Memphis Music - Blues and Soul

I’ll take a break from the civil rights era and turn to the music of Memphis. 

We arrived Memphis late the evening of March 4^th -  too late to head down to Beale Street.  So, on Monday night, after eating some fantastic ribs at the Central Market, we took off for Beale Street. 

We arrived early, about 5:30 - and it was eerily quiet.  I worried that nothing would even be open on Monday nights.  But, B.B. King’s was and enough others to make for an enjoyable - and very personal – listening experience.  

Jim and I – and one other couple - constituted the entire audience at the first place we tried.  The singer spoke directly to us, asking for requests and asking how we liked his sound.  Jim requested something by Robert Johnson, but he didn't really play one. 

Beale Street is lined with "notes"
of jazz and blues artists

The two at the other table kept requesting modern music, and as we were looking for more blues – we soon moseyed along. 

We went next to a very lively place - The Blues City Cafe – which had a band with a sound very close to Jerry Lee Lewis. 

I really enjoyed them.  However, my favorite aspect of the place was: the bartender! For one thing, he kept calling me ‘baby girl’.  “What do you want, baby girl?”  Now, it’s been a long time since I’ve been addressed as ‘baby girl,’ and it made me smile each time.  He looked exactly like Danny DeVito’s twin; he joked and kidded with everyone; and he waited on half the tables without writing down a single item.  Yet when anyone left, he tallied up their bill exactly.  If that wasn’t impressive enough, at one point the band played the song Safari – with an extended drum solo.  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that “Danny DeVito” had a pair of drum sticks and he was quietly placing metal serving trays upside down on the bar.  All of sudden the spotlight swings over, and he starts drumming!  He drums on the trays.  He drums on the bar and even the glass liquor bottles behind him.  Really, really fun!

Jim went to check out a few more places down the street, and found a small jazz club that he wanted me to see.  So, we said goodbye to “Danny” and left. 

The Blues Hall Juke Joint was really authentic – small, crowded, smoky, with fantastic musicians from New Orleans.  But there was nowhere to sit down.  After standing for a while, we turned to leave when a man in a striking brown suit and fedora hat asked why we were leaving.  We said that we loved the music, but there wasn’t anywhere to sit.  “I’ll take care of that,” he said.  He went up to one table, and asked about an empty chair there.  Then he dragged another chair over and asked some people to move aside for us to sit down.  Before we knew it, we were in the front of the house!  He then proceeded to get on stage and start singing.  He was the lead singer in the band!  He sang in an unbelievable falsetto - even nailing an Etta James song.  And, they satisfied Jim's request for a Robert Johnson song!

The man on the left found us our seats

We stayed there the rest of the night – dancing at times, buying their album - and just swaying to the music. 

Stax Music Studio – Soulsville USA

The next morning, we went to Stax Music Museum. 

Stax is no longer a functioning studio, but at one time it was the epicenter of Southern Soul.  This museum tells the story of Stax and is packed with artifacts and information about its artists and how “soul music” came into being. 

The term “Southern Soul” was first used in the 1950s, and applied to a style of jazz that blended blues, gospel and country.  The quote I liked best at Stax: “Soul was born in the church and the cotton fields.”  The Stax Museum contrasted the sound of Mo-Town as being smooth, polished and aimed at a white audience, while Soul was grittier, rougher and aimed more at Blacks.  In the 1960s, soul records – such as Sam and Dave’s “Soul Man,” Isaac Hayes’ “Theme from Shaft,” and The Staple Singers “Respect Yourself” - were interpreted by many African Americans as anthems of Black pride.  And in Aretha Franklin’s hands, Otis Redding’s “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” also became a feminist anthem.  All I know is that I grew up listening to the music produced at Stax.

The story of Stax Studio was an interesting one.  It was started by two white siblings:  Jim Stewart and Eunice Axton.  The studio was located in the blue-collar African-American neighborhood of South Memphis, and became a little oasis of black and white artists working together.  It was a highly integrated, interracial company.  

“That’s the real (story) of what Stax was all about.  We were sitting in the middle of a highly segregated city, a highly hypocritical city, and we were in another world when we walked into that studio.”  - Jim Stewart, owner

Jim and Eunice bought a defunct movie theater and turned it into a record shop and recording studio.  The former theater seating area was converted into a sound studio, still retaining its sloping floor and old speakers covered with burlap.  Some say that this unpolished room gave the records some of its raw sound.  Called "Studio A" (there was no Studio B), this was the room where Otis Redding, Booker T and MGs, the Staple Singers, Isaac Hayes, Dick Gregory, and many others recorded.

I am choosing to highlight two of the artists covered at the museum: one I loved, one I had never heard of.

·      Sister Rosella Tharpe.  Born in 1914 to cotton pickers, she began playing guitar at age 4.  At age 24, she recorded four gospel songs that were instantly successful. She melded religious songs with rollicking guitar riffs.  It was unheard of, and alienated some conservative listeners while attracting secular audiences.  In 1944, she recorded “Strange Things Happening Every Day,” a traditional African-American spiritual on which she played electric guitar.  I understand it was the first time an electric guitar was used, and it is considered one of, if not the first, rock and roll songs.  She greatly influenced Elvis, Little Richard and Johnny Cash, among others.  I had never heard of her!  I did look her up later as I like learning about any woman who was a pioneer in her field --- in this case, rock and roll!  You can find her singing and playing on YouTube.  Check out: Up in the Air,  Down By the Riverside, or her other songs.   There's also a movie about her life story, but I haven't watched that yet. Within the last year, she was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

·     

Otis Redding – The other artist I’m highlighting has always been one of my favorite singer songwriters.  All of his records were produced by Stax Music.  He was “discovered” when he was hired to drive a group called Johnny Jenkins and the Pinetoppers to Memphis for an audition at Stax.  At the end of the session, Otis was allowed to record a couple of songs in the remaining studio time.  Jim Stewart signed him immediately and released his ballad: “These Arms of Mine” in 1962.  It became the first in a long line of hits, including “Try a Little Tenderness” and “Stay in School.”  Sadly, he was only 26 when he died in a plane crash near Madison, Wisconsin in December 1967.  He died three days after recording: “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay.” It was released after his death, and became the first postmortem album to top the charts and win a Grammy.  In fact, the whistling at the end was added after his death… to signify a song and a life unfinished. 

Redding had been the heart and soul of Stax.  Already on the verge of bankruptcy, the label soon discovered that an earlier deal signed by Stewart had unwittingly given away the rights to Otis’s entire song catalog to Atlantic Records.  Dick Gregory was released because they could not pay him, and his album subsequently went on to be a hit.  Isaac Hayes couldn’t be paid and he was released.  Only eight years after Otis’ death, in December 1975, Stax went out of business.

The location was boarded up and stood empty for a number of years, before it was razed in 1989 and became nothing more than “glass and grass.”  Then, civic and local leaders bought the site and rebuilt.  It is now the Stax Music Academy, as well as a museum.  Many of the kids studying music at the academy come from the poorest ZIP codes in the county. I love this final legacy of Stax…. it still showing a lot of “soul”!

We didn’t go to the other big two of the music scene in Memphis – neither Graceland nor Sun Records.  Sam Phillips, founder of Sun Records in Memphis, recorded B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, Ike Turner, Elvis Presley and many other Southern-born blues and rock ’n’ roll artists.  But, I did learn that there is a Blues Trail you can follow throughout many towns of Mississippi.  Next trip!  And, I'm definitely coming back to Memphis for more of its music.