Justin Fox Burks
As the smell of smoked pork fills Tom Lee Park this month during the 40th annual World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, nearly 250 teams from around the globe will vie for the competition’s top prize. But a couple of rednecks who’ve been around since the very beginning mostly just want to have a good time.
Woody Coleman and Pete Gross were 23 and 30 years old, respectively, when their team — Redneck Bar-B-Q Express — became the first official team to enter the first-ever Memphis in May barbecue contest in 1978. Their crew showed up on a Friday afternoon — with a 10-foot grill, a whole hog, some booze, and a party van — in the parking lot across from The Orpheum, where that first cook-off was held, for a contest scheduled for the next day.
“If you’re cooking ribs and need to serve them at 4 o’clock, you’ve just got to get them on the grill by 8 in the morning. A whole hog — you’ve got to get it on the night before,” Pete says. “That Friday night, the organizers were all touring around the parking lot and not really expecting anybody to be there yet, and we were all there with this van and a grill. They came over to us going, ‘Who are you guys? Do y’all own a restaurant or something?’ Because we were somewhat organized. We said, ‘Naw, we’re just a bunch of rednecks here to have a large time.’ We started drinking, turned the stereo on, and we were going all night long.”
Woody recalls, “There were five of us [team members] and our dates or wives, and then we invited other people, so it was about 20 people down there partying … rednecks in cowboy hats.”
In the Beginning
Forty years of memories can blur when they’re doused with as much beer and barbecue sauce as a Redneck Memphis in May party, but in late March, over drinks at Lafayette’s Music Room, Woody and Pete — increasingly intoxicated as the time slips by — conjure up some of the event’s more memorable moments. Although specifics aren’t always agreed upon.
Before the bar fills with the Friday evening dinner crowd, backed by Tom Petty on the jukebox, the two bicker — as a married couple might — over the date of a newspaper clipping that shows Gross and teammates Mike Stalls and Ray Nolen, donned in cowboy hats, in front of a grill. “I think that was Year Two,” Woody says with a Tennessee twang, peering through thin-rimmed glasses to get a better look. “No it’s not; it’s Year One,” contends Pete, who’s slight in stature but sure of himself, sipping a bourbon and water across the table. “I’m holding up the hog! I’ve got the [expletive deleted] picture!”
A quick review of the photo caption reveals it was, in fact, taken “Year One,” when the barbecue battle was held at Main and Beale and featured just one team and 18 other individual contestants. “OK, I guess you’re right for once,” Woody concedes, then takes a swig of his Michelob Ultra.
That first Memphis in May barbecue contest — then called the International Barbecue Cooking Contest; today, known simply as the Barbecue to long-timers — wasn’t the Rednecks’ first stab at cooking contests. They’d previously participated in regional chili cook-offs, as — you guessed it — Redneck Chili Express. The “Express” part of the name was a nod to the then-up-and-coming Memphis startup, Federal Express. “FedEx was just getting a good foothold, and they were growing like crazy,” Pete says. “I really admired FedEx.” A Memphis transplant who grew up in Forrest City, Arkansas, Pete worked on a farm in his younger years. Driving a tractor under the summer sun gave him the appropriate complexion for the other part of the team’s name.
Those days, chili cook-offs were tons of fun, says Pete, “because all you had to have was a table this big and a little Coleman stove and that’s it, you were cooking.” Even the first of those contests he attended in Little Rock, Arkansas, was more about the party than winning. “I showed up in my cowboy boots, and everybody had coolers full of beer and Bloody Mary makings all over the table. They were cooking, the band was playing, and people were dancing, and I went, shoot, this thing is a hit!”
Outside of the contest circuit, the Rednecks were familiar with pork. “We were already cooking hogs,” Woody explains. One of the guys on the team knew the owners of a local farm. “We’d take the trailer out there and have 20, 30, 50 people and cook a hog. So we knew what we were doing.”
But no one knew what to expect for the first annual Memphis in May barbecue contest. There were no set rules — no specific categories, no strict protocol for judging. “The organizers, the cooks — everybody was flying by the seat of their pants. The judges didn’t go sit in a tent and eat the barbecue like they do now; there were no scorecards,” Pete says. “We just knew we had to have a hog, we needed to have sauce, and we needed to have firewood.”
“And T-shirts,” Woody adds.
“Woody got us some T-shirts made literally at the last minute,” says Pete.
Throughout the day of that first contest, friends of the Redneck grillmaster, Mike Stalls, stopped to see how the hog was coming. “He’d pull a piece of meat off and give it to them, and by the time the judges got there, there wasn’t much left,” Pete laughs. “And Woody was passed out in the van.”
“I was taking a nap!” Woody interjects.
“The grill was here, the van was right there, the judges were standing here, and here’s Woody passed out,” laughs Pete. “There wasn’t a whole lot of organization.” But the team, the only entrants to tackle a whole hog, still took home a finalist ribbon that year.
