thence to the emotions.
The real accomplishment is how Sulzer, aka the prolific musician and composer Dave Soldier, relates all this in a jaunty, conversational manner. Drawn into the mystery, you barely realize that you’re learning some rather heady stuff. The listening guides at the end of each chapter bring the concepts to life with startlingly eclectic examples, including Bo Diddley (with whom Sulzer played in his youth), Steve Reich, Ethiopian krar music, Elvin Jones, Brahms, Pauline Oliveros, Thai elephants, Junior Kimbrough, Ravi Shankar, Celia Cruz, and flamenco, to name a few. All told, John Cale’s endorsement rings true when he calls it “an encyclopedia of our tonal imagination.” — Alex Greene
This month saw the release of a new album by Valerie June, The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers (Fantasy Records), which may be the singer/songwriter’s most fully realized work yet. Rolling Stone called it a “stunning song cycle of redemption and reclamation.” Essence pronounced it “a magical, country-soul offering.”
Ironically, for someone who has lived in Brooklyn for nearly a decade, this may also be the most Memphis-influenced record of her career. The city where she first honed her craft has always been an aesthetic touchstone, but, partly thanks to co-producer Jack Splash (Kendrick Lamar, Alicia Keys), June found herself discovering new things about the city’s heritage. After mentioning her imminent plans to return to Humboldt, Tennessee, to help her mother with the garden, the artist reflected on what she was still learning about the city where it all got started.
Memphis Flyer: This album takes a dramatic leap into orchestration. What prompted your new interest in richer, more lush arrangements?
Valerie June: I’ve worked and built up trust with my whole team, so they were like ‘Yeah, we’ll give you some backing.’ But that’s taken years, to prove myself, make the connections, meet the musicians. Like meeting [former Stax producer and arranger] Mr. Lester Snell. I lived in Memphis 10 years and didn’t even know who he was [laughs]. I felt so dumb when Jack Splash, the co-producer, said to me, ‘We’ve got to get Mr. Lester to do the string arrangements on this record.’ And I was like, ‘Who’s that?’ And he said, ‘You don’t know who he is, but you lived in Memphis for a decade?’ I was like, ‘Nope!’ But I went over to his house and met him and Miss Pat, and we worked on the songs, and it was so fun. From there we went over to Sam Phillips Recording. It was my first time being in there, working on my own stuff. And Jack made all of that possible.
Valerie June (Photo: Renata Raksha)
The authentic old school soul of “Call Me a Fool” really gets a lift from Carla Thomas’ appearance on background vocals. How did that come about?
Boo Mitchell hooked me up with Vaneese Thomas, Carla’s sister, and I asked Carla if she’d sing on my song. And she said ‘Sure! I’ll meet you there at Royal Studios.’ Boo engineered the session for us. And as she talked to us, telling us stories about Stax and country music and how she loves it. I was like, ‘We’ve got to get you to read this African proverb, because your speaking voice is so incredible.’
And her singing voice is perfect. You can’t miss it. [Sings woooo-hoooo] All of that is her. It’s so good! So we have layers and layers of her beautiful soprano.
I needed her, because the record is a bunch of songs to inspire dreamers. I think the world needs more dreamers now, and as we look around at all the things that need to change, it’s like a dream journey. You always have to have what I call a fairy godmother, that wise voice. And Carla was the fairy godmother of this record. She might be the Queen of Memphis Soul, but for me, she’s my fairy godmother. She’s the wise voice.
Will you be doing a live-stream show to mark the release of this record?
Not that I know of. I do have a book coming out. It’s called Maps for the Modern World [Andrews McMeel], and it’s going to be in stores worldwide on April 6th. It’s a lot of poems and insights into mindfulness and sweetness in the world. More hopeful things. More presecriptions.
In the meantime, good luck getting down to Humboldt to do some gardening.
Before this past weekend, the last time I listened to Valerie June was in a tiny art shop in Paparoa, New Zealand at the end of May with my wife and sister.
The Memphis-raised alt-folk star was playing on the stereo, and the shop’s owner excitedly described herself as a big fan. We were just as thrilled to let her know that June was from our neck of the woods.
She was back there yesterday, playing what was arguably the finest set of Mempho’s second day at Shelby Farms Park. Wearing a blue-purple frock and sparkling pants, June came armed with her famously unmatchable sense of positivity — and the ability to show her hometown audience why people like Bob Dylan think she’s absolutely the bees’ knees.
From ‘Shakedown’ to ‘Astral Plane’, June played all her big hits, but it was her heartfelt tribute to Mary Burns that really put the hook in. Burns, the beloved owner of Cooper-Young’s Java Cabana who died this month after battling lung cancer, played a major role in June’s life. June played her first ever gig at the cafe, was close with Burns until the end — and last night, played the 2013 track ‘Somebody to Love’ on banjo to honor her friend.
