Memphis Rent Party

November 13, 2017
In this excellent collection of essays, Gordon (It Came from Memphis), a veteran music journalist on the Memphis scene, masterfully writes about the outlaws, rebels, and tragic figures who provided the spark for the city’s entertainment industry. Many of the essays have been previously published, but each includes a new introduction that places the musicians covered (and the pieces themselves) into a greater context. Gordon compares Memphis’s early music scene to a raucous rent party—in which tenants throw an event, hire musicians, and take up donations to pay the rent. Each profile is rich in detail and insight. Gordon captures the elusive character of Sun Records boss Sam Phillips (“The devil is in the details, and Sam welcomed the demons”) and highlights influential performers such as boogie woogie piano player Mose Vinson and James Carr, “the World’s Greatest Soul Singer.” He discusses the Jim Crow chitlin circuit with crooner Bobby Blue Bland, who notes that, even in an all-black circuit, “racism was out there”; Gordon also recalls a great interview with an unguarded Jerry Lee Lewis, in which “the access I was getting was full of more truth than any interview would be.” Gordon’s book is a grand, funky musical tour of Memphis.

February 1, 2018
The acclaimed music chronicler tells the story of Memphis through its songs.Gordon (Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion, 2013, etc.) seeks to evoke the heart of the metropolis as reflected not only through its physical landscape, but also through its soul. The author's latest is a collection of 20 profiles or portraits--subjects include, among others, Bobby Bland, Townes Van Zandt, Alex Chilton, and Jerry Lee Lewis--that together add up to a musical-textual collage. "I began to connect the art to the life," he writes, referring to the Memphis blues player Furry Lewis, "to understand how Furry's circumstances--his ramshackle dwelling and his history--were reflected in his songs." The idea is to frame music as not just a way of life in other words, but also as life's expression, which has been Gordon's idea all along. Unlike his earlier books, this new work is something of a grab bag, bringing together liner notes and journalistic pieces, some never before in print. Given the subject, though, that approach seems oddly appropriate; music, after all, is complex and elusive, as are many of the people portrayed here. There's Jim Dickinson, the legendary Memphis musician and producer who worked with Chilton and had performed on "Wild Horses." "There's a lot of people that can play better than me," he declared. "But they can't play with the Stones better than me." Or Sam Phillips, who once carried on "a heated argument" with Jerry Lee Lewis at Sun studios: "Could the devil's music save souls? Immediately after Sam withdrew from the room, Jerry Lee cut the master take of 'Great Balls of Fire.' " Best of all is the author's extended piece on the legal battle over Robert Johnson's copyrights, a story originally written for LA Weekly, in which the art of business and the business of art become egregiously intertwined.Gordon makes a convincing case that if music can't exactly save us, it can tell us who we are.

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January 1, 2018
The prolific Gordon has written before on Memphis, where he lives, and its music, which he loves. This collection of short pieces, mostly from various periodicals, provides satisfying accompaniment to his book-length works, including Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion (2013) and Can't Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters (2002). The artists and musical styles Gordon covers here, while united by the Memphis connection, are highly diverse: Charlie Feathers and rockabilly, soul singer James Carr (one of the highlights of the collection), Jerry Lee Lewis, jazz pianist Phineas Newborn Jr., and his family, and honky-tonk mainstay Mose Vinson. Of course, the blues are the dominant theme (country bluesman Furry Lewis is the book's inspiration), but there are also pieces on the fife-and-drum music of northern Mississippi blues and Memphis' version of alternative rock. As an insider, Gordon is perfectly placed to bring together all the aspects of the incredibly varied Memphis music scene. This will be limited to fans deeply interested in the topic, but for that target audience, it hits the mark.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)