DIGGING DEEPER FOR DIFFERENT—FURTHER LISTENING AND READING

Curious how some of these musicians sound? Hear them (sometimes at their most outré) on the soundtrack to this book, also called Memphis Rent Party. Order it from your local record store. It features a dozen or so selections from some of this book’s artists—hi-fi, lo-fi, glorious, and immediate. The track listing is being finalized, but there’s lots of unreleased material on it and it swings hard in moods, rhythms and time. Fat Possum Records is releasing it.

If you like anything about this book or my others, you’ll frolic in Peter Guralnick’s work. His Feel Like Going Home tells the blues story through profiles, from rural Mississippi’s Muddy Waters to Jerry Lee Lewis and Sam Phillips. Lost Highway swings to the country music side, including a profile of Charlie Feathers but also Rufus Thomas, Bobby “Blue” Bland, and Sam Phillips. (And Cowboy Jack Clement (because you need to know.)) And then comes Sweet Soul Music, which braids Ray Charles and Atlantic, James Brown, Memphis’s Stax and Hi, Muscle Shoals, and Macon, Georgia. His writing on James Carr and Roosevelt Jamison will make you cry. www.peterguralnick.com

Stanley Booth writes elegantly about Memphis in his collection Rythm Oil (including a great Johnny Woods anecdote). Preston Lauterbach has chronicled the Beale Street doorways and byways in Beale Street Dynasty, with an imminent volume covering the mid-1950s to late 1960s. There’s a transcribed and annotated visit with Furry Lewis in Fred Hay’s Goin’ Back to Sweet Memphis, a collection of 1972 interviews that gives a documentary feel of an afternoon hang at Furry’s. Greil Marcus’s oft-updated Mystery Train—with Harmonica Frank, Robert Johnson, Elvis—remains a provocative American classic. (There are Harmonica Frank releases on Memphis International, Adelphi / Genes, and Mississippi Records; more to explore at all of those labels.) Memphian Ron Hall has a series of books that go deep into the Memphis rock and roll scene of the 1960s and ’70s; start with Playing for a Piece of the Door, which can be found among other interesting Memphis projects at www.shangrilaprojects.com.

Some blues books of note: For the real-deal feel of an itinerant blues life in the 1930s and ’40s, The World Don’t Owe Me Nothing by David “Honeyboy” Edwards should be your first stop. There are great details in the in-depth interviews in Jim O’Neal and Amy Van Singel’s The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from Living Blues Magazine. David Whiteis profiles many contemporary chitlin circuit players in Southern Soul-Blues. Charles Hughes’s Country Soul manages a fresh perspective on events long past, such as the influence of country music on disco.

You’re bound to make a trip here, and I’ve written some tips in the New York Times that remain relevant: “36 Hours in Memphis,” May 6, 2005, www.nytimes.com/2005/05/06/travel/escapes/in-memphis.html. Also “36 Hours in Clarksdale, Miss.,” June 16, 2006, www.nytimes.com/2006/06/16/travel/escapes/16hour.html. Your stay will be greatly enhanced if you get the lay of the land from Tad Pierson’s tour; the city never looks better than through the window of his 1955 Cadillac: www.facebook.com/AmericanDreamSafari/.

And there’s my own stuff—books, the CD series that’s a companion to It Came from Memphis, the music films. More info at www.therobertgordon.com. Come on in, the water’s great.

PREFACE

My favorite Furry Lewis album is Fourth and Beale. From 1969, it’s two microphones hanging over Furry’s bed, and he’s comfortable among friends—including Ardent producer Terry Manning. George Mitchell’s recording, Good Morning Judge, catches Furry in 1962 and ’67 playing with a vigor I never knew him to have. (Fat Possum Records bought the entirety of the George Mitchell collection, recordings made from the 1960s to the 1980s across the south. Sleepy John Estes, Dewey Corley, Jessie Mae Hemphill—find George’s book, Blow My Blues Away.)

For information on the 1968 sanitation worker’s strike, read Michael K. Honey’s Going Down Jericho Road and Joan Turner Beifuss’s At the River I Stand. The documentary also named At the River I Stand remains a longtime favorite. For a more personal and poetic sense of the era’s racial tension, devour C. D. Wright’s One With Others.

