Fat Possum: Memphis Rent Party - Soundtrack to Robert Gordon's Book - New Release Review

I just had the opportunity to review Memphis Rent Party, the soundtrack to Robert Gordon's 6th book, and it's excellent. Opening with a ragged but remarkable rendition of Guy Clark's Desparados Waiting On A Train by Jerry McGill. Backed by Mud Boy and the Neutrons, this is subtly terrific with excellent piano and slide work under McGill's haunting vocals.  On Chevrolet Luther Dickinson and Sharde Thomas exchanging lead vocals and playing fife vs slide backed by snappy marching like snare drums and powerful bass drums strokes.  Junior Kimbrough is up next with his trademark sound on All Night Long, recorded in Kimbrough's living room in the middle of a cotton field in 1986. Very cool. Another unmistakable sound is the sound of Furry Lewis' vocals with his own slide guitar on Why Don't You Come Home Blues, recorded in his living room in the 60's. How does it get any better than this? The surprise track for me was Calvin Newborn on Frame for the Blues, a sophisticated jazzy blues entry. Newborn's blues guitar phrasing is subtle but innovative coupled with flute and a solid backing. Very very nice!   Jerry Lee Lewis rolls out Harbor Lights with his unmatched rocking piano work. The Fieldstones, live at Green's Lounge in South Memphis, grind out Little Bluebird, a slow gripping blues number. Mose Vinson does a real nice barrelhouse piano boogie, Same Thing On My Mind, with clarity and real feel. Very cool. Charlie Feathers contributes Cajun flavored country track, Defrost Your Heart with pure style and grace. Wrapping the release is Jim Dickinson on I'd Love to be a Hippie, a lumbering blues track with a rock edge. This is a super closer to a powerful release.

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$10 Sale - Order Now

Our $10 Holiday Sale is still going on, so go finish your shopping on our website.
Make sure to get your orders in now to receive them by Christmas!

Not sure what to get? Check out some of this year's releases and a few classics below.
 

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Iggy and the Stooges - Ready to Die
 

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Youth Lagoon - Wondrous Bughouse
 

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Yuck - Glow & Behold
 

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Frankie Rose - Herein Wild
 

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Any of our Al Green albums will make a great gift for music lovers.
Find them here.
 

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The Black Keys - Rubber Factory
 

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Junior Kimbrough - You Better Run
 

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R.L. Burnside - Come On In

Melody's Echo Chamber, San Cisco, & more

Melody's Echo Chamber In Stores Now Melody's Echo Chamber : Melody's Echo Chamber CD/LP/Digital CD: $13 LP: $14 Mp3 Album: $8.99 iTunes Amazon Insound ON TOUR NOW: 09-26 Minneapolis, MN - Triple Rock * 09-27 Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hall * 09-28 St. Louis, MO - The Firebird * 09-29 Columbus, OH - A&R Bar * 09-30 Detroit, MI - Magic Stick  * 10-02 Toronto, Ontario - Phoenix Concert Theatre * 10-04 Philadelphia, PA - Union Transfer * 10-05 New York, NY - Webster Hall  * 10-06 Washington DC - Black Cat * 10-07 Boston, MA - Paradise Rock Club * 10-08 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theatre * 10-11 Solana Beach, CA - Belly Up Tavern * 10-12 San Francisco, CA - Bimbo's 365 Club * *  with The Raveonettes SAN CISCO US DEBUT OCTOBER 23 In a year of viral mega-hits from Down Under, a group of four youthful musical friends have reached the upper echelons of the Australian pop charts with an intoxicating ear-worm of a song called "Awkward".  San Cisco, from sunny Fremantle, Western Australia are releasing their US debut, the Awkward EP on Fat Possum October 23rd. San Cisco, who have been performing together for nearly 4 years, will be making their live US debut in October, including stops in NYC during CMJ.  San Cisco are releasing their debut album in early 2013. US OCTOBER TOUR: 10/17 - NEW YORK, NY - BOWERY BALLROOM *CMJ* 10/19 - NEW YORK, NY - MERCURY LOUNGE *CMJ* 10/20 - NEW YORK, NY - PIANO'S *CMJ* 10/20 - NEW YORK, NY - THE DELANCEY *CMJ* 10/21 - ST. PAUL, MN - TURF CLUB 10/23 - LOST ANGELES, CA - THE ECHO Holy Shit "You Made My Dreams Come True" 12" Single IN STORES NOVEMBER 6 Pre-Order from FatPossum.com   Mean Lady 'Bop Bop' 7" IN STORES NOVEMBER 6 Pre-Order from FatPossum.com   Junior Kimbrough "First Recordings" NOW ON CD! IN STORES NOVEMBER 6 OR ORDER NOW FROM FATPOSSUM.COM

