Paula Garrett has a history with Memphis and its music – which made her the natural choice to report on the inaugural MEMPHO Music Fest earlier this month.
The festival was the brainchild of another transplanted Memphian named Diego Winegardner, who has worked in finance in New York City for the past couple of decades.
On a visit to his hometown in 2017, he rediscovered a 4,500-acre urban park called Shelby Farms and decided that was the place to pay tribute to the city’s musical heritage.
“As soon as I heard about the festival, I knew I had to go,” Garrett said, “especially since the lineup featured Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper and a Stax Revue.”
Stax, the legendary Memphis recording studio, also is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, In its heyday, Stax was the recording home of numerous Southern Soul artists. It was founded by Jim Stewart and his sister, Estelle Axton. He was a country fiddler; she, a bank teller before starting the studio. They took the first two letters of their last names and Stax Records was born.
Garrett grew up in Memphis, earning a degree at Memphis State University, as it was known then. She headed to Illinois to get a graduate degree in library science, but her connection to her hometown was strong.
“In the years since I moved away from Memphis, my love and appreciation for the city’s music and its mojo have grown,” Garrett said. She took that appreciation “down under,” where she started hosting a blues show that was syndicated to radio stations all over Australia and New Zealand.
When she moved back to Illinois, she became a host of WNIJ Saturday Night Blues for several years and continued her affinity for the music of Memphis. It fired her curiosity, too.
“Why did so much phenomenal music come out of this town perched on the bluffs of the Mississippi River? And what’s happening there now?” she asked. “Who are the musicians, and are they keeping the legacy alive, maybe creating a new one?”
Garrett figured that the MEMPHO Music Festival was a good place to pursue answers.
“One of the first people I wanted to talk to was Steve Cropper -- guitarist, songwriter, and producer,” she said. So she did.
Cropper may be best known from the Blues Brothers (the band and the movies), but he is considered among the finest guitar players ever. A “Rolling Stone” article calls him as the “secret ingredient in some of the greatest rock and soul songs.”
At MEMPHO fest, Garrett asked Cropper what sets Memphis music apart. “There’s no formula; we just do things from the heart,” he told her. “Maybe that’s what makes it – instinct and the heart.”
Cropper was a studio – or session -- musician for Stax along with Booker T. Jones, Donald “Duck” Dunn, and Al Jackson, Jr. They were Booker T and the MG’s – MG standing for Memphis Group or, as others have suggested, Mixed Group. Steve Cropper & Friends also played the closing night of the festival.
Except to music aficionados, studio musicians often are unsung heroes. But, in Memphis of the 50s and 60s, these Stax musicians formed the backbone of the burgeoning Southern soul music scene – backing vocalists and performers like Sam and Dave, Wilson Picket, Eddie “Knock on Wood” Floyd, and the inimitable Otis Redding.
“What you have to understand is, as session musicians and producers at Stax,” Cropper explained, “we treated every song -- brand new song -- 100 percent as though it was the next biggest thing.”
Memphis historian Robert Gordon has written extensively about Memphis music and Stax, including his book, It Came from Memphis.
“In a way, Memphis is the unheard music that gets heard,” he explained. “You know, it’s Sam Phillips embracing those who others were turning away and then, because of that, this outsider music becomes mainstream.”
One song that became mainstream was “Green Onions.” Garrett shares Steve Cropper’s memory of how it came about.
“Man, I remember the first day I met Booker, and I remember the first song that we cut,” Cropper recalled, “not that day but later, and it was just a by-chance thing, and it was ‘Green Onions’ – by totally by chance. The name came up later, and I knew we had cut a hit.”
Gordon has a pet phrase about Memphis music – “the whacked idea.”
“That’s the Memphis sound,” he said, “pursuing the whacked idea, despite society’s efforts to keep you from doing that. That’s what at the core of Sun, that’s what at the core of Stax.”
Garrett grew up less than two miles from Stax and was living in Memphis when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. She asked Cropper what it was like in the neighborhood around Stax after that terrible April day in 1968.