SAM PHILLIPS: Sam on Dave

Peter Guralnick’s Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ’n’ Roll is a deep and thrilling dive into the world of Sam. It’s amazing what fits between the covers—not only encounters with all the great musicians Sam recorded, but also his outsize exploits in radio, zinc mining, and women. The book’s companion CD mixes hits and deep cuts—well over two hours of music. The documentary on Sam, also titled Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ’n’ Roll, is out of print but find it if you can. Made by Morgan Neville and Peter Guralnick, it features interviews with many who were close to Sam, including Sputnik Monroe, Jim Dickinson, John Prine—and lots of Sam!

Good Rockin’ Tonight, by Colin Escott and Martin Hawkins, remains a great overview of the Sun label. John Floyd’s oral history, Sun Records, has been recently republished and hits hard with the tales from those who were there. Sam’s studios—recording artists note—remain active; both Sun and the Sam Phillips Recording Service are available for your recording needs. The latter has been recently refurbished and it maintains Sam’s original design.

JIM DICKINSON: On the Edge

There’s lots of places to get in deeper with Jim. His autobiography, I’m Just Dead, I’m Not Gone, came out in 2017 and feels like a long afternoon’s hang with Jim while he recollects the stories that made him who he became. Jim’s Dixie Fried may be his masterpiece, and it’s a great place to start—a big production, but not overblown. There’s an expanded edition from Light in the Attic Records (www.lightintheattic.net). Thirty years later, Jim released a follow-up album and then five more (www.selectohits.com and Artemis Records)—each distinct, all good; don’t miss Birdman’s Fishing With Charlie—it’s spoken word. Jim occasionally released compilations from his archives in a series he called Delta Experimental Projects. Buy on sight. There’s only two Mud Boy albums (a third is a compilation of the two), Negro Streets at Dawn and Known Felons in Drag. Both are hard to find, both are great. More at www.zebraranch.com.

ERNEST WILLIS: Mississippi Reverie

The Center for Southern Folklore is in downtown Memphis on Main Street and presents live music (www.southernfolklore.com). Their gift shop is stocked with treasures. I made my first film with the Center, All Day and All Night—B. B. King, Rufus Thomas, and other musicians rising from Memphis’s Beale Street to national prominence. It’s available in HD at www.alldayandallnight.com. When managing the center’s audio library, I heard my first prison recordings, Wake Up Dead Man. Bruce Jackson recorded convicts in Texas prison—some work gangs outside, some individuals in forlorn, echoing rooms. Powerful, and a great intro to the genre.

I’ve not found a lot of information on Professor W. T. McDaniel, the band teacher whose south side students became soul music artists and north side students jazz players, but there’s this: memphismusichalloffame.com/inductee/profwtmcdaniel/.

MOSE VINSON: No Pain Pill

Piano Man, the CD that my liner notes accompany, can be ordered from the Center for Southern Folklore: www.southernfolklore.com/product-page/mose-vinson-piano-man. Mose has a few tracks on the Bear Family label’s The Sun Blues Box, and a 1990 compilation, Memphis Piano Blues Today (Wolf Records), that also features Booker T. Laury, another barrelhouse great (Booker is featured in All Day and All Night). Cinematographer David Julian Leonard has posted footage from the Levitt Shell (formerly the Overton Park Shell); see Mose at www.youtube.com/watch?v=-toYnwdc6e0. Search “Levitt Shell archive” and “Memphis” for footage of Calvin Newborn, Phineas Newborn, Alex Chilton, Mud Boy, and many others.

THE FIELDSTONES: Got to Move on Down the Line

There’s lots of great High Water tracks. Roam around www.discogs.com/label/204644-High-Water-Recording-Company and spend some money. Buy any singles that you find. Some favorite groups:

Fieldstones

Blues Busters

Jessie Mae Hemphill

The Hollywood All Stars

The King Riders (a motorcycle club’s house band)

Hammie Nixon

The Pattersonaires

The Spirit of Memphis Quartet

R. L. Burnside

Junior Kimbrough

LEAD BELLY: Nobody in This World

Lead Belly’s Last Sessions is available digitally through Smithsonian Folkways at www.folkways.si.edu/shop. The biography, The Life and Legend of Leadbelly, by Charles Wolfe and Kip Lornell, is a good place to start. If the photo of Martha and Lead slays you (like it does me), find Lead Belly: A Life in Pictures.

