■Itk ROCK AND ROLL HALL DF FAME

Otis Redding

By Michael Hill

O t i s REDDING W A S , quite literally, sittin’ on the dock o f the bay when “Shout Bamalama” found a champion in DJ John R. at W L A C , in Nash­ he began to compose the tune that would become his most enduring hit ville, a popular station w ith a powerful signal, but it never caught on after his sudden and untimely death in December o f 1967. Despite the w ith record buyers at large. song’s forlorn tale, Redding was, at the time, sitting on top o f the world. Johnny Jenkins seemed to be the musician with a better shot at star­ Redding had gone where few soul men o f his day had dared to tread, dom, scoring serious airplay and decent sales - not to mention the interest taking his Memphis revue to the M onterey Pop Festival, where the nas­ o f Atlantic Records - for a locally released instrumental number called cent W oodstock generation gathered to listen to its new heroes - bands like “Love T w ist” W alden had arranged for Jenkins to meet Joe Galkin, A t­ the Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis lantic’s Southeast promotion man, whose ears were fine-tuned to the lo­ Joplin and a young black guitarist named Jimi Hendrix. Redding came with cal Rfe?B scene. Booker T. and the M Gs and the Mar-Key Homs, all resplendent in slick Through Galkin, Jenkins landed a deal with Stax Records, the Atlan­ green suits, and took the stage after the Airplane. tic affiliate that pioneered the recording o f unadulterated Southern soul; Redding provided an electrifying set (preserved on Jimi Hendrix and in October 1962, Jenkins went to Memphis w ith his band to record a fol­ Otis Redding: Classic Performances from the Monterey Pop Festival) that low-up to “Love Twist” at the Stax studio. included his heart-wrenching “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,” Sam A s legend has it, Redding was acting as Jenkins’s driver and valet, and Cooke’s “Shake,” “Respect” (which he wrote and Aretha Franklin later when Jenkins’s sessions started to fall apart, Redding somehow coaxed took to the top o f the charts) and his funky remake o f the Rolling Stones’ the studio’s executives to let him take a turn at the mike. “Satisfaction.” He topped the set with an intense, extended rendition o f A s Phil W alden explained to Rob Bowman for the notes that accom­ “Try a Little Tenderness,” with its famous coda, which Redding impro­ panied Atlantic’s T he Otis Redding Story, W alden and Redding had vised w ith the fervor o f a Georgia preacher. carefully prepared their assault on Stax: “The plan was to make a follow ­ Backstage, according to author Peter Guralnick in his book S w eet Soul up for Johnny Jenkins but also to give Otis a chance to sing. That was my M u sic, the Stones’ Brian Jones, watching with Hendrix, was reduced to understanding w ith Joe Galkin. I said, ‘Otis, if you get a shot, you got to tears. Afterward, critic Robert Christgau reported in Esquire, “The love do it as fast as you can ’cause you probably won’t have much time.’ O f crowd was screaming its head off.” course [the Stax studio crew] didn’t know, and thank God Joe was there Redding faced M onterey and the rapidly changing pop scene with the ’cause it probably wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been.” The result same unflagging confidence with which he had embarked upon his ca­ o f this hasty session was Redding’s “These Arms o f Mine,” a rather state­ reer. In his home town o f M acon, Georgia, Otis found plenty o f inspira­ ly ballad he w rote himself. tion. James Brown and his Famous Flames were unknown local boys be­ “These Arms o f Mine,” which at first didn’t impress Stax owner Jim fore the world heard “Please Please Please.” Stewart, was released on V olt, a Stax subsidiary, toward the end o f 1962. Redding’s idol, Little Richard, was another M acon native who shout­ It wasn’t until the following spring, however, that it became a hit, thanks ed his ribald rhythm & blues in the dance halls. Redding was determined largely to the support, once again, o f Nashville DJ John R. A less reserved to follow in Little Richard’s footsteps — musically, not sartorially. In fact, Redding returned to Stax in June 1963 to record the more impassioned Redding got his professional start around 1958, touring the