Memphis Rent Party

by Robert Gordon

  Luther Dickinson, left, and Jim Dickinson, right. In the background is Chris Chew, bassist for the North Mississippi All Stars. (Courtesy of Yancey Allison)

  This was not a museum piece standing before us, this was not an imitation or re-creation. She was taking something old and creating something new, the continuum extending past Otha, past Luther, past Sharde, reaching out further, seeking still and seeking always, seeking another place to land, to connect, to play. Otha’s music had taken new life in the hands of his granddaughter. Sharde has pushed his music to where it’s not previously been, making it hers. Breath through cane isn’t as simple as beating a stick on a rock, but it must be one of the earliest musics. And the thrill of hearing something so old become something so new is right there with the excitement of new life, of recognizing the singularity of who we each are and the distinct ripples that our own actions create, the possibility of leaving our handprint on the cave’s wall, our own stamp—in music, in children, in literature or service.

  I cannot say I’d do it all again and not change a thing. The constant insecurity has scraped at my psyche. But I, too, am chastened when I realize the power of the people I have encountered, the obscure figures whose popular impact is nil but whose jolt to their small audiences is profound. Seeing Sharde on that stage in the middle of forsaken nowhere, I thought of the way these many artists have shaped me, the jewels they have shared, the wisdom they’ve offered, the kindnesses.

  Jim Dickinson’s self-penned epitaph is I’M JUST DEAD, I’M NOT GONE. He’s certainly present in this book, published nearly a decade after his death. Otha is a decade and a half dead, and his influence on Sharde changed me just the other day. We toil in our lonesome worlds, the darkness all around, but the past illuminates our future, warms our present. These joyous candles elevate us.

  Memphis has become a destination for music tourists. People want to soak up the surroundings that produced the blues and rock and roll, to sing where soul found its voice. And that’s a powerful experience—traveling the same blues highway from the Mississippi Delta to Beale, standing in front of the microphone that Elvis and Charlie Feathers used at Sun, walking through the Stax doors like Otis and Isaac and Carla and Rufus. Even an abandoned lot can make a responsive heart throb. We can’t travel time, but we can feel history in our marrow when we smell the barbecue in the air, feel the humidity, touch the bricks and pavement.

  Memphis is not about perfection but about the differences, the flaws. It’s the kinks that mark beauty and define us, not the lack of them. How remarkable to create something unlike what anyone else can, that even the artist can’t repeat. That recorded moment—like Dickinson said—why preserve it if you can recreate it every day? Preserve instead the best ever take, the most unique version, the unrepeatable presentation. Sam Phillips, who tuned the latter half of the twentieth century, and even when recording the unrecordables did not let bum notes or a missed beat or the phone ringing in the background prevent him from releasing a take that had the spirit. The differences he captured became beauty marks. “Perfect imperfection” is how Sam described his goal, and that’s pretty much the Memphis approach to art.

  To me, Memphis is a verb. It means, To seek and embrace what’s different. As far back as the 1960s, the Rolling Stones were encouraging Americans to try it. Stones bassist Bill Wyman told me, “When we brought it to America, it was like a new music to the white kids here. They’d say, ‘Where can we get this music?’ And it was just down the road there.” He laughs. “We had to come across the ocean, you just have to go across the river and it’s there.”

  Beyond the bright lights and the blue screen’s glow, beneath the clamorous beckonings for your attention, and not just in Memphis but all over the world, a still, small voice sings. Most discount it if they ever encounter it. It’s unfamiliar and not immediately pleasing. Its power is not obvious. But the person who’s got it so wrong that it’s all right, who opens you up and retools your expectations—sings for thee.

  “To Memphis.” It’s international, can be done anywhere. In urban backyards and on rural screened porches, in the neighborhood dive or in drafty dwellings like Furry Lewis’s or James Carr’s: Somewhere the church organ swells among the Saturday night cinderblocks. There is drumming in a starlit holler or a child singing to the hallway mirror. In a government housing tower or over on the finer side of town, someone is composing a song or recording a sound or performing a show that might change how we think, how we hear the world and understand our place in it. It’s happening most days and certainly every weekend, and it’s beyond the hype and the pageantry, outside the spotlight’s circle, maybe near the Mississippi Delta or very far from it. What happens in Peoria, Pittsburg, and Petaluma may not become emblematic of a generation, but the expression of something different can still challenge the mind and thrill the heart. That still, small voice, it won’t be immediately familiar, and it takes a moment to come in clear, but listen for it, note how near—it’s just down the road or right across the river.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I shouldn’t have been surprised to learn, only recently, that Knox Phillips was at the heart of having Furry Lewis appear at that 1975 Rolling Stones concert. When the Stones arrived in Memphis the night before the all-day concert, Knox arranged for them to be greeted on the tarmac by Furry and his guitar (with Lee Baker backing him); not the ideal listening conditions, but spiritually perfect. When the night was wrapping up, Knox and the concert promoter discussed having Furry play at the Stones concert the next day. Knox wanted to make arrangements ahead of time so he could enjoy the Fourth of July in his father’s pool with family and friends. No need, the promoter determined; with three opening acts there wouldn’t be time for Furry.