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I Feel Good Again - Junior Kimbrough and Charlie Feathers

Charles Arthur "Charlie" Feathers (June 12, 1932 – August 29, 1998) was an influential American rockabilly and country music performer.
Feathers was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and recorded a string of popular singles like "Peepin' Eyes," "Defrost Your Heart," "Tongue-Tied Jill," and "Bottle to the Baby" on Sun Records, Meteor and King Records in the 1950s.

Feathers was known for being a master of shifting emotional and sonic dynamics in his songs. His theatrical, hiccup-styled, energetic, rockabilly vocal style inspired a later generation of rock vocalists, including Lux Interior of The Cramps.

He studied and recorded several songs with Junior Kimbrough, whom he called "the beginning and end of all music". His childhood influences were reflected in his later music of the 1970s and 1980s, which had an easy-paced, sometimes sinister, country-blues tempo, as opposed to the frenetic fast-paced style favored by some of his rockabilly colleagues of the 1950s.

He started out as a session musician at Sun Studios, playing any side instrument he could in the hopes of someday making his own music there. He eventually played on a small label started by Sam Phillips called Flip records which got him enough attention to record a couple singles for Sun Records and Holiday Inn Records. By all accounts the singer was not held in much regard by Phillips, but Feathers often made the audacious claim that he had arranged "That's All Right" and "Blue Moon of Kentucky" for Elvis Presley and recorded "Good Rockin' Tonight" months before Presley. He also claimed that his "We're Getting Closer (To Being Apart)" had been intended to be Elvis' sixth single for Sun. He did, however, get his name on one of Elvis' Sun records, "I Forgot To Remember To Forget" when the writer Stan Kesler asked him to record a demo of the song.

He then moved on to Meteor Records and then King Records where he recorded his best-known work. When his King contract ran out he still continued to perform, although Feathers—perhaps typically—thought there was a conspiracy to keep his music from gaining the popularity it deserved.

In the mid-1980s, he performed at times at new music nightclubs like the Antenna Club in Memphis, Tennessee, sharing the bill with rock-and-roll bands like Tav Falco's Panther Burns, who, as devoted fans of Feathers, had introduced him to their label's president. During this time, rockabilly icon Colonel Robert Morris played drums for Charlie. Charlie said "Robert tore up a brand new set of drums, but the crowd was dancing on the tables".

He released his New Jungle Fever album in 1987 and Honkey Tonk Man in 1988, featuring the lead guitar work of his son, Bubba Feathers. These later albums of original songs penned by Feathers were released on the French label New Rose Records, whose other 1980s releases included albums by cult music heroes like Johnny Thunders, Alex Chilton, Roky Erickson, The Cramps, The Gun Club, and others.

Feathers' song, "That Certain Female" was featured on the soundtrack to Quentin Tarantino's 2003 film, Kill Bill Vol. 1. His "Can't Hardly Stand It" was featured on the follow-up Kill Bill Vol. 2 soundtrack.

He died on August 29, 1998 of complications from a stroke-induced coma.

