I’ve got to admit, this playlist may tell you as much about me as it does about Merle. As you may notice, it’s a little on the melancholy side. But if you listen to these songs, you’ll catch a lot of the range and depth of Merle’s music, right down to “Footlights,” the personal confession at the end, perhaps as profound
I wish I could have included Bob Dylan doing his knocked-out version of “Boogie Woogie Country Girl,” but the fine tribute album on which it appears, Till the Night is Gone, is not available on Spotify. (Be sure to check it out.) There’s no shortage of star power here, though, with Doc’s original inspiration,
A Playlist to accompany the chapter on Lonnie in “Looking To Get Lost.”
I would defy anyone not to be caught up in the unbridled passion and energy of these sides. They come from three different phases of Lonnie’s career. The Fraternity sides, which though they were triggered by a huge instrumental hit, exhibit some of the most soulful intensity this side of Archie Brownlee or Wilson Pickett (two early influences); the early Elektra sides, just as soulful, if not more so; and a later, more thoughtful Elektra phase in which he returns to some of the songs that inspired him (“Uncle Pen”) and meditates on the place that he came from (“The Hills of Indiana”). Obviously the selection could have been nothing but gospel-based blues and soul – but to my mind this gives a better sense of the breadth and dimensionality of this unreconstructed original
October 26 Peter & Elvis Costello in Conversation
Presented by The Strand Bookstore
Tickets: here
November 12 Peter and Rosanne Cash in Conversation
Presented by Politics and Prose
Tickets: here
Includes Chapters On Ray Charles, Solomon Burke, Tammy Wynette, Bill Monroe And More
I don’t think there’s a single person on the Memphis music scene over the last 60 years who hasn’t been helped in one way or another by Knox. And when I say helped, I’m not just speaking of a smile and a nod. Knox, when he offered assistance, really put his shoulder to the wheel. Sometimes he would take your problems more to heart than you did yourself. Knox always had an analytic mind, and sometimes he could imagine greater, more sweeping, more
One of America's leading cultural historians, Peter Guralnick has been called a "National Resource" by critic Nat Hentoff. He has argued passionately and persuasively for the vitality of this country's intertwined black and white musical traditions. Read More