  Cut to the phone ringing at Sam Phillips’s house the next day, the holler out the sliding glass door for Knox to get out of the pool. The Stones were delaying their show and they wanted Furry to help fill the time. Departing through the wafting smoke of grilling burgers, Knox left the sounds of laughter and splashing to shepherd Furry through his largest gig ever (thus changing the course of at least one attendee’s life).

  Knox Phillips, left, and Furry Lewis, center, on the Rolling Stones’ stage, July 4, 1975. That’s me, way way in the background. (Courtesy of Diane Duncan)

  I learned of Knox’s role when I saw this photo on his wall. Thank you, Knox!

  And thanks to brother Jerry Phillips, the one-time (and all-time) “world’s most perfectly formed midget wrestler,” rocking hard today, all twisted steel and sex appeal, ready to welcome you with a big hug and make you comfortable wherever you are, whatever you’re doing.

  Adam Miller, long ago, made being a writer seem possible. Halfway between then and now, when I was envisioning It Came from Memphis being something like this collection, he opened my eyes to the larger story to tell and, consequently, opened the door to my so-called career. In a sense, he made both that book and this one possible.

  Many of these stories began with a group of high school friends who continue to inspire me. We knew no bounds, had no sense, and we all appreciate how lucky we are to be alive today (with a little more sense). Thanks to the Whole Sick Crew—Mark Crosby, Bruce Gordon, Andy Kaplan, Lonnie Lazar, Melissa Lazarov, Cam McCaa, Ted McLaughlin, Gegnellyboos (the) Quag-Meyer, Tim Monaghan, David Peeples, Lanie Richberger, Jodi Shainberg, Tommy Van Brocklin, and (like Bukowski said) all my friends.

  I am grateful to these readers who helped keep the writing tight and right: Alex Abramovich, Paul Duane, Melissa Dunn, Belinda Killough Gordon, Alex Greene, Dennis Herring, Charles Hughes, and Carl Reisman.

  Much gratitude to my editor, Callie Garnett—if this were a record, she’d be the producer. Callie kept me on key. Laura Phillips was the gracious managing editor. Others once at Bloomsbury drew me there—Kathy Belden, Rachel Mannheimer, George Gibson. Agent David Dunton, with aplomb, guided a small idea to a larger enterprise (and he used to jam with Adam Miller).

  John Fry is a secret hero
of the Memphis scene. He founded Ardent Studios in the early 1960s, created a musical home for Jim Dickinson, Alex Chilton, and many others (miss you, John Hampton!) and was a solid supporter of all of the Memphis creative community. Next time you’re playing Big Star loud, think of (and thank) the late John Fry.

  Many people helped in ways large and small, and with apologies to those I’ve overlooked, I thank Chet Weise, Peter Guralnick, Mary Lindsay Dickinson, Judy Peiser, Iddo Patt, Susanna Vapnek, Andria Lisle, Scott Barretta, Phoebe Driscoll, Jeff Place, Bob Mehr, the editors who assigned the original pieces, my children, Lila and Esther, and always my parents and their unending support and encouragement.

  Nearly all my favorite lines in this book come from Tara McAdams, my first and last reader, my muse and love.

  Rufus Thomas—the world’s oldest teenager, the funkiest man alive. Early 1980s. (Courtesy of Patty Padgett)

  Now, please join me on the dance floor while we spin “(Do The) Funky Chicken” and hail Rufus Thomas, who was a Memphis personality all my life, who took me under his wing (like he did many and varied others). His embrace of life and funk made him the funkiest man alive. His spirit abides.

  A NOTE ON THE PHOTOGRAPHERS

  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.

  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, a
lso 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.