South with “ T h a t’s W h a t M y H eart N eeds.” Little Richard’s former backup band, the Upsetters. Jim Stewart favored the ballads and encouraged Redding to focus on It was back in M acon, though, that Redding first began to cause a stir, them. The approach then was to record a single w ith an uptempo track after he entered a Saturday-morning amateur show sponsored by a local for one side and a ballad for the other. A s guitarist Steve Cropper told radio station. W eek after week, Redding was voted the popular favorite, Bowman: “ [Stewart] wasn’t satisfied till he got his ballad no matter what which w on him the admiration o f Johnny Jenkins, one o f M acon’s more [Redding] was doing. He loved the fast stuff too, but he needed promising guitarists, who offered Redding the job of vocalist with Jen­ Otis to sing that soul ballad. A nd he was just holding onto a good kins’s band, the Pinetoppers. thing. W ith Otis, there were tw o influences in his whole life. One Jenkins was managed by Phil W alden, a white RfePB fanatic w ho was was Sam Cooke, the other was Little Richard. Little Richard was an hustling gigs for local black bands at white fraternity dances. W alden of­ uptempo singer, Sam Cooke was more o f a ballad singer. So it went fered to manage Redding as well. A t first, W alden’s parents questioned from one extreme to another.” the propriety o f their son’s avocation — he had to sneak off to early gigs The Sam Cooke side took precedence is far as the public was con­ with the Pinetoppers - but the entire W alden family eventually became cerned. Redding became a consummate balladeer with songs like the part o f Redding’s management team, and his lifelong friends as well. yearning “Pain in M y Heart” and the contrite “ Come to M e.” A DJ Outside o f M acon, Redding was not an overnight sensation. In dubbed Redding “M r. Pitiful” because o f his affinity for tear-jerkers, and 1960, when it looked like his local success would grow no further, the Cropper suggested he and Redding use that as the subject o f another sin­ restless and ambitious Redding left for Los Angeles. He moved in with gle, with the nickname as its title: “They call me M r. Pitiful/Baby, that’s one o f his sisters, got a job at a car wash and cut four sides, including my name/They call me M r. Pitiful/That’s how I got my fame.” “ Gamma Lamma” (a la Little Richard), for a couple o f small labels. Redding’s gospel inflections gave a raw edge to his work, particularly W hen he returned to M acon the following year, he cut another single, in his trademark codas, which were impassioned ad-libs. There was an “Shout Bamalama,” in the same style for the Confederate label. (The earthiness and candor to his every performance, whether it was a song song became a hit six years later for the R6?B singer M ickey Murray.) he composed himself or a cover o f a future soul classic like “That’s ROCK AND RDLL HALL DF FAME

Otis Redding

H ow Strong M y Love Is.” Onstage in the early days he had a lot to learn, Song)”; the chorus is nothing less than a duet between Otis and his be­ but as Jerry W exler told Peter Guralnick in recalling Redding’s first ap­ loved hom section. The hom rifîs, as they do in so many songs, serve the pearance at the A pollo Theater in 1963, “You could feel this plea coming role o f Otis’s background singers, a wordless choir, the instrumental echo from him .” o f a vocal performance that is relaxed, mischievous and thoroughly Redding quickly became a popular live attraction, and he main­ charming. Redding also tackled another pop song from the B ritish Inva­ tained a grueling schedule. Johnny Jenkins, however, stayed behind, sion, the Beatles’ “Day Tripper^’ which he gamely turned into an R6?B unwilling to travel, and reluctantly ceded his role to Cropper. On the raveup. That choice indicated how adventurous Otis could be and how road, Redding befriended many o f the soul singers he had looked up to aware he was o f the larger pop world around him a few years before. In a Buffalo, N ew York, hotel room, he collaborat­ In the spring of 1967, the Stax-Volt Revue - dubbed Hit the Road, ed with Jerry Butler on “ I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,” which Stax - began it’s tumultuous European tour in England. The arrival of w ould be the second-biggest pop