This book fills in what isn't so familiar: Memphis, it reveals, is our great cultural mixing board, where all the black and white folk have met and done musical business for two centuries or more. Larry Nager, former music editor of the "Memphis Commercial Appeal," offers more than a casual history. His chronicle reaches back into the nineteenth century, when Memphis was a wild frontier town full of whiskey, fiddle players, and minstrelsy. It hits cruising speed at the turn of the century, as W. C. Handy discovered the blues, women like Lil Armstrong and Memphis Minnie kept up with the men, and a Memphis deejay dreamed up the Grand Ole Opry. It chronicles the strange alchemy by which local rhythm 'n' blues, hard country, and black and white gospel got remade into powerful rock and roll in Sam Phillips's Sun Records studio on Union Avenue. The beat goes on into the '60s and the era of Stax and Hi Records - when the first integrated generations, raised on Sun 45s, started waxing their own sounds. And it follows Memphis even into contemporary times, through Big Star's adventures at Ardent Records, the difficult revival of Beale Street, and the birth of the House of Blues. There is triumph and tragedy here, and much in between - from the stalwart presence of lifelong musicians like Gus Cannon and Furry Lewis, through the horrific accident that killed Otis Redding, the Bar-Kays, and years and years of musical dreams.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Kirkus Reviews
Nager is a documentary filmmaker and former music editor of the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the only daily paper in the Home of the Blues, a fair set of credentials for the author of a chronicle of the city's musical history. Memphis was unusually well positioned to become a musical crossroads for America. A large port city on the Mississippi River, just north of the Delta country that gave birth to the blues, only 210 miles from Nashville and every bit as much a part of the hill-country heritage that created country and bluegrass, its also a gateway to the north and the big industrial cities that disseminated America's music as a commercial product. As portrayed by Nager, Memphis was also a unique breeding ground for America's various musical forms, a place where black and white met surreptitiously. There is, Nager shows, considerably more to Memphis than Elvis, although he doesn't short-change the King. However, he is ostensibly more concerned with the key figures who came before and after, and who have received somewhat less attention. Given that, it seems odd that Nager spends so much ink on W.C. Handy, Jimmy Lunceford, and some figures with a relatively peripheral relation to the Bluff City, like Robert Johnson and Bessie Smith. All too often this book is a catalogue of musicians who passed through Memphis, or recorded in Memphis, or were born in Memphis. And too much of the musical history recounted in its pages has been told better elsewhere by Peter Guralnick, Francis Davis, and others. The book does come alive in its chapter on Stax/Volt records and the '60s soul music craze, and Nager does give ample space to many musicians who might otherwise be forgotten. But this is at heart an unsurprising work with no fresh insights. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A truly whole and telling history of Memphis music,
By A Customer
This review is from: Memphis Beat : The Lives and Times of America's Musical Crossroads (Hardcover)
This is one of the best books I have ever read about Memphis music. It focused on many of the things that other books overlook, while still retaining the heart of Memphis which is THE BLUES. Larry Nager has a very good understanding of the atmosphere and attitudes of the people in Memphis, since he lived there for several years. The book is thorough in its coverage of everyone from Elvis to Phineas Newborn Jr. to Otis Redding. I highly recommend this to the Memphis music novice or the avid Memphis history collector.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Book,
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This review is from: Memphis Beat: The Lives and Times of America's Musical Crossroads (Hardcover)
Finally a book that talks about all the music from Memphis, where most books just talk about a certain type. But Memphis is a special place, a real crossroads for many different styles of American music.Few minor glitches - some factual mistakes - repetition (JL Lewis always had an ill-fated marriage, a few times in the book) - bad layout, a few white lines to seperate paragraphs would have been nicer. But, these are just minor things, overall it's a good book.
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