100 great records from Memphis

Geir loving The Eagles, X, Santana, and Metallica.

The Eagles and Santana are OK. Same about Beach Boys, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, Love, Sly & The Family Stone, Toto and the entire Sunshine Pop universe.

Liverpool and Manchester are miles and miles better. And in the US, LA and San Francisco are home of most of the best music.

-- Geir Hongro, Friday, 15 February 2008 09:26 (12 hours ago)

idiot. unless you can give examples of what was consistently produced in and of liverpool/mcr that is better than memphis.

well go on then...

And in the US, LA and San Francisco are home of most of the best music.

what does this mean geir? do they produce better music indigenously? or are those cities home to big record labels?

look, i'm a few beers down here, but seriously what's your fucking point? it's surely not as simple as the beatles were born in and around liverpool therefore liverpool has produced good music is it? please please me say it aint' so.

http://dvweb.mpf.arcstarmusic.com/mdb_image2/SL/tSVRL_269294_l.jpg

it's surely not as simple as the beatles were born in and around liverpool therefore liverpool has produced good music is it?

In 1963-64, there were lots and lots and lots of fantastic Liverpool bands. But the city has also has its share of great music afterwards: Elvis Costello, Lightning Seeds, OMD, Badfinger, The La's, The Coral, A Flock Of Seagulls, China Crisis.

In 1963-64, there were lots and lots and lots of fantastic Liverpool bands

Maybe, but Beatles aside, (who didn't record in Liverpool) not a huge amount of fantastic records; Liverpool had bands, but Memphis had a whole industry - writers, studios, producers and brilliant musicians

Most of them only used the same boring three chords over and over.

I got two words for you, over and over.

D5 OTM. So fucking ignorant.

I despise the blues, and Mempis is way too much based on the blues.

Oh really I did not know that you felt that way, maybe if you mentioned it a bit more we would all know how you felt. Maybe you should also try trolling a few more threads like this so we could finally understand. Oh also maybe keep talking about how music is only good when there are lots of chords, I find that theory infinitely fascinating no matter how many times you say it, which is probably up in the tens of thousands now. Furthermore I would like you to continue to ignore the fact that none of the bands that you love would exist without the blues, even your precious Beatles and yes, even Genesis. Oh and one more thing I love how you never seem to understand how your basic musical prejudices end up breaking along racial lines, that is so sweet and not at all creepy. The end.

;)

yeah, see it all gets down to what-is-the-blues questions and answers that Europeans can have trouble with, is my take on it. really and truly, I love melodic rock and pop and always have. it is surprising to me that some folks, let's call one of them Geir or the person who plays him here, can't get with what, say, Chris Bell actually did, apart from all that beautiful-loser shit that Memphis is really good at. It's so obviously an homage to the British Invasion (and also to the West Coast American scene of the '60s, Byrds, Springfield, Grape) that only differs from the Beatles' music in its rhythmic drive and its squeezing out process that took the drolleries and chromaticisms of, say, "Doctor Robert" or "Drive My Car" and played changes on them. "I Don't Know" by Chris Bell does it so well; it's composed of sections that seethe with forward-motion-that-isn't-really-motion and some Revolver-era overlay of "power pop." That whole way of doing things you hear in obscure but worthy Memphis records of the late '70s by Van Duren and Tommy Hoehn and the Scruffs, and of course, Bell's solo shit and Chilton's intermittent stabs at pop, like the dreamy (chromatically insane) intro to "She Might Look My Way." So I don't get Geir's objections to this; what I'm talking about here is just as sophiscated as the Beatles' shit; musically, "Back of a Car" and "Daisy Glaze" are pretty thought-out, solid ideas, and as solid as "Rain" or "And Your Bird Can Sing" on any level you wish to choose, but it's not mere formalism either. I also fail to understand how someone who posts here all the time can't see that this music fits into that tradition nicely.
If you don't get the blues, you have no swing, twist or otherwise nasty little mental or physical wriggle in you, no life as far as I'm concerned, and, at the very least, you simply don't get American culture or the 20th century very well, musically speaking. Rock on.

O.V. Wright = "You're Gonna Make Me Cry"

same song that Ann Peebles did on Hi, "You're Gonna Make Me Cry"?

Same song

I have nothing against Chris Bell, but saying that he did anything at all better than The Beatles is just madness. No American has ever done anything better than The Beatles.

"The Beatles"
"The Beatles"

Fuck, Geir, "The Beatles" is not a thing, it's not a single work of art even. It's about 250 separate songs by four (five counting G. Martin) different people. Some of them aren't very good. Do you think that the worst Beatles song is better than the best Chris Bell song? Ugh, your blind spots are bigger than the Grand Canyon.

Nasty Nardo - "Let's Get a Room"

^^^better than "the long and winding road"

Do you think that the worst Beatles song is better than the best Chris Bell song?

No, surely "The Ballad Of El Goodo" and "September Gurls" (OK, the latter isn't Bell) are miles and miles better than "Revolution #9" or even "Come Together" and "Helter Skelter". It may even be better than "Yellow Submarine" or "Don't Pass Me By". I'll give you that. :)

"The Long And Winding Road" is a fantastic song though. One of their best.

I thought I had unwrapped a gold ticket to the Wonka Works when I heard the Godfather say Bobby Hebb was from Memphis, but apparently he was from Nashville.

