Glory Days of Memphis Music

Forged in the past, the music scene in the Bluff City is still very much alive and well.

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It’s a story that was common in Memphis in the mid-1960s. As singer Harold Thomas tells it, “We were coming to Stax, but when we got here, we stopped at American [Studios], ’cause we heard they had the number-one song in the country, “The Letter.” When we got there, Bobby Womack was there. And he says to us, ‘Man, let’s see what ya got.’ So we did our original songs and Bobby said, ‘If you stay here, I can help you guys.’ And he played guitar on our first hit records.”

Thomas and his vocal group the Masqueraders were among the hundreds who flocked to Memphis in those years, all with a song in their back pocket. And most producers realized that a good song could come from anyone. Deanie Parker, who started as the receptionist at Stax Records, benefitted from this openness, penning many compositions in the studio’s glory days. “We fed off of each other, and it was understood that if you were going to write a song, that you would share it,” she says. “There was that sense of community. Steve Cropper and I probably spent more time writing together than anyone else, because Steve was there 24/7. I could sneak away and get him to help me give some form to a song, or finish up something.”

While neither the Stax nor American studios operate as such anymore, the Home of Blues, Soul, and Rock-and-Roll is still a buzzing hive of songwriters. This summer’s number-one song in the nation, “Old Town Road,” by Lil Nas X, has a middle section sung by Billy Ray Cyrus. While even that was not enough to earn the cowboy-themed track respect from the Nashville establishment, the verse was written by Memphis’ own Jozzy, aka Jocelyn Donald, who’s now reaping the rewards of her co-write and has launched a career as a performer. For her, the city’s milieu was crucial to developing her talent. “Memphis is different from any other city because there’s someone in everybody’s family that plays an instrument,” she says. “Live instrumentation is heavy in Memphis. There’s a lot of musicians.”

“When people write songs from a place of honesty, those are always the best songs.” — Boo Mitchell, Royal Studios

Indeed, true to the tight-knit Memphis community, Jozzy’s mother sang for an obscure soul group on Hi Records, produced by legendary Willie Mitchell, a songwriter’s songwriter by any standard. Producer/engineer Boo Mitchell, who grew up under Willie’s tutelage, is helping to bring his wisdom into the twenty-first century at Royal Studios. As Boo tells it, a good song transcends music: “Pop goes, ‘Boo, we’re not selling music, we’re selling feelings.’ People buy songs because they feel a certain way. So when people write songs from a place of honesty, those are always the best songs. You need to take someone else’s situation and put yourself in their place.”

It was an approach that Willie brought to his many co-writes with soul phenomenon, now Reverend, Al Green. “Willie would have some soul chords, then all of a sudden put a G13 chord in, and the music takes a hard left,” says Boo. “He did a lot of going from major to minor. Which made it almost like a movie soundtrack, gave it this tension and suspense. Willie did the music and Al did the lyrics. And Al Jackson Jr., they gave him songwriting credit for the rhythms.”

The beauty of the Memphis scene today is that those glory days are still very present. William Bell, a onetime Stax star who now lives in Atlanta, and Don Bryant, who has remained in Memphis, are both examples of the durability of old-school songwriting. Bell, who won a Grammy in 2017, can often be heard performing in his hometown, and he too emphasizes the importance of honesty. “You have to be honest enough to hang your feelings out there sometimes,” he says. “You’ve got to tell it just like it is.”

Bryant, for his part, focused on songwriting at the expense of his performance career — until now. After penning such hits as “I Can’t Stand the Rain” (for his wife, Ann Peebles), he remained obscure for decades, until joining forces with producer Scott Bomar and the Bo-Keys in recent years. Now experiencing a renaissance, he can be seen singing in Memphis, New York, or on the European festival circuit. And he continues to write, inspired by nothing more than living itself. “We all got a story to tell,” he says. “There’s always something to talk about. It don’t have to be more than anybody else’s life. Good memories, bad memories, missed opportunities. I look back at all that stuff.”

Such life experience was apparent as lovers of song recently gathered to hear Bryant at the Crosstown Arts Green Room, along with fellow songsmiths Susan Marshall and Reba Russell, as the three took turns taking the rapt listeners on journeys of the soul. It was a mingling of jazz, folk, and soul that all shared a common earthiness. In Russell’s case, one song had become more real than she could have imagined when writing it. “I wrote this song kind of as a metaphor, and it has become a reality because of climate change,” she quipped, before launching her tale of rising floodwaters.

Casual prophecies of this sort drop like flower petals wherever songwriters gather. And gather they do. The Folk All Y’all house concert series brings local and visiting songwriters in a variety of settings. Husband-and-wife team Amy LaVere and Will Sexton thrive in such environments. The Memphis Songwriters Association, one of the oldest organizations of its kind in the country, meets every month, with performances and discussions of the craft ensuing. Coffee houses like Otherlands or Java Cabana, or small bars like the Lamplighter or Bar DKDC, ring out with open mic nights. The unassuming family eatery Mortimer’s, with its wall of Chris Bell (of Big Star fame) memorabilia, features the classic pop of Van Duren every Thursday. Even Beale Street clubs, known more for feel-good blues standards, play host to devotees of classic soul and rock-and-roll songwriting like John Paul Keith.