hit o f Redding’s career - a smoldering the Stax entourage in London - Otis Redding, Booker T. and the MGs, performance in which the Mar-Key Homs swell up behind his each the Mar-Key Homs, Redding’s protégé Arthur Conley, Sam and Dave, and every emotion. Eddie Floyd and others - caused nothing less than pandemonium. By the Although the song was first recorded for a single release, “I’ve Been end o f the tour, in April, everyone on the journey knew just how far the Loving You Too Long” was to become part of O tis B lu e, an album that power o f Southern soul had reached. remains a classic in the annals o f soul. Am ong its many treasures are a In June, Redding would be at Monterey, once again facing an over­ devastating reading o f Sam Cooke’s elegiac “A Change Is Gonna Come” whelming response from a seemingly unlikely crowd. It had been a gam­ as well as a version o f Cooke’s “Shake”; covers o f W illiam Bell’s elegant ble to go there; none o f the acts were even getting paid to appear, but as “You Don’t Miss Your W ater” and his friend Solomon Burke’s “Down W ayne Jackson remembers, “when Otis came on, it was over. O ver. E nd in the Valley”; the original recording o f “Respect,” which became a Top o f story for anyone who had played up to that point. The crowd just Forty hit three years before Aretha’s authoritative remake; and a hastily went absolutely bananas.. . . They were mobbing the stage just wanting recorded version o f the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction,” which beat the to touch Otis.” Stones at their own game by turning their scruffy rock roll into galvan­ By then, Redding was not only a highly regarded singer but a husband, ic Rfe?B. In fact, many people thought the Stones had borrowed the tune a father, a successful businessman and the proud owner o f a ranch just from him . outside o f M acon. In 1965 he had set up his ow n label, Jotis, to be distrib­ The frankness and immediacy o f his recordings seem to reflect the at­ uted by Stax, and had hoped to develop his talent as a producer o f other mosphere o f the sessions Redding oversaw in Memphis. His fellow musi­ artists. His one major success as a producer-mentor was Arthur Conley, cians, among the best that Memphis ever produced, have only fond mem­ for whom he wrote the now classic paean to Southern soul, “Sweet Soul ories o f Redding and his instinctive approach to record making. He would Music.” In December of 1966 he recorded an album of duets with the sing the horn parts to the players so they could get a feel for what he queen o f Stax, Carla Thomas; the album was popular enough to fuel wanted; if a guitarist or a drummer couldn’t quite capture a particular speculation that it would be the first in a series. (Another rumor at the sound, Redding would show him how by taking the instrument and play­ time suggested that Redding would next team up w ith Lady Soul herself, in g it h im self A re th a Franklin.) Trumpet player W ayne Jackson told Bowman: “He had to have In October 1967, after his W est Coast triumphs, Redding took what tw o cans o f Right Guard to keep him down. I mean, the man was may have been the longest break o f his hectic career, he had developed p h y sica l. Emotional and physical. Otis was an unusual person. He throat polyps and needed an operation that required nearly tw o months would have been unusual had he been a fighter, a football player, a o f rest and recuperation. By December, when he was ready to test his vo­ singer or a preacher. He had the kind o f energetic ego-drive thing. W e cal chords, Otis was naturally raring to go and arrived at the studio burst­ all loved him. God, w e really did------He’d just get right in front o f you ing with material. He had little time to record; he was due in Cleveland w ith that big fist up in the air and strut and sing that stuff at you until on December 9th for a television appearance, and from there he was to you were foaming at the mouth.” embark on a dub tour. “It was never a routine session with Otis,” bassist Duck Dunn told O n December 6th, at file end o f marathon sessions, he cut “(Sittin’ on) Guralnick. “You’d go along six weeks, say, eight hours a day and all you’d The Dock o f the Bay,” a song that several in Redding’s circle at first felt ever see was [Jim Stewart] sitting