The Memphis Effect

As mentioned in my last post, going to Memphis had an effect on me. One thing that it affected that I didn’t have the space to mention was how I was influenced musically.

First, let me tell you about American museums (or at least museums in Memphis): unlike here in Toronto (I’m thinking of the ROM) where you are basically in an Ikea and are able to roam about and find the exits freely, the museums I went to in Memphis (namely the National Civil Rights Museum and the Stax Museum of American Soul Music) subscribed to a similar script. First, thou shalt sit and watch an obligatory documentary for at least 12 minutes before entering said museum. Second, after said documentary has been screened, thou shalt exit through appointed theatre exits and continue through a prescribed path until the gift shop approacheth, not unlike a mouse in a maze.

Thing is, during the Stax documentary (which was very well done, as was the NCRM doc), I witnessed the apparition of Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Now, if you have a decent knowledge of rock-and-roll, you might have heard Sister Tharpe’s name as an early influence on the genre. This is similar to how some of us might hear the name Kepler attributed to astronomy or Cruyff as pertains soccer. I sat there on that Saturday afternoon (I was amongst a cohort of three people) and watched an excerpt of her performing the gospel standard Down By The Riverside with a choir behind her, ripping into her white Gibson SG for a ridiculously soulful guitar solo.

That did it.

Leaving Stax, I proceeded to watch everything I could on Tharpe, with particular attention to her electric guitar performances. This was not someone playing rhythm guitar while she sang, strumming chords. Just as her voice had a beautiful, soaring quality with a lot of power behind it, so did her guitar work. Technically and tonally she was (and is) extremely expressive, demonstrating a vocabulary of electric guitar playing that predated rock-and-roll as we know it, combining both religious and secular gospel with R&B. There are a number of good places to read more about her — here’s one. And another. It’s no surprise that when she was finally (belatedly) inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it was Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard who introduced her.

But I wanted more. I was inspired to the degree that I wanted to explore what I saw beyond listenership. And so I did my research, and after a couple of weeks, I located a guitar teacher. And after a lesson or two, I ended up locating a semi-hollowbody guitar — an Epiphone Riviera Custom P-93 (pictured) that someone was selling because they weren’t finding use for it.

An Epiphone Riviera Custom P-93

I play drums and can do adequate keyboards, but I’ve never (ever) wanted to learn to play guitar (just magically “play” it? Sure, but not actually learn the thing), despite the fact that some of the greatest influences on me are from guitar-driven music. Learning guitar is a strange yet rewarding process of teaching the increasingly calloused finger tips of my left hand to traverse the frets and coordinate themselves, touching the strings at first hesitantly, then, with practice, confidently. Oh, and then there are the pickups, the tuning, the tremolo bar. I’m not doing this because I want to start a band or play on stage, but rather because I’m drawn to this process, and a relationship that I am building with the instrument.

What am I learning? Mostly surf and rockabilly, for the time being.

Here’s more SRT:

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Memphis

Let me start with a question people ask me when I tell them I spent a weekend getaway in Memphis: “So, why Memphis?”

I needed to get away. The “staycation” I took in April was basically a cold, miserable rainout. I decided it was going to be either Nashville or Memphis, because I hadn’t been to either city and I needed to be somewhere where there would be good music, hot sun, and Southern vibes. I’ve been boycotting the US since #45 took office (in case you feel this is an idle threat considering I live in Toronto, I have close family in Texas) but I seriously needed to get the fuck out of Canada and Europe was too expensive and logistically unfeasible for a weekend getaway.

I did my research and was swayed by three things: downtown Memphis was quoted as being very walkable (which meant that I didn’t need to rent a car if I wanted to get around), Memphis has blues whereas Nashville has country (no disrespect to the latter, but I lean heavily towards the former), and, in the words of someone on Reddit, “Frank Black never wrote about Nashville.”

Done deal.

There’s something about grabbing a travel bag and going somewhere alone, whether it be a country or city you haven’t been, and all you have to go on is some preliminary research and intuition. I wanted the three Bs: blues, booze, and BBQ. As long as I could secure those things, the rest would sort itself out. I prefer to immerse myself and come to my own conclusions.

This is the point where I should get something out of the way: you can’t talk about Memphis without talking about race. The city’s composition is over 60% Black. When I skimmed some forum posts about where to go and how to get around Memphis, I would come across terms like “rough areas” and “locals” (as in, don’t take public transit because only locals do that). While not explicit those terms can very easily be cover-talk for Black, as in “Black neighbourhoods” (rough areas) and “Black people” (locals). This is the place where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated while intervening in a sanitation workers’ strike.

You can go to Memphis and pretend that Elvis didn’t exist (seriously, there are few signs, literal or figurative, of the other King outside of Graceland). But you can’t go to Memphis and pretend that Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t. Getting back to my 3Bs ethos, the first thing I did when I walked out of the airport was direct a taxi driver to a BBQ place downtown. As I got out of the cab and looked around me (this is in a former warehouse and light industrial district which has gentrified over the last 5 years), I looked across the street and saw the Lorraine Motel.

Exterior of the Lorraine Motel, Memphis TN
Exterior of the Lorraine Motel, Memphis TN

This is both the home of the Civil Rights Museum and, more significantly, the place where MLK was fatally shot on the second floor balcony. Now, I knew the Museum was downtown, however, when your only point of reference is Google Maps I didn’t realize it was also smack dab, right across from a popular BBQ joint. And so, I proceeded to eat a beef brisket sandwich (which was divine, btw) while staring at a very sobering national monument. Continue reading “Memphis”

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