Charlie Feathers' pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. Bob Dylan has featured Charlie Feathers on the second season of his XM satellite radio show Theme Time Radio Hour, playing Feathers' records "One Hand Loose" (on the "Countdown" show, Dec. 12, 2007) and "Defrost Your Heart" (on the "Cold" show, April 2, 2008).
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All Night Long - Junior Kimbrough

David "Junior" Kimbrough (July 28, 1930 — January 17, 1998) was an American blues musician. His best known work included "Keep Your Hands Off Her" and "All Night Long". Music journalist Tony Russell stated "his raw, repetitive style suggests an archaic forebear of John Lee Hooker, a character his music shares with that of fellow North Mississippian R. L. Burnside"
Junior Kimbrough was born in Hudsonville, Mississippi, United States, and lived in the North Mississippi Hill Country near Holly Springs. He recorded for the Fat Possum Records label. He was a long-time associate of labelmate R. L. Burnside, and the Burnside and Kimbrough families often collaborated on musical projects. This relationship continues today. Rockabilly musician and friend Charlie Feathers called Kimbrough "the beginning and end of all music." This is written on Kimbrough's tombstone outside his family's church, the Kimbrough Family Church, in Holly Springs.

Beginning around 1992, Kimbrough operated a juke joint known as "Junior's Place" in Chulahoma, Mississippi, which attracted visitors from around the world, including members of U2, Keith Richards, and Iggy Pop. Kimbrough's sons, musicians Kinney and David Malone Kimbrough, kept it open following his death, until it burned to the ground on April 6, 2000.

Junior Kimbrough died of a heart attack in 1998 in Holly Springs following a stroke, at the age of 67
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Deep Blues - Blues Documentary

This superb documentary vividly illustrates the enduring vitality of country blues, an idiom that most mainstream music fans had presumed dead or, at best, preserved through more scholarly tributes when filmmaker Robert Mugge and veteran blues and rock writer Robert Palmer embarked on their 1990 odyssey into Mississippi delta country. What Arkansas native and former Memphis stalwart Palmer knew, and Mugge captured on film, was that the blues was not only alive but still intimately woven into the daily lives of rural blacks.

Palmer, a former rock musician and Memphis Blues Festival cofounder best known for his bylines in The New York Times and Rolling Stone, had already chronicled the saga of Southern blues in his seminal book that provides the film's title. He's an astute guide, and Mugge underlines this role by pairing him with British rocker Dave Stewart (Eurythmics), whose avid interest in the music makes him an effective foil.

The film's real triumph, however, rests in the team's success in capturing modern day blues survivors and inheritors playing in the bars, juke joints, and barns of delta country. Palmer, who had returned several years earlier to the delta to capture these artists for his scrappy Fat Possum label, introduces us to the now-amplified but still elemental blues of R.L. Burnside, the late Junior Kimbrough, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes, and other keepers of the faith. Mugge, whose profiles of Al Green, Sonny Rollins, and other musicians probed their cultural and artistic contexts with intelligence and sensitivity, captures both the music and the milieu in crisp color footage. Deep Blues thus triumphs as a testament to the blues' deep roots and an unintentional eulogy for Palmer, who would pass away in the mid-'90s just as the gut-bucket music of Burnside and Kimbrough served notice that the blues were alive and kicking.
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You See Me Laughin - Part 2

You See Me Laughin' is a personal journey into the lives and music of the last of the hill country bluesmen who've kept their music alive on the back porches and in the tiny juke joints of the Mississippi backwoods.
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You See Me Laughin' - Part 1

You See Me Laughin' is a personal journey into the lives and music of the last of the hill country bluesmen who've kept their music alive on the back porches and in the tiny juke joints of the Mississippi backwoods.
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Sad Days, Lonely Nights - Junior Kimbrough

David "Junior" Kimbrough (July 28, 1930 — January 17, 1998) was an American blues musician from North Mississippi. His best known work included "Keep Your Hands Off Her" and "All Night Long". Music journalist Tony Russell stated "his raw, repetitive style suggests an archaic forebear of John Lee Hooker, a character his music shares with that of fellow North Mississippian R. L. Burnside".
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You See Me Laughin' part 4

You See Me Laughin' is a personal journey into the lives and music of the last of the hill country bluesmen who've kept their music alive on the back porches and in the tiny juke joints of the Mississippi backwoods.
Get Facebook support for your favorite band or venue - click HERE

You see me laughin´ - The Last of the Hill Country Bluesmen. Part 3

You See Me Laughin' is a personal journey into the lives and music of the last of the hill country bluesmen who've kept their music alive on the back porches and in the tiny juke joints of the Mississippi backwoods.
Get Facebook support for your favorite band or venue - click HERE