The 1935 March of Time newsreel with Lead Belly and John Lomax can be found here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxykqBmUCwk.

ROBERT JOHNSON: Hellhound on the Money Trail

There’s lots of writing on this phantom of the Mississippi Delta. A few recommendations:

Peter Guralnick, Searching for Robert Johnson

Tom Graves, Crossroads

Elijah Wald, Escaping the Delta

Gayle Dean Wardlow, Chasin’ That Devil Music

Robert Palmer, Deep Blues and Blues & Chaos

Stanley Booth, “Standing at the Crossroads,” in Rythm Oil

Greil Marcus, Mystery Train

For listening, after the Robert Johnson boxed set, find The Roots of Robert Johnson (shanachie.com/genres/yazoo) and float in that pool of lyrics, riffs, and melodies that makes blues authorship perplexing. Some peers of note: Son House (I like the 1965 Columbia recordings), Charley Patton, and Tommy Johnson; the recent American Epic versions of their works are remarkably free of the surface noise that has made such old recordings difficult for the inexperienced ear.

A last Steve LaVere note: In the 1990s, he released some 1970s recordings he’d made while managing a touring blues troupe. The two volumes of the Memphis Blues Caravan are mostly live tracks featuring the likes of Furry Lewis, Harmonica Frank, Big Sam Clark, Joe Willie Wilkins, and others known in Memphis and surrounding areas. The recordings lack an immediacy, but the range of talent is amazing and the gesture of releasing them was very nice. (Hard to find now, these were once available through the Inside Sounds label, which releases the Daddy Mack Blues Band and others from the area. www.insidesounds.com)

JUNIOR KIMBROUGH: Mississippi Juke House

For me, the recording that best captures the sound of Junior’s Chulahoma juke joint is actually by R. L. Burnside, the album Too Bad Jim. Produced by Robert Palmer, the journalist and musician (but not the pop singer), Too Bad Jim gets the feel of that rollicking room. Bob also produced Junior Kimbrough’s Sad Days, Lonely Nights. Start there, and then get real gone in the Fat Possum catalog and the myriad releases from R. L. and Junior. R. L.’s Bad Luck City won’t disappoint; his Come On In is a pretty interesting techno remix, and A Ass Pocket of Whiskey, recorded with Jon Spencer’s Blues Explosion, gets edgier, and also gets to R. L.’s tale-telling and dozens-dishing. Dig Junior’s All Night Long, and while tribute records often leave me cold, I found the interpretations on Sunday Nights—from Cat Power, Iggy and the Stooges, Jack Oblivian, and others—a great way to rehear Junior’s songs.

There’s lots of great hill country recordings. And many of those are on the Fat Possum label. I’ve had remarkable luck with Fat Possum. The records they produce are usually edgy and raw, and they’ve become a repository of gritty Americana. Hill country artists to look for: Fred McDowell (his You Gotta Move on Arhoolie is a favorite; Amazing Grace is stirring), Asie Payton, Joe Callicott, Kenny Brown, Lightnin’ Malcolm, and Cedric Burnside (that’s R. L.’s grandson).

These are some notable Fat Possum blues artists not from the hill country: Cedell Davis, Elmo Williams and Hezekiah Early, Jelly Roll Kings, Paul “Wine” Jones, Robert Belfour, and T-Model Ford.

I came late to Willie King and missed Bettie’s, his red-dirt joint near Alabama. Willie plays dancing blues with, oddly and wonderfully, a jam band, groove-heavy feel. Get Jukin’ at Bettie’s or any Willie King you can find.

Shout-out to Spike Priggen and Kevin Salem, then in the band Dumptruck, who left the Aikei Pro in time to meet Junior Kimbrough and introduce me to him. Shout-out to Monsieur Jeffrey Evans, who had just moved to Memphis and came on that fine trip to Junior’s with Belinda. And always a shout-out to Belinda Killough Gordon! Her better recollection about fruit beer, in the quote you’re about to read, leaves my essay factually incorrect. Since her suggestion, I now remember at that later visit, or I have Photoshopped it into my memory, drinking several Kool-Aids with the patch of sunlight at my shoulder. The fact is lost, the blur remains. Print the blur!