The following year, the contest moved to Tom Lee Park — where everyone cooked under one big, smoky tent — and became a bit more structured, with set categories into which participants could enter. In 1979, the Rednecks took home a 1st-place win in the shoulder category and a 2nd-place win in whole hog. The wins came with a combined total of $550 in prize money, which they donated to St. Jude, a charitable tradition they’ve carried on with subsequent wins.
But over the next few years, as the festival grew and entrants became more serious about the competition, the Rednecks didn’t see many more top prizes. (“We’re more dedicated to the fun than we are to winning,” Pete says.) When teams were allowed to cook in all three main categories — shoulder, ribs, and whole hog — they took home a few wins for ribs, and one year, Woody says, they claimed another honor for whole hog. But the Rednecks, having a bit too much fun per usual, missed the announcement. “I believe it was 7th place,” he recalls. “We weren’t even down in the audience. They called Redneck Bar-B-Q Express, and the ambassador got the trophy and brought it down. We were all in the booth partying.”
All in Good Fun
Regardless of mishaps with -the cooking part of the competition — including a grass-covered hog dropped on the ground as it was being flipped mid-cook (they still won “8th or 9th place” that year, they say), and another ruined because of a failed attempt at brining — partying is something they’ve always managed to get right. In the early days, drunken shenanigans in the Redneck tent could be compared to a wild college bash.
One year, a Redneck named Tommy passed out in a fold-out aluminum lawn chair after a long night of drinking. Pete remembers the moment, laughing until his eyes begin to water. “About 4 o’clock in the morning some friends of ours come walking through the park … and duct-taped his arms and legs to the chair. When he woke up, he was so mad everybody was scared to undo the duct tape.”
“The more they laughed, the madder he got,” Woody chuckles. “He finally pulled the arm off where it’s riveted, and then everybody went poof. He was the only person in the tent for probably 45 minutes before anybody would come back.”
Another year, shirtless women danced on top of a relocated Memphis in May-owned fiberglass pig, many of which, back then, were scattered around the park. “We decided we needed one of them. So we took our two-wheeler and went and got one and put it right in front of our booth,” Woody says. “[Memphis in May representatives] came by, and we got in trouble for getting the pig, so they took the pig and left.
“And we went and got us another pig,” he laughs, and asks Pete, “Was that our first probation?”
As one might imagine, the rowdy Rednecks have had their fair share of trouble at Memphis in May, including, as they call it, being put on “double secret probation.” This happened after the short-lived Porker Promenade, which was once held to kick off the contest. Participating Barbecue teams lined up on the southern end of Riverside Drive and paraded down to Beale. Pete remembers the promenade’s second year, when the Rednecks pulled a trailer — hauling a jug band and four coolers of beer — behind a 1960 custom-painted red Cadillac hearse. “There were probably 10 people on this trailer,” he says. “And when the parade comes down by the reviewing stand, it’s like Mardi Gras, and they throw beads and doubloons, and we didn’t have anything to throw.”
As the parade progressed toward Beale — with the old hearse overheating and dying, having to be jumped off along the way — the Rednecks drank their beers, and empty cans began to pile up on the trailer. “When we got in front of the review stand, we threw beer cans at the judges, and they did not like that,” Pete laughs. “That was our first double secret probation. And that was the last year they had the Porker Promenade.”
The Rednecks have experienced a lot of firsts, and lasts, at the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest. They were the first to create team T-shirts and were even asked to be the official T-shirt concessionaires the second year, though they turned down the offer because, as Woody says, “That’s like work. How are you going to party and do that, too?”
They say they were the first team to move out of the gigantic group tent, under which (during the event’s second and third years) all participants cooked, enveloped in an eye-burning cloud of smoke. Being veterans, the Rednecks were given permission to set up on its outskirts in their own tent. And they claim to have been the first to create team stickers with which to tag passersby, a practice that became a huge hit with the Barbecue crowd but has since been “outlawed.” Any stickers spotted in the Redneck tent these days aren’t exactly stickers. “Those are zipper repair devices,” laughs Woody.
Team Spirit
In its 40-year history, over a thousand different teams have participated in the barbecue contest here in Memphis, and 108 members have graced the Redneck team. Lawyers, accountants, construction workers, private detectives. Some have stuck around for the long haul, though Woody says, “some got married and their wives didn’t want them to be Rednecks.”
A handful have gotten the boot. “Some didn’t last very long,” Pete says. “We’ve actually kicked a couple of people out. We had one guy on the team years ago, and he cussed so bad that the wives said, ‘Get this guy out of here!’ You’d think a bunch of rednecks, you wouldn’t really care, but …”
Entrance into team Redneck Bar-B-Q Express now requires a $550 membership fee, which goes toward the team’s $12,000 event budget, much less than the tens of thousands some more serious competitors spend. Members must attend planning meetings and be willing to do the work — hauling, loading, unloading, set-up, and take-down — to enjoy the party. This year’s team includes 19 members, ranging in age from early-30s to mid-70s. Pete, who will be 70 by the time the 40th annual contest rolls around, has now retired from active participation (“I didn’t want to do all the work!” he insists), though meetings are still hosted at his home on the edge of Central Gardens.
