memphis – Bluescentric

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“I’ve always been in love with that Delta-flavored music the music that came from Mississippi and Memphis and, especially, New Orleans. When I was 14, I was in a wanna-be New Orleans band in Toronto.” – Robbie Robertson, The Band

“Anticipated [Rap Music]? I damn well invented it! And I wasn’t the only one. Talking rhyming lyrics to a groove is something you’d hear in the clubs everywhere from Macon to Memphis.” – Johnny “Guitar” Watson

Memphis soul master Rufus Thomas coined a gritty dance craze called “The Dog” with is 1963 song “Walking the Dog”

After a local Memphis radio DJ kept calling Otis Redding “Mr. Pitiful” due to the sad songs he sung, Otis responded by writing is soon-to-be hit song of the same name. Jimi Hendrix covered it.

Elvis Presley famously trained in Karate with Master Kang Rhee in Memphis, Tennessee.

After a girlfriend poured boiling grits on Al Green & committed suicide, the soul singer interpreted the event as a spiritual warning and became a preacher. Green’s church is located close to Graceland in Memphis.

In an attempt to find long-lost delta blues guitarist Bukka (Booker) White, music historian John Fahey sent a letter addressed simply, “Bukka White (Old Blues Singer), Aberdeen, MS” — White’s hometown. The letter was forwarded to White, working in a Memphis tank factory, and the musician enjoyed a second act as an in-demand master of the 1960s Folk blues revival.

Famed Memphis-based photographer Ernest Withers served as the official Stax Records photographer for 20 years.

B.B. King took his first big chance on music when he accidentally broke the smokestack off a tractor, and was so scared that he grabbed his guitar and ran to Memphis, Tennessee, where he realized his music could make money. So he returned to the farm, worked off the debt, and quit to pursue music. The smokestack is now located in the BB King Museum in his hometown.

Soul Music extraordinaire Al Green is an ordained minister, and founded a church in Memphis, Tennessee in 1976, the Full Gospel Tabernacle Church — located just a few blocks from Elvis Presley’s Graceland estate.

In 1929, W.C. Handy & Bessie Smith made a glamorous premier of their movie “St. Louis Blues” with red carpet & limousines in Memphis, Tennessee, on Beale Street at The Daisy Theater — an establishment which stands to this day.

Despite its larger-than-life reputation, the revered Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee is only 600 square feet (55 square meters).

Johnny Cash recorded “Folsom Prison Blues” at the Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee on July 30, 1955.

Sam Phillips founded Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee in February of 1952.

Pioneering record producer Sam Phillips died July 30th, 2003 — one day before the building he made famous, Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee was designated a National Historic Landmark.

One record label, SUN RECORDS in Memphis, Tennessee, discovered Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Howlin’ Wolf, Ike Turner & Jackie Brenston, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Roy Orbison, among others.

Al Green became an ordained preacher, establishing the Full Gospel Tabernacle Church in 1976 in Memphis, Tennesse, just a stone’s throw from Graceland. He is still the reverend.

Aretha Franklin was born March 25th, 1942 in Memphis, Tennessee.

Stax Records was founded in Memphis, Tennessee in 1957.

Buddy Guy’s “Baby Please Don’t Leave Me” was featured in the opening of Memphis native Craig Brewer’s movie “Hustle & Flow”, starring Terrence Howard.

Steve Cropper and Otis Redding wrote “Mr. Pitiful” at the Lorraine Hotel, in Memphis – a common hangout for Stax musicians.

Elvis Presley was famously clothed, “from his first suit to his last,” by Lansky Brothers on Beale St in Memphis.

Bluesman Sunnyland Slim got his name from the Sunnyland train that ran from Memphis to Saint Louis.

Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee was officially named “The Home of the Blues” by an act of Congress in 1977.

Stax Records was located on 926 E McLemore Ave in Memphis, Tennessee. It’s now Stax Museum of American Soul.