“When we got to the shack, in the middle of summer in the middle of a cotton field,” Belinda wrote me, “it was blindingly light outside and extremely dark inside. I remember the vat of pure grain alcohol punch. I remember dancing a lot with other people there. At one point I went out to use the bathroom in the field and then I lay on top of the Caddy’s hood and listened. I know we stayed at least twelve hours there. The music just kept churning over and over.”

CHARLIE FEATHERS: The Onliest

Over the years, I’ve come evermore to appreciate the power and beauty of Charlie’s voice. Get With It collects early material and, though out of print, is worth chasing down. That and everything that Norton Records sells on Charlie at www.nortonrecords.com. And the Elektra / Nonesuch Charlie Feathers. And Peter Guralnick’s profile in Lost Highway.

JAMES CARR: Way Out on a Voyage

One last James Carr story: For several years in the mid-1990s, I wrote the scripts for the annual Handy Awards (now the BMAs—the Blues Music Awards: blues.org). During the Blues Foundation’s nadir, the show was in a small theater on Beale Street; that year I was also a stage manager. When the finale began, I stepped outside for fresh air and a moment to unwind. I smiled as I heard James Carr over the PA system. Except, I realized, there was no PA system. On the balcony of the empty bar next to the theater was James Carr, singing with no microphone to the empty street below. Roosevelt appeared, said he’d placed James there to serenade the departing blues fans. I brought James from the balcony to the theater’s stage; he did not hesitate, he commanded a mic and stepped into the light.

James Carr and Robert Gordon departing for the stage next door. (Courtesy of Trey Harrison)

Some favorite tracks: “To Love Somebody,” “Forgetting You,” “You’ve Got My Mind Messed Up,” and “The Dark End of the Street.”

OTHA TURNER’S FIFE AND DRUM PICNIC: Let Us Eat Goat

Otha Turner lived to be ninety-five, dying in late February 2003. One of his daughters, Bernice, who lived next door and was central in his life, died the same day after a long battle with breast cancer. The church in Como, near Gravel Springs, was packed for the double funeral. Afterward, the procession to the gravesites was led by thirteen-year-old Sharde Thomas, playing a fife made by her grandfather.

In addition to Otha’s two albums (both on Birdman Records: www.birdmanrecords.com), he’s heard on a Sugar Ditch 45 and several compilations. Mississippi Delta Blues Jam in Memphis (Arhoolie Records) is a great cross-section of area musicians recorded in 1969; Otha and his neighboring fife star Napoleon Strickland are included. A decade earlier, Otha directed Alan Lomax down the road to Fred McDowell and Fred is here, solo and accompanied by Johnny Woods. (Furry Lewis is also here.) Dive into the Arhoolie Records catalog—their compilations are a great way to hear a variety of artists: www.folkways.si.edu/arhoolie. A few others of note: I Have to Paint My Face; the two volumes of Mississippi Delta Blues: Blow My Blues Away; and Country Negro Jam Session. The Testament Records classic Traveling through the Jungle: Fife and Drum Band Music of the Deep South is a great primer. A ten-minute film on Otha, Gravel Springs Fife and Drum, made in 1972 by Judy Peiser and Bill Ferris, is here: www.folkstreams.net/film,59.

Here’s an interesting crossroads. Luther met Otha at the Center for Southern Folklore’s Music and Heritage Festival. That’s where Luther and Cody, young teens, first backed their dad on stage—Jim Dickinson and the Hardly Can Playboys. Luther, exploring the crafts area, went to the one man burning an open flame—and began talking to Otha Turner, watching him make a fife. Turns out, they lived near each other and Luther began visiting Otha, hearing his musical ideas, absorbing what Otha had to teach. Luther’s interest shifted from national trends to the excitement of his own backyard.

Before Otha died, he’d mentored not only Luther Dickinson and Sharde Thomas but also R. L. Boyce. R. L. played drums in his band and became a great hill country guitarist under Otha’s tutelage, now with several records of his own.

MAMA ROSE NEWBORN: Useless Are the Flowers

Good luck finding Calvin Newborn’s book, As Quiet As It’s Kept! His music is more readily available; both discs on the Bandcamp website can be sampled before purchase. His 1978 collaboration with Hank Crawford, Centerpiece, is a jazz-blues classic. Stanley Booth has a great piece on Phineas Jr., “Fascinating Changes,” in Rythm Oil. Look for the 1962 Phineas episode from Jazz Scene USA; the performance of “Oleo” is breathtaking.

