Illustration by Chris Honeysuckle Ellis
PRESTON SHANNON
In the hands of some musicians, even a hollow-body Gibson ES-335, a sizeable guitar with a bigger blues legacy, can look like a toy. Such musicians dwarf their guitars, not with their own physical dimensions, but with their proficiency with the instrument. Something in such a player’s effortless bending of strings, the casual shaking vibrato, the ease with which he solos easily over nine minutes of Southern soul without once opening an eye and sparing a glance at the fretboard tells the audience that this is a man who knows his instrument.
Such a man was Preston Shannon, the King of Beale Street, who passed away this January at the age of 70. A staple of Beale Street blues clubs, Shannon was eulogized at his funeral as “an ambassador of Memphis who was comfortable anywhere in the world.” Shannon was an incendiary guitarist, and he sang with a warm, raspy voice that drew frequent comparisons to the great Bobby Womack.
Born on October 23, 1947, in Olive Branch, Mississippi, Shannon grew up picking cotton in the daylight hours and lying awake at night to tune in to the sounds of Albert King and Bobby “Blue” Bland on his transistor radio. Shannon’s family moved to Memphis when he was 8 years old, and his fascination with the blues grew. His Pentecostal parents at first had some trouble accepting his love for his chosen genre, but Shannon persisted and eventually his parents gave in, unable to deny Shannon’s commitment to music.
Like many of the musicians he admired as a boy, Shannon got his start on the Memphis bar scene, working at a hardware store by day and gigging at night. He played with a handful of bands before he joined Shirley Brown’s soul band, and those comparisons to Bobby Womack panned out for him when, at live performances, he stepped in and sang Womack’s part in a duet Brown had previously recorded with Womack.
Shannon formed his own band in the 1990s and gigged in blues clubs on Beale Street. His first solo album, Break the Ice, was released in 1994 and featured the legendary Memphis Horns. Shannon recorded his next two albums, Midnight in Memphis (1996) and All in Time (1999), with Hi Records’ Willie Mitchell. Both albums fared well, and Midnight in Memphis was ranked number eight on Blues Critic’s “Greatest 100 Blues and Southern Soul Albums 1980-2005.”
It was 2006 before Shannon released another album, his Be with Me Tonight, but he continued to play, both in Memphis and elsewhere. His career included a performance on The Voice, spots at Beale Street Music Festival, and he was named Entertainer of the Year numerous times by the Beale Street Merchants Association. Dust My Broom, released in April of 2014, was Shannon’s final record.
For all his success, Shannon is often remembered for his warmth and kindness, and for his willingness to help a young-blood musician starting out and looking for his own success. In the Memphis Flyer, owned by Memphis magazine’s parent company, Andria Lisle noted Shannon’s generosity, quoting Memphis jazz guitarist Joe Restivo as saying, “He was legitimately interested in what guys like me were doing. … Maybe he’d sit in with us, or I’d end up doing some pick-up gigs with him. It meant a lot.”
It comes as no surprise that, after almost 30 years as a Beale Street staple, Shannon’s legend looms large in Memphis. But he was known as one of the greats outside the Bluff City as well. A small map of the world graces the bottom right corner of Preston Shannon’s official website (prestonshannon.com), with little red “pins” marking the locations from which fans have visited the site. Antarctica is the only continent without a pin, and the U.S. and Europe appear awash in digitally rendered crimson, proof that Shannon’s music, his heartfelt expression, and genuine passion for his art form have touched people all over the globe.