“That block had a grocery store,” Cropper remembered. “It had barbershop, it had a liquor store, it had a bakery, it had a place to eat across the street. All of those places were burned, torched, except Stax.”
Cropper also recalled that the mixed-race relationships inside Stax did not change after Dr. King’s assassination. They remained united by focusing on one thing: the music.
During MEMPHO fest, Garrett talked with several fans of Memphis and its music. Some were natives and some were transplants – like Cleveland Dave.
“You know, I grew up outside of Cleveland in Ohio,” he said, “so I’m a Yankee by birth and Southern by the grace of God.”
He offers this perspective on an important influence on the roots of Memphis music.
“I think if you look at the history of rockabilly or the blues or gospel or even the jazz or rap around here, even the rap starts in the church,” he explained. “Memphis has a heavy Pentecostal influence historically, and they’re all about music. And their services are full of music and instruments, great singing -- not just choirs, but individual singing, too.”
The soul music being cooked up in Memphis by the artists at Stax and other studios had generous heapings of gospel, blues and country, and it was served up by talented men and women who brought together their urban and rural roots and black and white cultures.
One of the new groups Garrett heard at MEMPHO fest was Southern Avenue, which embodies this mix of backgrounds: a native-Israeli blues guitarist, an African-American vocalist and her drummer sister, a white jazz-inspired bassist, and an early alumnus of the Stax Music Academy. David, the Memphis transplant from Cleveland, says this band exemplifies this still-vibrant Memphis tradition.
“That goes back to Stax Records and Sun Records, where it didn’t matter what color you were,” he said. “If you could play, or you could sing, you were in.”
The soul of Memphis, like other cities, lies in its people and how open they are to each other and the harmonies they can create by living and playing together.
Trombonist Victor Sawyer is a session musician and music teacher in Memphis with an advanced degree in jazz performance. His versatility reflects the current music scene in his city.
“I play classical music, jazz music, blues. I play with another group that really does some outlaw blues,” he said. “I play with a soul group, a funk group, this experimental prog rock thing -- and I do it all in one city, and they’re high level.”
Sawyer sees today’s music in his city honoring the traditions of the past but continuing to evolve.
"In Memphis right now, there's definitely been a lot of hip-hop coming up. There's some more experimental rock and electronic sounds, and some indie songwriters,” he said. “But I guess that's always been the case, you know. It feels fresh because of the new sounds that are available in the world."
Southern Avenue is one of those fresh, new bands on the MEMPHO festival lineup. Lead vocalist Tierinii Jackson, and her sister TJ, the band’s drummer, grew up on Southern Avenue in Memphis.
An interesting synchronicity is that Southern turns into McLemore Avenue and leads right to Soulsville, where the legendary Memphis recording studio, Stax, was located, and is now home to the Stax Museum and Music Academy.
Southern Avenue records with the Concord Music Group, which acquired the Stax label in 2004. Tierinii Jackson said she and her group are well aware of this connection with Stax history.
“We don’t want to recreate something that’s already been done. We want to take it to the next level,” she said. “So, I think the challenge really is being ourselves as much as we can with upholding the essence of that legacy.”
Festival founder Winegardner has his own take on the connection between the musical eras. “I think it’s completely refreshing to know that soul and R&B music is alive and well and kicking in Memphis,” he told the Memphis Flyer. “Southern Avenue, to me, reaches back into the rich history of soul music that came out of Memphis, that came out of Stax, and was so important. And it’s so appropriate they’re on the Stax label. They bring it into a modern context.”
Why does all this good music converge in Memphis?
Sawyer, the Memphis trombonist who performed with the Stax Revue at MEMPHO fest, talked about Memphis as a meeting point, historically and socially.
“I’ve traveled around a bit -- New York, New Orleans, some other places -- and Memphis is still one of the few cities where blacks, whites, Hispanics, Latinex people really live in fairly close proximity to one another.”
Chicago-based alternative country musician Robbie Fulks offers his take, based somewhat on geography.
"The different rivers, the different streams of culture moving up from New Orleans and maybe over from the Carolinas and Nashville and then down from the big cities of the north,” he said. “And Memphis is like a like a magical, central place between all those places."