Jazz great Herman Green—who played a decade in Lionel Hampton’s band and had brushes with Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and even caught Louis Armstrong’s attention—has a few CDs in his own name. See if you can find Worthy of Note or Best of the Green Machine. Herman kicks it with FreeWorld, a jam band that blends Memphis and New Orleans with San Francisco. Their playing with Herman is literal old school meets new (freeworldmemphis.com).

TOWNES VAN ZANDT: All the Federales Say

My favorite Townes Van Zandt recordings are the ones least produced and least populated; so much of his early work has powdered sugar all over it. Start with Live at the Old Quarter—it comes with the jokes and patter, and in 1973 many of these songs were still new. The Nashville Sessions is from the same period, but in a studio with a relatively spare band. There’s lots of later live recordings—Roadsongs is with a good band, light touch. Catch Heartworn Highways for a 1975 live hang; the documentary Be Here to Love Me is a warm, wistful way in and gives an overview of his life.

JEFF BUCKLEY: Northern Light

Jeff only lived to finish one album—Grace. I like the expanded edition with the bonus CD of various songs—traditional, country, MC5, and more. Live at Sin-é, which is Jeff performing in the corner of a coffee shop, gets me. Plus, you get some of his between-song raps—it’s a lot like the weekly gigs we’d hear at Barrister’s in Memphis. The newest release is the oldest recordings; titled You and I, it’s Jeff solo in a studio, learning his way around good recording equipment and discovering his voice. The album he was making when he died, Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk, is much more than sketches, though it’s built from unfinished material. The documentaries, they make me sad.

BOBBY BLUE BLAND: Love Throat

Bobby Bland made great records all through his career. Even the early, gritty ones have a sophisticated air with the big band behind him. Most any anthology of his Duke recordings will be good; there are two double-CD packages of the Duke stuff and no wasted tracks. Also not to be missed is Two Steps from the Blues, his 1961 debut LP. Several of the songs were previously singles, but this collection established him for crossover success. (It’s one of songwriter Dan Penn’s favorite albums.) Bobby had a great later career with Jackson, Mississippi’s Malaco Records. Bobby Blue Bland: “Live” on Beale Street gives a good taste of his Malaco work; in addition to the audio, there’s a DVD.

TAV FALCO: Panther Burns Forever Lasting

We’re close to the bone when discussing Panther Burns, but I’ll restrain myself to a manageable list. For starters, I’d recommend the Sugar Ditch Revisited EP and The World We Knew LP. These are cleanly produced (the first by Jim Dickinson, the latter by Alex Chilton), but you still get that sense of effort that makes the Burns so exciting (that sense of their almost not getting it right). Once you get the hang of it, take a chance with the first EP, She’s the One to Blame; it’s rawer even than the first LP, Behind the Magnolia Curtain, which is also recommended. And look for the tenth-anniversary single with two versions of the Sun Records classic “Red Headed Woman.” Hear what can happen in ten years. Shopping: www.tavfalco.com.

Tav’s book, Ghosts Behind the Sun, is an autobiography that goes back to Tav’s days as a Confederate soldier in the Civil War (yes, you read that right) and takes us through the highlights of his career, including great profiles of Roland Janes, Charlie Feathers, and others whom Tav has encountered, uncovered, or revivified. Don’t be shy about skipping some of the early pages, but when Tav gets to the University of Arkansas, the story really takes off.

This interview with Tav focuses on his visual art: openspace.ca/tav-falco-interview-2003. And you can catch the legendary performance on Marge Thrasher’s morning TV show here: dangerousminds.net/comments/tav_falco_and_the_meaning_of_anti-rockabilly_with_special_guest_alex_chilto

Tav was the godfather of the 1970s and ’80s local scene, so check out some of the bands he spawned: The Hellcats had an EP and an LP, and when they exploded, several members formed the Alluring Strange (they made one album). The Klitz set the precedent, and some of their lost recordings have recently trickled out: www.spacecaserecords.com/spacecase-releases. They sometimes play live—slightly more polished than they used to be, but not a lot.

