Pat Rainer has been so deep in the Memphis scene she’s often left no shadow. She’s a recordist of all kinds—including audio engineer for Alex Chilton’s Like Flies on Sherbert. She always kept a camera close (photo and video), creating an archival treasure.
Tav Falco is known for his music, but fans of his albums know his photographic talents. I’ve featured his portraits, but his candids and landscapes are also powerful.
Axel Küstner was, like me, struck by the blues at fourteen years old—but he was in Germany. He met the artists on the 1970s package tours, and soon began traveling the American South making photographs and recordings. His album series Living Country Blues USA is a phenomenal snapshot of southern blues in 1980. He’s got tens of thousands of beautiful photographs spanning the 1970s through the early 2000s.
Pat Rainer at Graceland, the day after Elvis died, 1977. (Courtesy of Pat Rainer)
Bill Steber and Yancey Allison have each been shooting the north Mississippi hill country for decades. Their familiarity with the people, the mundanity, and the poetry of the area has produced intimate, exciting photographs.
Ebet Roberts was shooting around Memphis when the new freedom of the post-hippie 1970s was breaking open; she was poised to capture the punk rock energy. Not long after, Trey Harrison and then Dan Ball were out with cameras; neither was limited to the music scene and both have pursued the conflicted spirit that underlies the city (which is what Ted Barron has done around NYC). Dan Zarnstorff, proprietor of the Loose End, created the right places and kept his camera handy all the time. Huger Foote has made beautiful art prints in the Eggleston school, and has also shot the nightclub nitty gritty. So has David Julian Leonard, whose negative clean-up work made some of these photographs possible (find his Tender Is the Light).
The cover photo is among those shot by Bill Steber. It’s from Thompson’s Grocery, a juke joint in Bobo, Mississippi, that burned in 1996. That’s Sam Carr on drums—he recorded for Sam Phillips in 1962 as part of Frank Frost and the Night Hawks (evolving later into the Jelly Roll Kings). The guitarist is Clarksdale’s Terry Williams. Dancer Debra Hooks told Bill, “Everybody else acts like they’re scared to get up. I’m sorry, I ain’t fixing to sit down.”
Grateful hat tip to all the photographers who contributed.