with his hand on his chain, and then strayed too far into pop territory. Unlike his usual approach - emote first, Otis would come in, and, boy, he’d just bring everybody up. ’Cause you articulate later - Redding narrated his melancholy story in a remarkable, knew something was gonna be different. W hen Otis was there, it was spoken way. The horns were backing him up, o f course, but were re­ just revitalization o f the whole thing. You wanted to play with Otis. He strained, atmospheric. And for the coda, Redding was whistling, not brought out the best in you. If there was a best, he brought it out.” singing - an extraordinarily different sort o f ad-lib that lent the song a O tis B lu e was recorded in a single twenty-four-hour period, starting at final note o f optimism. (Cropper claims that Otis had worked up a vo­ ten o’clock one morning and ending at die same time on the next - and cal fade-out but forgot it w hile the tape was rolling and simply resorted that included a break from 8:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. so the session cats could to whistling.) make their regular club dates. Following his television-appearance, Redding was scheduled to per­ Manager W alden didn’t find this routine surprising; but Tom Dowd, form at a Madison, W isconsin, club called the Factory. The weather was the Atlantic engineer who came down from N ew York to help record the poor - all commercial flights in the area had been suspended - but Redd­ session, was astonished. “I had never been in the studio with anybody ing, the indefatigable professional, wanted to play his date. He spoke to other than him,” W alden says. “I thought, ‘Hell, this is the way every­ his wife, Zelma, on the morning o f December 10th, then took off with his b o d y d id it.’ s f l § current touring band, the Bar-Kays, on a twin-engine Beechcraft. Their In 1966, Redding matched the brilliance o f O tis B lu e with another plane crashed into a lake just outside o f Madison; only one o f Otis’s band breathtaking collection, The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul, an album members survived. that Jon Landau hailed as “the finest record ever to come out o f Mem­ A t an emotionally charged funeral in M acon, Redding was paid phis and certainly the best example o f modem soul ever recorded.” Its tribute by family, friends and fans; by the musicians w ith whom he’d centerpiece was a song that many consider to be Stax’s finest hour, recorded, toured or simply inspired; by record executives and soul Redding’s performance o f “Try a Little Tenderness,” which builds stars. Then the world at large paid Otis Redding tribute when “(Sit- slowly and deliberately from a deceptively subtle ballad into a serious tin’ on) The Dock o f the Bay” was released on January 8th, 1968. The gospel-style workout. record climbed to the top o f the charts, honoring a ma n who Redding displayed a more playful side on “Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad 8 had been, for five short years,-sitting on top of the w orld.' FROM ‘FATHER OF THE BLUES,’ BYW .C. HANDY. PUBLISHED BY MACMILLANiNEW YORK, NEW YORK FROM ‘FATHER OF THE BLUES,’ BYW .C. HANDY. PUBLISHED BY MACMILLAN, NEW YORK, NEW YORK o ; vr ootn n mpi, eodi poue t utsu.The e h T soul. t ou ith w produced is record a phis, em M in often so every l; sou ; A n geles, N e w York o r even N ashville. M o n e y is n ot th e first thing one one thing soul. first called e e th b ot n is y e n o M ashville. 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T h e dancers w e n t t n e w dancers e h T feet. g in p stom l Thei ders s r e ld u o h s ir e h T . d lle o r s e y e gan to fall around d ie outlandish, outlandish, ie d e­ b around dollars fall to silver f o gan rain A ing. com if nybo bsdss all­ sm besides y od b y an f i r e d n o w to w n roun ders and th eir run ning ning run eir th and ders roun n w to etrwor but cmmecd o to enced m com I t u b ­ , n u rd o r o w g in better y o n n a lly a e r t o n s a w ae d of it. r fo go ld u o w mates p le a sa n t. P erh a p s s p a erh P t. n sa a le p w e n t their feet o n the floor. T h eir eir h T floor. the n o feet their t n e w sw a y e d . A n d th ro u g h it a ll th a t t a th ll a it h g u ro th d n A . d e y a sw little agonizing strain persisted. It It persisted. strain agonizing little a . t t p m u th , p m u th , p m kind a u h t, T en w s. it p n o associ­ cam and n been o t g u b lon has onotony, m that ff tu s f disturbing a o attained ing m strum ed wi ane'rows a evee e e v le d an s w o r ' e n ca h it w d te a a long-legged ch ocolate b oy , and th eir band consisted o f ju st three pieces, pieces, three st f ju o bass. t -ou orn consisted w a arid band eir th andolin m ' a and re , oy d guitar, b d o an battered ocolate a up ch sent eone long-legged som a n e h w program dance a in orchestra e th ing M us— d o etif oa ooe bn lydaf da ces?'