JERRY LEE LEWIS: Last Killer Standing

Alert! The sessions I referenced Jerry Lee doing with Knox Phillips have been released! They are (can I say it?) killer! Jerry Lee Lewis: The Knox Phillips Sessions is worth the price just for the smoking version of “Harbor Lights,” though the Chuck Berry knockoffs ain’t half bad. And “Beautiful Dreamer,” sung by his hoarse, coarse, and tired throat is enough to make you daydream about what Jerry was doing the night before, the week before. It sounds like he’s not slept in a long long time. I’m putting a track on the Memphis Rent Party compilation, but you can check out the whole thing here: www.timelife.com/products/jerry-lee-lewis-the-knox-phillips-sessions-lp

Another of my favorite Jerry Lee records is an LP titled Ole Tyme Country Music. It came out during the Shelby Singleton Sun era, and I emphasize the LP because though the track listing on the CD is similar, the takes are different. These songs are Jerry and Roland Janes playing classics together, and it’s amazing to hear the way they entwine; when so few people could find a place to fit in Jerry Lee’s music, Roland just slid right in. (It reminds me of New Orleans guitarist Snooks Eaglin accompanying pianist Professor Longhair—finding places to fit that are not evident to the naked ear.)

Michael Tisserand’s “Jerry Lee’s Legacy” in Offbeat is not to be missed. Of the Jerry Lee books available, go for Hellfire, by Nick Tosches. It’s more about the myth than the man, but what a myth!

CAT POWER: Kool Kween

The Greatest remains my favorite Cat Power album, but I can’t separate the music from my joyful memories around the making of it. There are several full concert videos of her live shows with the Memphis Rhythm Band on Youtube. Her albums before and after capture her evolution and explorations as an artist. She is a seeker.

JERRY McGILL: Very Extremely Dangerous

The man of mystery, of multiple names, of lost recordings. Meet him in Stranded in Canton, the documentary I made from William Eggleston’s footage, then live with him in my documentary made with Paul Duane, Very Extremely Dangerous. VED includes a CD of Jerry’s recordings, available at store.fatpossum.com/products/very-extremely-dangerous. If you find more recordings, please let me know via my website: www.therobertgordon.com. The blog where Jerry found Joyce: boogiewoogieflu.blogspot.com/2008/07/jerry-mcgill.html.

ALEX CHILTON: No Chitterlings Today

There’s so much Alex out there, it’s hard to navigate. You can tell I’m a fan of Like Flies on Sherbert, and Omnivore Recordings, a hub of Alex reissues, has a new version that will include yet more additional tracks. Omnivore also boxed up Complete Third, which includes demos and alternate mixes. They put out Big Star’s Live in Memphis, a multicamera concert video of the revived Big Star (of the three formats, the DVD sounds the best). Omnivore also released an expanded version of Sid Selvidge’s The Cold of the Morning—great stuff. Rhino Records released Keep an Eye on the Sky, the 4-CD Big Star retrospective (I won a Grammy Award for the liner notes). For reading, try the biography of Alex, A Man Called Destruction, by Holly George-Warren or Rob Jovanovic’s Big Star; both are well researched and full of facts you’re likely to not otherwise know. The book Big Star: Isolated in the Light is an amazing collection of photographs and anecdotes.

Bruce Eaton’s short book on the making of Radio City—it’s part of the 33 1/3 series—gets a running start from his personal connection to Alex Chilton; his interviews begin with a trust that most questioners never attain. Big Star’s music is widely available again, thanks to Concord Records.

Of Alex’s later recordings, I love his contributions to the Chet Baker tribute, Imagination. Chet’s influence grew during his career, and Alex honors him. (The record was produced by Ron Miller, a one-time Panther Burn.) If I were collecting tracks for a late period compilation, I’d begin with “Don’t Stop” from A Man Called Destruction—one of my favorite of his pop songs; an expanded version of Destruction has been recently released. I also like a lot of Clichés—great intimacy on a series of classics. His version of “Nobody’s Fool” from High Priest is pretty great—Alex interpreting his original producer, Dan Penn. Much of Alex’s later career was devoted to his radio favorites from childhood, and Set—recorded all in one night and using only first takes—is a full-on sampling of what’s on his mind. So is Electricity by Candlelight, an acoustic set captured on a cheap recorder when the power at the gig went out. It’s like he’s entertaining at a bonfire when the second bottle of bourbon is going around.