Fulks has solid Memphis connections, appearing and recording with Linda Gail Lewis -- Jerry Lee’s sister. Their new album, “Memphis Never Falls from Style,” is due next year.
In addition to the geographical factors, Memphis has been host to a large cast of fascinating and talented characters including Rufus “Funky Chicken” Thomas, Isaac Hayes, Black Moses.
“I think there’s a lot of hidden gems in Memphis, too, so there are a lot of eccentric people,” Sawyer elaborated. “I think Memphis has a lot of eccentric people, and not like trying to be eccentric. I mean just people who for some reason are just weird; they got some peculiarities about them. I think Memphis has always been this place that has some strong vibes, is what I’ll say.”
Sawyer is on the faculty at the Stax Music Academy, which offers after-school and summer programs for middle- and high-school students.
The Stax Music Academy Band opened up MEMPHO fest – bringing the past of Memphis face to face with the present and future.
“We give them space to be kids, unlike a lot of schools these days that are very rigid, because of the needs of organizing in this climate,” Sawyer said. “We really give them a safe space to express themselves, not only through music but just who they are as a person.
One of Sawyer’s students chose the colorful, sassy personage of Rufus Thomas and his “Funky Chicken” song as a way to express himself.
“He, as Rufus Thomas, came out in a pink vest, pink boots, and you know, he looked exactly like it, and he tore the song up,” Sawyer said. “It was a major hit. And what was really cool at that moment was I got to sorta let loose as an instructor, and we sort of like just made the song our own, and the kids loved it.”
But there is a serious side to the Stax Academy as well, Sawyer explained.
“We want to make sure that our kids are learning to read music and learning music theory, so we write things out that maybe they could play by ear and that would be fine: It would sound good in performance,” he said, “but we want to make sure that we’re actually giving them that music theory and that academic music background cause we just want them to be as versatile as possible.”
The graduates of the academy find themselves in all kinds of musical situations. One of them is the keyboardist for Southern Avenue. Tierinii Jackson, that group’s young vocalist, paints this picture of the Memphis environs.
“Music is a beautiful art form of expression,” she said, “and you walk down -- whether you’re walking down the suburbs or you’re walking thru the ’hood -- you just feel that culture of beautiful, beautiful music and art.”
Memphis writer Gordon puts it this way.
“I think if people went across the tracks – if white people went to black neighborhoods, if black people went to white neighborhoods, they would find those innovations and inspirations available in their backyard,” he said.
Garrett has – and expects she always will have – a connection to the city of her youth.
“Growing up in South Memphis, I was fortunate to be so close to the music that was flowing out of Stax and other studios, churches and bars – even if I didn’t know it at the time,” she said. “I think it seeped into me and nurtured my passion for music that comes from the heart and soul.
“I know every time I hear that Memphis groove, I feel at home.”
Although she no longer is an “official” librarian, Garrett couldn’t resist sharing some research she’s done about Memphis, its people, and its music. Here’s a sampling of books, music, films, and websites to explore.
Reading
It Came from Memphis, by Robert Gordon, 2001, 1995.
- Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion, by Robert Gordon, 2013.
- Sweet Soul Music, by Peter Guralnick, 1999, 1986.
- Rythm Oil: A Journey Through the Music of the American South, by Stanley Booth, 1991, 2000.
- Memphis Flyer, weekly newspaper.
Listening
“Green Onions,” Booker T and the MG’s, 1962.
- It Came from Memphis: The Legendary Sounds of Memphis, 2 CD set, 2005.
- Wattstax: The Living Word, Live Concert, 2 CD set, 1972.
- With a Little Help from My Friends, Steve Cropper, 1969.
- King & Queen, Otis Redding and Carla Thomas, 1967.
- WEVL, Memphis radio.
- Shangri-La Records, Memphis record store
Viewing
- Mystery Train, directed by Jim Jarmusch, 1989.
- All Day and All Night: Memories from Beale Street Musicians, directed by Robert Gordon, 1990.
- Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: The Road to Memphis, 2003.
- Hustle & Flow, directed by Craig Brewer, 2006.