.. an d w fe a played band colored local a f i ject ob e w ld u o W quest— eys fe smepaebsdsMe hswilprduc eodwih ith w record a ce u rod p ill w phis em M besides place e som often so very E bto ie f hs o h w those r fo line, bottom e h T werwas not l n in g n lo t o n s a w r e sw n a e h T mui he d spet li keigwih hi ok.The e h T looks. their ith w keeping in ll e w pretty as w ade m ey th usic m e h T esdout rcflya h e o r etrd They r e y b led ere w y e h T entered. ers com new the as gracefully t u o eased e W y O W N ENLIGHTENMENT ENLIGHTENMENT N W O Father o f the Blues f the o Father ' - W .C . HANDY, . .C W - ' i g tin n u a h R O C K A N D R □ L L H A L L D F F A M E is a a is cam e in C leveland, M ississippi. ississippi. M leveland, C in e cam Y ou M a y G o, But T h is W ill Bring Y ou Back ou Y Bring ill W is h T But o, G y a M ou Y CI I! V A D kCKIE MEMPHIS By Stanley Booth Stanley By I I w as lead ' ' lead as w h ie eiehg goi re.The tet a doe htcul ld cou that udholes m had streets e h T ule. trees. m a agnolia llow m a sw huge beside river the own t semba t wih srne gad oss uit wa fo from ay aw ilt bu houses grand strange, ith w n w to boat steam a to n w to bou gh t it - laid o u t plans fo r a to w n th ey named M em phis, after the a the after phis, em M named ey th n w to a r fo plans t u o laid - it t gh bou intrvrct i Afia. frica A in city river t cien already th e d e fa cto ow n ers o f m ost o f the land before the governm ent ent governm the before land the f o ost m f o ers n ow cto fa e d e th already v l t ain’t M em phis,” h e said. “ It’s the South.” the It’s “ said. e h phis,” em M ain’t t l v thow e thpe htte w o o?” d to t a it.” h r w fo ow n k they explanation that any ain’t happen It it “ oes d w o h ut B “ “ P eople d o w n here d on ’t let n ob od y tell them w h at to do.” to at h w them tell y od ob n . let ’t on d here South?” n e w th o d about it eople is P t “ a h w ll, e ‘W n’ lyd oe you lyd olecules.” m de play u o y - notes de play ’t on d “ W h a t is it about M em phis?” I o n ce asked a record p roducer there, there, roducer p record a asked ce n o I phis?” em M about it is t a h W “ D uring th e C iv il W a r, after th e tw enty-m inute Battle o f M em phis, the the phis, em M f o Battle inute enty-m tw e th after r, a W il iv C e th uring D In the quarter-century that fo llo w e d , M em phis grew from a flatboat flatboat a from grew phis em M , d e w llo fo that quarter-century the In T h ere m ay b e n o explanation, b u t th e peculiar history o f M em phis pro­ phis em M f o history peculiar e th t u b explanation, o n e b ay m ere h T s te fedsae fae h ocalwhie,bgnt gath- to began ites, h w l a c lo the feared o h w slaves freed them f o ost m U n ion arm y w as headquartered on Beale Street, w h ere local blacks, blacks, local ere h w Street, Beale on headquartered as w y arm ion n U SJORDAN A D R O IS J Judge Joh n O v erton — land specu­ — land erton v O n Joh Judge Son Son atr fo Nas le wer re e w o h w ille v sh a N from tors la A m erican — un til 1818, w h en the the en h w 1818, til —un erican m A n ext year, generals A n d re w Jack- Jack- w re d n A generals year, ext n ntf fve ent a ar. e h T acre. an ts n ce e e th govern­ fiv ll r e States s fo t o t en ited n m U d e c the r fo to e r land e w s n ia d In . t h whie ma kp cm­ com kept an m ite h ississip­ w M e the th ut in B i. p buried as w o h w in g — S p an ish , F ren ch , E n glish , , glish n E , ch ren F , ish an p S — g in th e y cam e b y a tra il o f buzzards buzzards f o il tra a y b e cam y e th a n d n o g o o d ca m e t o D e S o to , , to o S e D o t e m ca d o o g o n d n a as d e w sky. e llo th fo in e r e w y e h T