“I think the best feeling as a songwriter is to write a song that the artist feels connected to.” — Kirby

One such talent, Mark Edgar Stuart, is now set to play host to his compatriots in the Orpheum Theatre’s Halloran Center this fall, where Stuart and his guests will gather by the fireplace and trade numbers. He sees it as a way to spotlight talents who may be overlooked in their hometown, even as they gain recognition elsewhere. “Brandon Kinder plays in a band around here called the Wealthy West,” says Stuart. “But that’s a little side project. Just flying under the radar, playing in his little rock-and-roll band, but he’s actually doing a whole lot more at his house in his studio. He’s a really good pop songwriter and he’s always getting songs placed. He’s got publishing deals and writes songs for television.”

Other songwriters quietly gathering fans include Bailey Bigger, Grace Askew, and Joe Leathers (who has 12 top-40 hits including “Hemingway’s Whiskey,” co-written with Guy Clark). Askew, for her part, has built a steady following on social media by posting a new song every day for over a year. It’s a new approach that invites listeners into the process, and it can pay huge dividends. Memphis native Kirby Dockery, known best as Kirby, found great success through her similar use of social media.

A graduate of the Stax Music Academy, Kirby left Berklee College of Music to pursue her music career, but had trouble getting recognition. Yet her resolve led her to post a song a day on YouTube — which eventually yielded 200 compositions and being signed to Jay-Z’s Roc Nation Publishing. There, she found herself co-writing “Only One” with Kanye West and Paul McCartney, and “FourFiveSeconds” with West, McCartney, and Rihanna.

It was working with West that held the most meaning for her. “I think the best feeling as a songwriter is to write a song that the artist feels connected to,” she says. “Not just because it’s catchy, but because it’s personal. I grew up on Kanye West, and ‘Hey Mama’ was one of my favorite songs of his. To write ‘Only One’ with him [a song dedicated to his mom and his first-born] was truly a full-circle moment for me. I feel like I was able to give back to someone who gave so much to me musically. I will always hold that dear to my heart.”

Isaac Hayes, David Porter, Otis Redding, Maurice White, and W.C. Handy. Keith Sykes, now managing Ardent Studios after a lifetime of songwriting for himself and other artists like Jimmy Buffett, recently attended this year’s induction ceremony for the New York-based institution, and saw fellow Memphian Justin Timberlake receive its Contemporary Icon Award. “He also closed the show,” says Sykes. “Fantastic, man! And he gave a huge shout-out to Memphis, several times.” Sykes’ friend and erstwhile collaborator John Prine, who is rightfully honored as the gold standard of songwriters, also was inducted, causing Sykes to ponder Prine’s longtime connection with Memphis. “He did his first album here, with Don Nix at American,” recalls Sykes. “He did Common Sense here, and Pink Cadillac here. He’s done a bunch of stuff in Memphis. And he loves it down here.”

Indeed, Prine has cast a long shadow over the art form in this town, inspiring many, like the late, great John Kilzer, or that indefatigable troubador, Cory Branan, to literary heights with their similar love of the story-song. To Branan, finding deeper truths in the compact song format can be akin to walking a tightrope. “There’s always a balance for me,” he says. “A writer like John Prine balances the humor with a dark undercurrent in his music. It’s really deceptively light. I enjoy the dark mixed with humor. Being from Mississippi, Faulkner is pretty much required reading. And there’s a direct link between Faulkner and Marquez, and a lot of the other Latin-American and Spanish writers. That stuff really resonated with me. A lot of things that bypass the intellect with surrealist images. I’m really drawn to images that find their way around my intellect and resonate with me for a reason I can’t figure out.”

It’s no accident, then, that both Kilzer and Branan studied creative writing. Another local songsmith of note, Rob Jungklas, even taught high school English for a time. And recently, Ben Nichols of Lucero has taken a more literary turn as well, even enlisting the talents of actor Michael Shannon for a narrative/song on their latest album. All of which flies in the face of perceptions that good songwriting can arise only from pure inspiration. Rather, one can chip away at the discipline, the craft of it. The great accomplishments of one-time in-house songwriters like William Bell, Don Bryant, or Deanie Parker show the value of just showing up at the office, working shoulder to shoulder with other masters of the art form.

It’s in that tradition that the future of the city’s songsmiths is being forged at the Stax Music Academy (SMA). Kirby, for one, has not forgotten the pivotal role that the SMA played in her ascension. As SMA executive director Pat Mitchell-Worley notes, “Kirby recently offered four scholarships to students in the program, based on the students creating original material. And she listened to every song that was offered. Not only did she pick the best ones, she gave them feedback on their songs. So her scholarship reinforced our songwriting focus.” In fact, the SMA is now promoting the importance of songwriting more than ever, with a dedicated track of study focused on the craft.

As Kirby herself notes, songwriting can and should be learned — and she’s living proof. “The Stax Music Academy was one of the first catalysts that helped me believe that songwriting wasn’t just a dream,” she says. “It was there where I first heard my lyrics and melodies put to music. If it wasn’t for SMA, I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of meeting my future publisher years before I even knew how to be signed as a songwriter. SMA planted seeds that are still blooming in my life today. I am forever grateful.”