A devotee of both pop culture & highbrow art, your friendly neighborhood Muse of the Weird can find inspiration almost anywhere. I got enough thrills this week to last about a month - at a movie & pair of museums, no less. I'll try to translate my enthusiasm into entertaining, web-text for the Attention Deficit Generation.
The Stax Museum of American Soul Music (SMASM) sits grandly on McLemore Avenue in a rundown part of Memphis - bluesman Memphis Slim's old home is a crumbling ruin just across College Street. Sadly, Soulsville USA has become yet another struggling Mississippi River city attempting to re-brand itself (justifiably) as the Birthplace of Rock 'n' Roll. Located adjacent to a new music academy for high schoolers, SMASM treats visitors to a wealth of memorabilia & interpretive info about soul music, a worthy complement to 1960s rock 'n' roll & pop. Soul artists like Ray Charles & James Brown clogged the R&B charts as well as the pop hit parade with innovative songs circa 1959 to the early '70s.
After a brief introductory film, I was captivated by SMASM's initial exhibit: an evocation of a Sunday gospel service using weathered wooden slats, pews & the granite cornerstone (dated 1906) salvaged from Hoopers Chapel (TN) A.M.E. church, along with videos of preachers, singers & celebrants moved by the spirit to dance & shout. Gospel music, of course, provided the foundation for country music as well as the soul sound. Several important artists, including Sam Cooke & Aretha Franklin, crossed over from sanctified singing to soul stardom. If secular blues is the devil's music, as the old taboo would have it, then you can book my ticket to Hell right now.
While covering the notable work of such Memphis labels as Hi & Goldwax, with nods to Motown & other out-of-towners, SMASM focuses on the unlikely story of Stax/Volt Records, established & operated (along with the Satellite Records shop) by an unmusical white brother & sister. Jim Stewart & Estelle Axon had the good sense to hire a loyal bunch of talented Memphians, including writer/producer (later performer & so-called savior) Isaac Hayes. Even when forced to use crude 2-track tape recorders in a renovated movie theater, Stax's resourceful studio staff managed to produce some of the most unforgettable wax tracks ever made.
Booker T & the MGs, a harmoniously integrated group (2 whites & 2 blacks), made irresistible dance music ("Green Onions," "Time is Tight," etc.) that facilitated the death of segregation in the South. This instrumental group (which John Lennon satirized as "Book a table & the maitre D's") was the Stax house band, backing such stars as Sam & Dave and the overpowering Otis Redding, whose untimely death in a Madison (WI) plane crash in 1967 foreshadowed the demise of Stax half a decade later. In the replica Stax studio room, you can get within inches of Booker T. Jones's Hammond M-3 organ, Andrew Love's baritone sax, Al Jackson Jr.'s drumkit, Duck Dunn's bass & Steve Cropper's Fender Telecaster.
Sensory overload looms along every corridor as records play, producers reminisce, gold records shine & Tina Turner's slinky mini-dress & stage shoes beckon. Videos of '70s Soul Train TV dancers, projected on a large wraparound screen, invite you to find your own groove on a polished dance floor. It was a time of black pride & nearly universal appreciation. The ecstatic crowds attending Stax's revue tour of Europe in 1966 simply blew the musicians' minds.
Back home, Stax artists ruled the streets of Memphis. As funky Rufus Thomas bluntly put it: "If you were black for one night on Beale Street, you never would want to be white anymore." As proof of soul music's enduring popularity, I needed look no further than the Sarratt Cinema on the Vanderbilt University campus Wednesday night (Feb. 10): a packed house attended the "Sam Cooke: Legend" documentary, introduced by writer-in-residence Peter Guralnick, author of "Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke," a detailed biography by a master interviewer & fine prose stylist.
The Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum (MHFM), in contrast to SMASM, awaits a merciless wrecking ball in shining downtown Nashville, alias Music City USA. A poor stepchild of the nearby Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum, MHFM has the misfortune to be located on the footprint of the city's controversial new convention center. It is stuffed with equally riveting items donated by members of such legendary studio collectives as the Nashville A Team, the Memphis Boys, Detroit's Funk Brothers & LA's Wrecking Crew. Those gentlemen played on too many great country, pop & rock records to mention. I had the good fortune to shake hands with humble 70ish drummer Gene Chrisman, who was wearing his Memphis Boys jacket as he strolled with his family inspecting the exhibits, including a snare drum he'd autographed.
I learned that Gene Chrisman played on the first 45-rpm record I ever bought, Elvis Presley's 1969 hit "In the Ghetto" (written by Mac Davis) as well as on one of my favorite blue-eyed soul/pop tunes of all time, the Box Tops' "Cry Like a Baby" (1968; by teen-aged genius singer/songwriter Alex Chilton). Even as the MHFM's director, another fella named Joe, handed out trophies & medallions to the likes of DJ Fontana, Elvis' drummer for 14 years, a different kid of wrecking crew was busy demolishing the building next door. "It's a damn shame they're tearing it down," DJ said in his brief acceptance speech, referring to the MHFM.
Amen, brother. Even the greatest musicians are too often relegated to the shadows cast by big stars.
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It is ashame that Musicians Hall of Fame will most likely have to move. I hope they can find a better location in downtown Nashville. Where would singers be without great musicians. Musicians deserve to be recognized for their accomplishments as well.
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