“You look around the world and you find your people,” June told the crowd. “You find your heart people – your soul people. Mary was one of those for me.”
“I’m not going to cry,” she continued, “instead I’m going to think about her spirit. That Memphis spirit. That ‘pull yourself up by your own bootstraps’ spirit. That ‘if the world don’t believe in you, believe in yourself’ spirit.”
Her set’s conclusion – which saw her joined by iconic local musician Hope Clayburn for ‘Working Woman Blues’ — was the perfect cork for her hour on stage.
Nathan Armstrong
Brandi Carlile at Mempho
Before June performed, local favorites The MDs, paying tribute to Booker T & the MGs, were the pick of the afternoon acts. Afterwards, it was alt-country headliner Brandi Carlile that deserves the plaudits. At nearly an hour and a half, Carlile — nominated this year for six Grammys — delivered a sharp, impressive performance to wrap up the festival, pulling numbers from throughout a long career in alt-country.
Like the Wu-Tang Clan the night before, Carlile — flanked, as always, by long-time collaborators Tim and Phil Hanseroth — ruminated on Memphis’ musical history (“how iconic is this town?”) as well as recalling a gig she played in a dive bar near the University of Memphis that saw crawfish heads lying on the floor by the end of the performance.
Earlier, the Revivalists provided a spirited set, though lead singer David Shaw was perhaps asked to do too much by his largely immobile band mates, gamely providing the only stage presence. Still, their crowd rivaled that of The Raconteurs the night before. Californian indie popsters lovelytheband disappointed, with lead singer Mitchy Collins seeming to spend more time talking about the band than playing their tunes. Show, don’t tell, brother.
For me however, June was the needle that really hit the groove. Watching one of Memphis’ finest recent musical imports doing her thing as the last few rays of weekend light yawned across the festival, it’s hard to think of a better lasting memory of this year’s Mempho. Spencer Johnson, Creative Studios
The Beale Street Music Festival ended on a high note, selling out all tickets by 5 p.m. Final attendance numbers won’t be released until the Annual Report in August; however, organizers say the weekend’s attendees came from all fifty states and twenty foreign countries.
For me, it all started with Valerie June. You could hear her distinctive, keening alto cut through the hubbub of the crowd far upriver of the stage. By virtue of her voice, and her very eclectic material, she was a unique presence on the last day of 2018’s festival. On the whole, she conjured up visions of people of the mountains, and the plain-spoken sounds of the Carter Family, even when using her banjo to lead the band through blues grooves that could have sprung out of North Mississippi or West Africa. Once you got close enough to the stage, you could see June herself, a “great speckled bird” in her sequined hot pants, glittering top, and horn-rimmed glasses, as if Minnie Pearl had moved to Paisley Park. It was an inspired set, and a welcome homecoming for June, who began her career in local coffee shops and clubs.
Valerie June
She was clearly delighted to be back. “This song is for Tennessee,” she said before launching into “Tennessee Time,” then dedicated another to “anyone who’s ever touched that river, or crossed that river, or been a part of that river.” Local bandleader Hope Clayburn joined in on saxophone, and June’s brothers added background harmonies to many songs. The band could certainly groove, which made the set closer, Woody Guthrie’s “I Ain’t Got No Home in this World Anymore,” all the more powerful by way of contrast.
Unlike Saturday, which briefly endured a downpour and hailstorm, Sunday was idyllic, a smattering of clouds bringing relief to the sunshine and mild heat. It was also agreeably less crowded, making for easy wandering between stages, at least before the headliners got cranked up. I wandered over to another local woman who’s making waves, Porcelan. A protege of David Porter’s The Consortium MMT organization, Porcelan led a guitarless band through tightly crafted contemporary R&B. The crowd was a tad smaller, but enthusiastic, especially when things heated up with her “I Am the One.” She then noted, “I am a Memphis artist. Memphis may be known for its barbecue, but it’s also known for talent. This is for all the Memphis artists who are out there cuttin’ it up.” Porcelan was well-prepared to win new fans, instructing the audience to “take those phones out and follow me! I just started my Snapchat!” And while there were some odes to material success (“I need that bacon!” she sang), Porcelan played against the idea with her clever “Goal Digger,” exhorting her man to get with the program, any program.
Alex Greene
Jimmy ‘Duck’ Holmes
Wandering deeper into the festival, I came across an odd juxtaposition as I neared the Blues Shack. Jimmy “Duck” Holmes held court there with timeless blues grooves and soulful singing, but the heavily amplified kick drum from the nearby Luke Combs show pounded the air like cannon fire. It was Holmes vs. Combs. Holmes soldiered on, unfazed, and the rapt Blues Shack crowd seemed to collectively erase the competing sounds, and the tips rolled in. From the Bud Light Stage, Combs yelled, “100,000 people on Beale Street is a pretty good time!” and just then, as if in answer, Holmes moaned his verse, “yes, I’m broke,” and drove the riff home.