The Big Star documentary Nothing Can Hurt Me is, all things considered, a fine film. The first hurdle it faced was having no archival footage to work with! But they found the right people to tell the stories, and they give pre- and post-histories of the players to create an engaging and revealing story. I’m excited to see the forthcoming documentary built around Chris Stamey’s performance of Big Star’s 3rd. It’s called Thank You, Friends. My compadre David Leonard is working on an Alex documentary; I’m certainly looking forward to seeing that (www.alexchilton.rocks).

AFTERWORD: Stuck Inside the Memphis Blues Again

My information about the ratio of CEO pay to worker compensation comes from the Economic Policy Institute—nonpartisan, nonprofit, and can be found on Table C at www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-continues-to-rise/. Note that I’ve chosen not to use the most extreme examples (over 600 to 1 in present times—the bastards).

The music lives on. Start with the North Mississippi All Stars and the numerous side projects from Luther and Cody Dickinson. The All Stars’ Prayer for Peace (2017) is a career highlight, even on the heels of another great one, World Boogie Is Coming. Onward and Upward gathers Jim’s family and friends days after his death, a recording raw and ready for heaven. Luther’s side group, the Wandering, gathers Sharde Thomas, Amy LaVere, Shannon McNally, and Valerie June. Their Go On Now, You Can’t Stay Here redefines Mississippi folk music. Cody has branched into films, producing Take Me to the River, which captures the cross-pollinating of Memphis music—by generation, by genre. (Bobby Bland is thrilling with Yo Gotti.) And now he’s making a New Orleans version. His debut solo record, Leeway for the Freeway, calls on brother Luther and friends like John Medeski, Duane Betts, and Robert Randolph to forge new ground, including takes on a couple of his dad’s songs. Each of the ladies in the Wandering has her own stellar records, and Julien Baker’s personal songs and delivery make her another Memphis femme to watch.

The Country Rockers at the Antenna Club, circa 1995. Left to right: Ron Easley, Gaius “Ringo” Farnham, Sam Baird. (Courtesy of Trey Harrison)

A trail of breadcrumbs: Light in the Attic Records features lots of overlooked Memphis artists: Bob Frank, Bobby Whitlock, Lou Bond, Johnnie Frierson, Packy Axton, and Wendy Rene. (Wheedle’s Groove in spirit.) Concord Records, which owns the latter Stax catalog, has reissued the John Gary Williams solo album and unearthed an unreleased one. They’re bringing out new talent too, like Southern Avenue. The Hi Records catalog is widely available through Fat Possum, making your Willie Mitchell explorations easy, and they continue to mine the region, finding the likes of Robert Finley, reissuing the Grifters and the Country Rockers, and getting Don Bryant back into the game with Don’t Give Up on Love, his best recording ever. (Man, you Fat Possum guys need to buy me some Girl Scout cookies.) Syl Johnson, who did some recording for Hi, is the subject of a boxed set and a documentary on Numero Group. Check out the Bo-Keys, a contemporary Memphis soul band that mixes classic players with their protégés (www.thebokeys.com). Lucero has evolved from an earnest roots rock band to become explorers of Memphis possibilities; many albums and styles to choose from. Stax’s David Porter is culturing new talent through his Consortium MMT program and his new Made in Memphis recording studio. Memphis filmmakers have grappled with the Memphis spirit; seek out the work of Craig Brewer, Ira Sachs, Lynne Sachs, Morgan Jon Fox—and check out the Indie Memphis film festival (www.indiememphis.com). Get you some Harlan T. Bobo on Goner Records (also look for Nots and the Limes), some Mark Edgar Stuart on Madjack Records, Duets for Mellotron, and don’t forget Big Ass Truck and Lorette Velvette and the Kropotkins, Motel Mirrors (on Archer Records, where Sid Selvidge later recorded and Lily Afshar now records), Magic Kids, Cory Branan (“Love Song #11” rules), Curlew’s Fabulous Drop, Shelby Bryant and the Clears, Ron Franklin, Keith Sykes, Jay Reatard, Memphis radio at www.wevl.org, LPs at Audiomania, the various Steve Selvidge projects, Jody Stephens’s post–Big Star work with Golden Smog and with Those Pretty Wrongs. Riding the crest is Cities Aviv, and Andria Lisle just turned me on to the Memphis label Unapologetic (www.weareunapologetic.com) and I swear the still, small voice is whispering in my ear. And I realized I forgot the Reigning Sound, which means I forgot lots of others (apologies) so I gotta quit.