I suppose the Flyer‘s other Chrises — film editor McCoy and music editor Shaw — will be writing about this in the days and weeks to come. But since FOTW works the local wrestling beat, it seemed appropriate to break the news here. The creative team behind Memphis Heat: The True Story of Memphis Wrasslin’ is celebrating the documentary’s 5-year anniversary with a March 24th screening at MALCO’s Cinema Paradiso that doubles as an official release party for the film’s previously unavailable soundtrack. Serious vinyl nerds will want to know that the handsome blood red platter was the first disc cut on Phillips Recording’s newly refurbished record lathe. But that’s just trivia. The Doug Easley-produced tracks — often introduced with sound bytes from the movie — are all pretty fantastic too.
The record opens with a clip of Superstar Bill Dundee explaining the meaning of heat: “Heat is when they don’t like ya.” The Superstar’s definition transitions perfectly into “Black Knight,” a full throttle scorcher by River City Tanlines. It’s an excellent start to a disc as offbeat and entertaining as the film that inspired it.
The Memphis Heat Soundtrack is Hot Stuff
“Black Knight,” is also the only track on the entire record that wasn’t created expressly for Memphis Heat. What follows is a series of punchy instrumentals that will do the same thing for your ass they do for the film: Make it move.
This is probably my favorite (mostly) original Memphis movie soundtrack since Impala scored Mike McCarthy’s Teenage Tupelo. The tracks, recorded by a clutch of Memphis’ finest players, have a vintage feel and walk such a fine line between joyous and sleazy they may remind some listeners of the Las Vegas Grind series.
Good stuff.
The Memphis Heat Soundtrack is Hot Stuff (2)