ogs. d o t shi t ndi f t r ir e th r fo s n ia d In e th g in h is n u p m isdeeds b y fe e d in g th em a liv e e liv a em th g in d e fe y b isdeeds m ­ ith w e com to Europeans first e h T arm or - brav e, cru e l, ob solescen t, t, solescen ob l, in e cru e, knights brav last e - th or re e arm w , to o S e D ar­ area the f o iles m hundred a in e th stands, w o n phis em M re e h w catfish from th e river’s ch an n els.. els.. n an ch d n river’s u o e -p d th re d n from u h led u catfish a h d an lo fa vides som e clues regarding w h y it it y h w regarding clues e som vides led b y th e g old h u n ter H ern an d o o d an ern H rs, ie ter n ld u h so old ish g an e p S th y b led 1541. in d e riv f­ bu and bear hunted ce on Indians to the hum an body. an hum the to B lu ff o f th e M is s is s ip p i R iv e r , , r e iv R i p ip s is s is M e th f o ff lu B is to rock fe? m il w h a t the heart is is heart the t a h w il m fe? rock to is T h e In d ia n s fo u g h t b r a v e ly , , ly e v a r b t h g u fo s n ia d In e h T the Fourt ckasaw w a s a k ic h C th r u o F e h t i r O an d Jam es W in c h e s t e r an d d an r e t s e h c in W es Jam d an &■

ROCK AND ROLL HALL DF FAM E

Mississippi, the Red Snapper, Ed Crump. In 1909, when Crump ran for mayor, Memphis didn’t reach the great­ est heights, but it had depths that went all the way to hell. “M ister Crump was ... going to drive out gambling and ... other things,” W .C. Handy recalled years later, “and there were those. . . w ho didn’t believe he was going to do what he said___ You know how things are today.”

er. Never a citadel o f purity, Memphis was corrupted by the war like any conquered city. Memphis’s postwar situation was complicated by the presence o f many Irish who had fled the 1845 potato famine. The Irish had replaced the city leaders — the mayor, aldermen, firemen and police were Irish almost to a man. Patrolling the city at the same time were 4000 black soldiers. Harper’s Weekly for M ay 5th, 1866, called the city “the worst behaved . . . in the Union,” with “a floating population made up o f the dregs o f both Armies.” That same week, a fight broke out when Irish police arrested tw o black men. A policeman was killed, a three-day riot o f vengeance on die blacks left forty-six dead and four churches and nearly a hundred houses burned. The year after, as if it needed more trouble, Memphis suffered its sec­ ond serious outbreak o f yellow fever. Five hundred and fifty townspeople died. Six years later the fever killed about 2000 Memphians. In 1878, when the yellow fever came again, more than half the city’s 55,000 in­ habitants left. Six thousand whites and 14,000 blacks stayed. M ore than 10,000 blacks survived; all but about 2000 whites died - meaning that the deepest links to the city’s history would henceforth and forever lie in the black community. Memphis w ent bankrupt, lost its charter and didn|| become a city again until 1891. In spite o f - and partly because o f - its misfortune, Memphis remained a fertile field for speculators. Jefferson Davis, the president o f the Confed­ eracy, came to Memphis after the war and went into the insurance busi­ ness. A t the same time, a young man named Thomas Edison was working at a telegraph office just off M ain Street and living next door at a board­ ing house where the roaches were so bad he developed a way to transmit current and electrocute them. Purged by the yellow fever o f what had passed for gentry, stripped o f the few traditions it had known, Memphis had become a blank page on which innovative men drew the plans for a new century. You didn’t need family in Memphis, as,you did in Boston or Charlestown. You didn’t even need money, if you had the right idea - as did Clarence Saunders with Piggly W iggly, the first supermarket. Or if you knew when other people had the right ideas — as did W .C . Handy, who wrote down the blues he heard on Beale Street. O r if you just knew how to control votes, like that carrot-topped upstart from Holly Springs, ROCK AND ROLL HALL DF FAME