Eventually, country megastar Combs gave a shout out to Tennessee to tremendous applause, before launching into a country/soul version of “Tennessee Whiskey.” But when he later dove into his hit, “When it Rains it Pours,” the white noise of the cheering crowd was downright deafening. As I wandered back north to catch some of Young Doph’s set, I heard one passerby exclaim to a friend, “Wait, you’re not drunk yet??”
Memphis’ own Love Light Orchestra was rocking the Coca-Cola Blues Tent with some genuine Beale Street sounds: a stomping band with a full horn section recapturing the glory days of big band blues. Singer John Nemeth was ready for anything in his brilliant red jumpsuit. Then I caught some powerful, earthy beats from D.R.A.M. Meanwhile, a man in a “Memphis As Fuck” shirt came gliding by, his bushy beard painted with gold glitter. Perhaps it was a portent of the Flaming Lips.
Ah yes, the Flaming Lips. They did not fail to dazzle. To the art on the sides of the FedEx Stage, they added giant mushrooms. State of the art video visuals flashed behind the band, who, aside from the green wigs sported by the drumming duo of Nick Ley and Matt Duckworth, or a splash of mylar sported by Steven Drozd, were relatively subdued, sartorially-speaking. But lead singer Wayne Coyne was dressed smartly, with blinking bling and an eyepatch, like an ambassador from a Star Trek episode. Coyne and his six companions brought a sound palette as rich as their records, from folk strumming to prog beats, techno zaps and bleeps, and lush, Mellotron-like symphonic harmonies. (Indeed, the progressions and textures realized by Drozd continue to mark the Lips as pioneers of both electronic experimentation and traditional orchestration). Memphian Jake Ingalls played either guitar or sat cross-legged before an array of synths at his feet. Giant pink robots, a mega-rainbow, and Coyne sitting astride a huge neon unicorn were but some of the delights, as beach balls floated and confetti rained down. Early in the set, the phrase “Fuck Yeah Memphis” in larger-than-life inflatable letters was raised onstage. They clearly
have some love for the Bluff City.
Beale Street Music Festival 2018: Sunday
As dark settled in, Venus glowing like a beacon above the river, the band launched into David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” Coyne climbed into his “space bubble” and was propelled by dozens of uplifted hands out over the crowd. Ingalls contributed a spot-on lead during the swelling bridge, and the band did Bowie’s legacy proud. Bianca Mayfield Burks
Graham Burks and son Graham III after close encounter
After landing back on stage, Coyne spotlighted a youngster in the crowd who’d been sitting atop his parent’s shoulders.
He apologized for any anxiety or head-butting that might have occurred during his space bubble foray, but the young lad beamed and signaled that he was okay, to much applause. Indeed, the youngster is the son of Memphis’ own Bianca and Graham Burks, the latter being a key player in the city’s alternative music scene. Graham Burks
Burks’ Close Encounter of the Bubble Kind
Coyne congratulated them on their parenting skills from the stage.
Beale Street Music Festival 2018: Sunday (2)
Generously enough, Coyne mentioned how excited the band was to see Post Malone after their set. And the crowd did seem to swarm en masse over to see the blockbuster singer’s show. With an intriguing mix of hip hop, R&B, and echoes of dance hall, Malone had a huge crowd gyrating along. It was stunning, then, to hear him sing a ballad with only acoustic guitar. Despite his down to earth persona, he carried the night like royalty.
But the real royalty was yet to come: the Queen of Neo-Soul, Erykah Badu. Though the crowd grew restless waiting for her to start, even booing an MC who came out to assure us that the queen would appear “in five minutes,” all was forgiven once she hit the stage. Her stage show was not as over-the-top as the Lips’, though featuring intriguing images of pyramids and scientific schematics, but her sheer presence, her remarkable voice, and a world class band of jazz/soul players made for a stunning festival capstone. Courtesy Beale Street Music Festival
Erykah Badu
As she announced, this year marks the 21st anniversary of her album Baduism. “I wrote Baduism for the ’90s babies,” she said, referring especially to her son who was born at the time. “Words are not necessary. All the ’90s babies know: it’s all frequencies and vibrations.” Exhorting the massive audience to raise their hands, she proclaimed, “We’ve just transcended race.” Then, she explained some of her iconography. “The circle represents the womb. Put your hands on your womb, if you have one. The extended arms represent Fallopian tubes. And the straight line pointing down represents the male principle. Brothers, put your hand on your male principle! Unless a sister already has her hand on your male principle.” As she sang many songs from her breakthrough album of the ’90s, half the crowd sang along, word for word. Clearly Badu reigns in the hearts and principles of many a Memphian.
Nathan Armstrong 
Nathan Armstrong 
Spencer Johnson, Creative Studios 
Courtesy Beale Street Music Festival 
Alex Greene 
Bianca Mayfield Burks 
Graham Burks 
Courtesy Beale Street Music Festival