Sid Selvidge The Cold Of The Morning
Sid Selvidge Portrait
Moloch Moloch
James Luther Dickinson Dixie Fried
Van Duren Are You Serious?
Cargoe Cargoe
Tommy Hoehn Spacebreak
The Hot Dogs Say What You Mean

http://redkelly.blogspot.com/2013/03/roosevelt-jamison-1936-2013.html

RIP Roosevelt Jamison, songwriter of O.V. Wright's "That's How Strong My Love Is"

Jamison led an impressive life. Here's another obit (thanks J. Redd for posting these over on ILE obit thread)

http://www.peterguralnick.com/post/47106712366/roosevelt-jamison-1936-2013

I need a Goldwax collection

http://www.soulwalking.co.uk/Ovations.html

RIP Nathan Pedro Lewis

RIP songwriter George Jackson too, who did more than write for Bob Seger and the Osmonds and ZZ Hill

http://www.oldies.com/artist-biography/George-Jackson.html

He was rejected by the fast-growing Stax Records, but in 1965, while in Memphis, Jackson linked up with the Ovations on the newly formed Goldwax Records label, penning their biggest hit, ‘It’s Wonderful To Be In Love’. Goldwax soon recognized Jackson’s writing ability and he provided material for other artists on the label, including ‘Old Friend’ and ‘He’s Too Old’ for Spencer Wiggins, and ‘Coming Back To Me Baby’ for James Carr. He also joined fellow singer-songwriter Dan Greer to cut the Goldwax single ‘Good Times’/‘You Didn’t Know It But You Had Me’ as George And Greer. By 1968, Jackson had left Goldwax for the nearby Hi Records label, where he initially recorded one single, ‘I’m Gonna Wait’/‘So Good to me"

He wrote songs for Otis Clay too (I guess when Clay was on Hi Records)

http://www.memphisflyer.com/SingAllKinds/archives/2013/05/02/memphis-musician-sid-selvidge-dies-after-a-struggle-with-cancer

Sid's "Little bit of Rain" is a nice quiet #

I'm still learning this stuff (plus its been awhile since I read Robert Gordon's great book about Memphis musicians). Met a guy from Memphis recently who is writing a grad school thesis paper on Furry Lewis. I wonder if he talked to Sid before Sid passed on.

Did that guy turn your money green, curmudgeon?

Ha

http://prestonlauterbach.com/2012/08/20/on-isaac-hayes-70th-remembering-curries-club-tropicana-and-isaac-hayes-debut/

The John Paul Keith album Memphis Circa 3 Am may not be one of Memphis' greatest releases but its a pretty nice slab of easy-going rockabilly meets Marshall Crenshaw powerpop rock in 2013

http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2013/10/08/12-oclock-track-everythings-different-now-a-clean-cut-slab-of-vintage-power-pop-from-john-paul-keith

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2013/dec/10/party-line-memphis-music-movie-take-me-to-the/

The musical pairings in the movie include Bell with Snoop Dogg, Stax veterans Snell and the late Skip Pitts and members of the Stax Music Academy; the late Bobby “Blue” Bland with Yo Gotti; Rush with Frayser Boy; Charlie Musselwhite with The City Champs; Otis Clay with Lil’ P-Nut; Booker T. Jones with Al Kapone; Mavis Staples with the North Mississippi All-Stars; and Terrence Howard with the Hi Rhythm Section. “We videotaped each session and pretty much the making of the song,” Boo said. Five of the nine sessions were recorded at Boo’s Royal Studios.

http://vimeo.com/79138363

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/feb/20/ann-peebles-girl-with-the-big-voice

Didn't realize Ann had a stroke a few years ago.

Nice interview by an ilxor

https://soundcloud.com/dummymag/legowelts-memphis-rap-mix

https://soundcloud.com/legowelt-official/memphis-rapmix-2-the-legends

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20140306/COL0207/303060010/Scott-Barretta-Enhanced-version-1976-album-captures-Selvidge-s-skill

http://www.memphisflyer.com/memphis/furry-and-sid/Content?oid=3625226

http://www.vqronline.org/nonfiction-criticism/2014/04/sister-cities-louis-armstrongs-new-orleans-and-stax-records-memphis

http://prestonlauterbach.com/2015/03/16/the-real-beale/

http://www.commercialappeal.com/go-memphis/book-reviews/preston-lauterbachs-beale-street-dynasty-reveals-colorful-forgotten-history-of-memphis_38561510

Lauterbach, who wrote a great book on the Chitlin' Circuit, has a new book on the early days of Beale Street, from the civil war to the 1940s or so. The links highlight the Beale Street Symposium this weekend at Rhodes College there, which includes a walking tour led by Lauterbach and 12:30 p.m.Lunchtime lecture with Charles Hughes, author of “Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South.”

I saw Hughes talk once and he's aslo worth hearing if you're in Memphis this weekned.

I despise the blues, and Mempis is way too much based on the blues.

― Geir Hongro, Saturday, February 16, 2008 3:05 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Good lord the exchanges from 7 years ago. Robert Gordon has some Stax records outtakes on his website that are more interesting to me than "The Long And Winding Road."

http://therobertgordon.com/ghost-of-stax-past/

classic geir thread

x-post-Wow, Gordon found those tapes in the debris at Stax

I know, I think that's fascinating. I wandered around the vacant lot in the late 80s and brought home what I think is a piece of floor tile.

I love the riff in "Early Mar Keys 1" so much I think I'm going to try to learn it for my band.

Thank you for that link, Dan -- those outtakes are great! And the lore of something being rescued from literal rubble is too much to resist.