had a warm, loving nature and a brilliant line o f dopey jive. “Take a wheelbarrow full o f goober dust” - they made him stop saying “pissants” — “they got beautiful plate'glass doors, just run right through ’em, and tell them Phillips sent you, from Red, Hot and B 'L'E 'W Blue.” He appealed to listeners regardless o f race. “Dewey was not white,” Rufus Thomas has said. “Dewey had no color.” In its first year, Dewey’s show expanded by popular demand from fifteen minutes to three hours daily. As a boy on his family’s form in Florence, Alabama (Handy’s home town), Sam Phillips had listened to a man he called Uncle Silas, a thin, ancient black man dying o f syphilis, who sang “Oh, Didn’t He Ramble”: “Didn’t he ramble, he rambled till the butcher cut him down.” Sam’s re' sponse to the old man’s songs was so deep that it caused him to question who and what he came from ______’______and the nature of spirit and mat' ANN PEEBLES ter in reality. The quality o f U n­ cle Silas’s voice remained in Sam Phillips’s mind like a beacon. In 1950 he started the Memphis Recording Service, at first doing mostly weddings and funerals then recording such artists as The blues Handy used in his compositions were recorded in Memphis B.B. King, W alter Horton, Jack' by Okeh and Vocalion during the late 1920s. The Depression slowed re' ie Brenston and Howlin’ W olf cording activity - and forced some Memphians to eat clay from the river for other labels. After a couple o f bluffs - but men like Jimmie Lunceford, Buster Bailey, Phineas Newborn years he began releasing records Sr., A1 Jackson Sr. and T uff Green were refining and extending the musi- on his own Sun label. He kept cal heritage o f Sam Thomas, James Harris, Robert Baker, John Love, G.P. saying that if he could find a Hamilton, W est Dukes and Jim Turner, whom Beale Street chronicler white man who could sing with George Lee calls “the greatest o f the early orchestra leaders and the dis' the black man’s individuality coverer o f W .C . Handy.” and conviction he could make a After W orld W ar II, a couple of young Caucasian victims of the million dollars. The money was boogie disease named Sam and Dewey Phillips came to M emphis important both in itself and as a They were not related, but they were brothers in bop. W hen they symbol. Sam Phillips was saying that w ith such a singer he could change met, Dewey was selling records at Grant’s dime store on Main history. He did just that. Street, and Sam was engineering broadcasts from the Peabody Between 1949 and 1953, Elvis Presley, living w ith his parents in cheap Hotel’s Skyway Ballroom, shaking his earphoned head nightly apartment buildings and the Lauderdale Courts federal housing project, and saying, “There has listened every night to Dewey to be something better Phillips. He heard artists like Lou' than this.Paf“They had is Jordan, W ynonie Harris, Reset' some great bands,” Sam ta Tharpe, Big Boy Crudup, Fran' said, “but some o f those guys kie Laine and Ella M ae M orse had been reading the same played back to back with no re' charts every night for ten gard for race or any other consid' years, and they’re still turning eration except keeping the groove the pages.”} going, a format that makes today’s Dewey, "from the W est Tennes' segregated radio sound very see town of Adamsville, hitherto cheap. Sun had its first successful distinguished himself in Memphis releases in 1953, the year Presley by getting fired from the Taystee went to the Memphis Recording Bread Company — he somehow Service to make, as most o f the convinced the entire work force to world must know by now, a rec' make not loaves o f bread but little ord for his mother. A t this time bread men, like gingerbread men — Sam would make acetate copies o f and creating traffic jams on Main records he was thinking o f releas' Street by playing records and talk' ing and take them to Dewey, who ing over the dime store’s intercom. would play them on the air. If the He then pestered the staff at listeners liked them, Sam w ould W H B Q radio, across the street press them up. Sam had had small from Grant’s in the Hotel Chisca, hits with Rufus Thomas, the Pris' until they let him take over a iff onaires and Little Junior Parker teereminute popular music show, before the epochal night when El­ Red, Hot and Blue. vis, Scotty M oore and Bill Black D e w e y couldn’t read copy, and cut “That’s A ll Right (M am a)4} he couldn’t cue records without Dewey played that acetate eleven scratching them, but as Sam said, times in a row the first night he he had a platinum ear. He also got his hands on it, then inter' ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME

viewed Elvis on his show. The world would never be the same. o f ceremonies at the M idnight Rambles, half the dance team o f Rufus The year was 1954. The first Holiday Inn, the brainchild o f Memphian and Bones and the first person to have a hit on the Sim label - brought Kemmons W ilson, was tw o years old. Hank W illiams had died the year the first hit to what would become “Soulsville, U.S.A.,” the Stax/Volt before. This year Boss Crump would die. He had become the mayor of Recording Company. Memphis when it was the murder capital o f the country. Although the Rufus’s daughter Carla followed with the first national hit on Stax - murder rate was still high when Crump died, Memphis was the nation’s “Gee W hiz,” a song she had written three years before, when she was fif­ cleanest, quietest city. School segregation was outlawed this year, and a teen. M any hits were to come for the studio, from the Mar-Keys, Booker “hillbilly cat” w ho bought his clothes at Lansky’s on Beale Street, where T. and the M Gs, Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Eddie Floyd, W illiam the black pimps traded, and w ho had been regarded as “different” at all- Bell, Albert King. Even after trie death o f Otis Redding and the original white Humes High School, broke through America’s color line, altering Bar-Kays, the Staple Singers, Isaac Hayes, Luther Ingram and Johnnie its popular culture for all time. Taylor kept trie classics coming. There were so many strong Sun artists - Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, The assassination o f M artin Luther King only a few months after Red­ Johnny Cash, Charlie Rich, Roy Orbison, Billy Lee Riley, Charlie Feath­ ding5s death changed trie racial climate all over America. M any things af­ ers, W arren Smith - that there wasn’t enough time to record jazz, artists fected the fortunes o f Stax/Volt, but oil January 12th, 1976, a federal like Phineas Newborn Jr. and gospel artists like Herbert Brewster. W hen bankruptcy judge ordered its doors locked. In the meantime, American R C A V ictor offered $35,000 for Elvis Presley’s recording contract, Sam Studios, another prolific source o f hits in Memphis, had come and gone, Phillips, thinking o f what he could do with his label with that much as had the Goldwax label and other Memphis worthies. But happily, money, asked Kemmons W ilson (Sam was an early Holiday Inns inves­ W illie M itchell’s Royal Recording Studio was producing a superb series tor) whether he should sell Elvis. “I wouldn’t hesitate,” W ilson said. with such artists as A1 Green, O.V. W right and Ann Peebles. “That boy isn’t even a professional.” Sam could not have known that |p|ih the Seventies a band from Texas called Z Z Top began hanging out Carl Perkins would have a near-fatal car wreck or that Jerry Lee Lewis in Memphis, where they eventually made trie best-selling blues recordings w ould marry his thirteen-year-old cousin. o f all time. Jim Dickinson and A lex Chilton carried on a somewhat clan­ In 1958, w ith Elvis in the army and Sun Records starting to decline, a destine effort, now coming to light, in sessions at Ardent Studios with grammar-school teacher named Estelle A xton and her brother, a bank of­ bands like Green on Red, the Replacements and R.E.M. Keith Richards ficer and country-fiddle player named Jim Stewart, installed a one-track came to Memphis to work on part o f his solo album. Studios are sprouting tape recorder behind the Satellite Dairy in Brunswick, Tennessee, on the bluffs like magic mushrooms. The Peabody Hotel has one that it where they sold hamburgers between takes. In 1960, Stewart and A x- rents at special rates to guests. ton found an empty movie theater in a black South Memphis neigh­ One Memphis producer observed that in trie absence o f prevailing trends, borhood that rented for $100 a month, and Rufus Thomas - who had popular music splits into its black and white roots, and therefore Memphis is started out on Beale Street at the age o f six playing a frog in a show always in the music’s future. A s Sleepy John Estes said, “Mem- at the Grand Theater, had been a Rabbit’s Foot M instrel, a master phis has always been the leader o f dirty work in the world.”