More than 100 guests and friends stop by the Redneck tent on any given event night. Having been featured on the Food Network, they’ve hosted curious visitors from across the United States and as far away as Ireland. They’ve even hung out with the Today show’s Al Roker. “At one point he was there, relaxing, and I walked over and put my arm around him,” Pete recalls, “and I said, ‘Al, tell me something, how are you going to go back to New York City and tell all your friends you hung out with a bunch of rednecks?’ He goes, ‘How do you know I don’t do that in New York?’”
For a team of guys who are in it for the fun, they still cook some good barbecue and have been asked to cater for Beale Street Music Festival entertainers (which they did, in 1996). For competition, they’ve stuck with whole hog, which they inject and rub with a secret blend of seasonings, but it’s a hard category to win. Unlike ribs or pork shoulders, it’s essentially a one-shot deal. “You’ve got to get every aspect of [the hog] done at the same time, and there’s different thicknesses, so it’s really tough,” Pete explains.
And the competition is fierce these days, with barbecue heavyweights from around the world eyeing the grand prize. While the Rednecks aren’t expecting a big win, they have stepped up their game to keep up with the changing times. “Until three years ago we cooked on a homemade grill,” Woody recalls. “You had to stay up all night and fan it and keep the rain off of it, tend the fire. [Today] they can just come in and set the temperature and go to sleep.”
Pete agrees. “The grill that first year, the way we checked the temperature was, well, you’d put your hand on the grill and count how long you could hold it, and say, ok, a little more fire on this end, a little less fire on that end. When you bring all these fancy, sophisticated computer controls into it, it doesn’t create the same level playing field for everybody. It takes the romance out of it.”
“So we gave in and bought a Backwoods Smoker,” referencing a commercial competition grill; an upgrade, but one that still only has space for a single whole hog. “That was a big step,” Woody admits.
Even though their team is first in seniority among those who have competed in Memphis’ biggest cooking contest, Redneck Bar-B-Q Express has never taken home the grand prize. But they do have a one-of-a-kind prized trophy: “The Grand Champion Old Dog,” made for them by friends at the Metal Museum, a place they’d once used as a staging area — and maybe stored their gear.
Again with the bickering spurred by blurred memories, and fueled by another round of drinks, Woody says, “One year we kept it in that building …”
“We never kept anything there,” Pete retorts.
Woody comes back, “We did because …”
“OK, I’ll let you have that one,” Pete says, leveling the score for the day’s minor Redneck arguments.
“The Metal Museum guys would always come down and visit us at Memphis in May, and they really got irritated at the fact that we never won, so they made us our own trophy,” Pete continues. “It says Grand Champion Old Dog.”
And that just might be the best measure of the Rednecks’ Barbecue success.
Onward and Upward!
At an early April planning meeting, with just over a month before the big event, the Rednecks, minus a couple, gathered around Pete’s kitchen island, drinking their chosen potion — beer, gin, vodka, bourbon — as they, surprisingly, rolled through an agenda with much more organization than a bystander may have anticipated. Old-timers who’ve been on the team 20 or 30 years chime in on logistics. Should they buy a brand-new tent? What about the flooring? But the team’s younger members have, for the most part, taken the reins. A sponsor night has been added. A new T-shirt design is unveiled. Votes are taken. Decisions are made.
While the notoriously party-hearty longtime Rednecks may have gained a bit of a reputation for goofing off, the new blood is more interested in a win. A shift in competition cooks and tactics afforded them an upward climb in last year’s competition, moving them up about a dozen spots. Of the 37 teams competing in the whole hog category this year, they hope to at least crack the top 10, a feat the Rednecks haven’t accomplished in quite a while. For the new generation of Rednecks, being part of a team with 40 years of Memphis in May history has its perks, but progress is key.
Perhaps the Redneck parties aren’t quite as wild as they were in the 1980s or 1990s, but two Old Dogs are still looking forward to their 40th year out at Tom Lee Park. “All I want to do is cook the best barbecue we can for our friends and hope we win,” Woody says. “We’ve got second generation, and one day we’ll have third generation on the team. Nobody else does. I’ll be at the 50th.”
“Keep in mind, it wasn’t our goal Year One to do this for 40 years. It was our goal just to have fun,” Pete adds. “It just so happened that we’ve created a team — an ongoing friendship, camaraderie — that everybody enjoys.”
So when you’re down in Tom Lee Park this Barbecue season, listen for the Redneck cheer — “Give me an R! Give me an E!”
It will certainly lead you right to the real party.
