Give me about a half a teacup of bass, a pound of fat back drums, four tablespoons of boiling Memphis guitars, a little pinch of organ, a half a pint of horns. Place on the burner, bring to a boil…now beat – well!  The recipe given to us by King Curtis on the hit Memphis Soul Stew.

  Named after an Egyptian city Memphis lays at the cross roads of the South.  The medium sized city is one of the World’s richest musical hot spots. Sun Records  based in Memphis released the early works of Elvis and Johnny Cash in the fifties and in the sixties Stax and Hi records released equally groundbreaking artists in Otis Redding, Al Green, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, Isaac Hayes.  The Sound was gritty and revealed the Church’s influence.  Booker T’s MG’s would be the backing band on most of the hit’s from Stax records and their influence in popular music remains in the work of Soulive, Galactic, the Budos Band, and The Daptones.  Otis Redding and Al Green brought an emotionalism to Soul making deeply romantic music. Al Green preaches in a Memphis church to this day and never really left.  Isaac Hayes worked both as business head and chief songwriter for Stax Records.  His solo work defined orchestrated Soul, set the sound of Blaxplotation soundtracks with Shaft, headlined WattSatx, as well as being a beloved cartoon character.   Though Stax was fully integrated in both sound and business the appeal to “cross over” as Motown attempted never was really an option in the South, which kept the Soul in Memphis dirty and funky.  Wildly popular Radio DJ turned wildy popular singer Rufus Thomas was the self proclaimed “Funkiest Man Alive”.  Carla Thomas of “Tramp”was her Pop, together and separate they created some of Stax’s most fun records like “The Breakdown”, “Do The Funky Chicken” and “60 minute Man”. 

  Memphis for a time forgot it’s legacy in music and the movie theater that became the studio for Stax, producing it’s city’s legendary Soul fell to disrepair and was for years a vacant lot.  In the new millenium the label has reformed producing new music, the vacant lot has become the Stax Museum of American Soul Music.  Graceland has past kitsch and is an honest historical attraction and Sun Records is busy now as a tourist destination.  But most importantly the South invisioned in the Soul music of Memphis, one without segregation and equality has come closer than ever.

Louisville

UK is back on top, with Anthony Davis emerging as perhaps college basketball’s most dominant player, or at least the one most fun to watch. Can anyone stop the ‘Cats? What about Murray State? Are they destined to become college basketball’s first undefeated team in over 3 decades? And what are Bellarmine’s chances of repeating as Division II Champs?

Special guest, c.d. kaplan, joins Matt and Mark with the answers and insights into these questions, and more, on this week’s Nothing But Net, the hoops podcast with a beat.

Orchestrated, big, political, profound, uplifting, spiritual these are the sounds of Chicago soul and let’s not forget the voices.  Curtis Mayfield, Jerry Butler, Jackie Wilson, Etta James, Minnie Ripperton these people told us People Get Ready, Why Don’t You Check Out Your Mind, Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher, At Last, I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun.  Musicality came from Chicago, the electrified blues came from Chicago, and shaped Soul forever.  Howlin Wolf and Muddy Waters headed a movement electrifying their Delta Blues in small clubs across the Northern boom town.  Their two guitar, bass, and drums lineup playing the 12 Bar Blues turnaround would be the same recreated in Britain. Fed back to America in the form of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, both would have American releases on Chicago Soul/Blues labels. Chicago, where gospel got the blues and brought everyone to church with The Staple Singers and Mahalia Jackson.  Both  crossed over and commanded large secular crowds, their talent  bound to escape Sunday morning.  African Americans escaping the oppression of Jim Crow laws and seeking employment in the industrial North, came to Chicago in the “Great Migration” intermingling with immigrants from Europe.  Born in Czestochowa, Poland Phil and Leonard Chess fell in love with their city’s sound and brought it to the world with Chess/Checker Records.  Curtis Mayfield wrote anthems for his generation, becoming a spokesperson and poet of the civil rights era as well as being an innovative guitarist. He released his music and other’s Soul artists on his own groundbreaking label Curtom. Donny Hathaway was Soul’s great tortured genius who used his demons to create some of Soul’s most emotional work. Lou Rawls met Jazz Composer David Axelrod and together they created beautifully complex songs.  Of course there are hundreds of bands that were together for a year, cut a side then broke up, which produced diamonds in their short lifespans. As with the city the sound had it’s gritty side and could sometimes out “South” the South.  Otis Clay, Etta James, Muddy and the Wolf all had a sound straight out the Deep South that pleased their Northern audiences.  A city in the middle of the country, not truly Northern filed with Southerners, Chicago’s Soul was uniquely it’s own.  It’s sticky sweet in the Chi-Lites and gritty like a growl from Etta James, poetic when sung by Curtis and woven with the deep Soul of Mahalia Jackson’s church.

New Orleans, Memphis, Los Angeles, New York, the Bay Area, Miami, Detroit and Philadelphia all had their own style and stamp on the formation of Soul.  For the next  months the Sound-Clash explores the cities that created Soul music, Friday nights at 10. 

For the next two months the Sound-Clash explores the cities that created Soul music, Friday nights at 10. New Orleans, Memphis, Chicago, New York, the Bay Area, Miami, Detroit and Philadelphia all had their own style and stamp on the formation of Soul.

We start off in New Orleans where Jazz musicians already created soul before there was a word for it. Lee Dorsey, Allen Toussaint, James Booker, The Meters, and Clifton Chenier all made music that would become the template of Soul music in the late 60′s and 70′s a decade before. Their sound was driven by rhythm and drums with the vocals improvised like a Jazz musician. The grittiness and inherent darkness of the crescent city gave the music an edge that made it impossible to cross over. Some New Orleans musicians would eventually find mainstream success later on in their careers. Dr. John and The Neville Brothers, even Allen Toussaint had an album with Elvis Costello a little over a year ago. The Blues created by musicians from New Orleans was brash and dynamic and would become hard to define in any genre. Bo Diddley credits his family’s roots in Louisiana for his sound that will encompass most of the last 50 years of popular music. You would hear echos of Bo Diddley in The Beatles, Link Wray, Modern Lovers, The Sex Pistols and Hip-Hop. The Meters would be the studio band for the bulk of Soul music from the city. At The Meter’s core are The Neville Brothers who have gone on to solo successes but as a unit backed Dr. John, Lee Dorsey, Allen Toussaint and many others in New Orleans studios. Slow and sweaty The Meters sound helps create Funk in the late 60′s along with James Brown and George Clinton. James Booker, the city’s favorite piano player, whose compositions along with Allen Toussaint’s s would BE the New Orleans sound. His eye patch and in-n-out of prison lifestyle would cripple his chances of ever breaking through into mainstream acceptance. Eddie Bo and Lee Dorsey have remained underground Soul purist’s favorite and the fodder for countless samples in Hip-Hop. The New Orleans sound continues to be ahead and constantly outside of the mainstream from Trombone Shorty and Wynton Marsalis to Lil Wayne, the gritty adventurous purity of Nawlin’s keeps it’s artists some of music’s most adventurous and timeless.