From Funk to Crunk at Railgarten for the Holidays
If Memphis rap were a nation, Al Kapone would be the unanimous choice for an ambassador’s position. One of the earliest Memphis rappers, he has …
Hip Hop
This Is Memphis: Celebrating The Young Talent of a Musical City In An Historic Place
Clayborn Temple is one of Memphis’ most historic locations. Built in the late 19th century as Second Presbyterian Church, it became known as Clayborn Temple …
Celebrating Mason, Tennessee’s Important Legacy
Mason, Tennessee, located in Tipton County by geography, but more socially and culturally linked to adjacent Fayette County, is the dead center of what might …
The Tennessee Delta V: Fayette County
On a Friday evening, after meeting a friend for dinner in Memphis, with nothing in particular to do, I headed out Poplar Avenue through Collierville …
Celebrating Al Kapone’s Memphis Rap Legacy at Railgarten
Midtown Memphis’ massive Railgarten complex is one of several elaborate, trendy live music venues that have opened here recently, many of them that resemble something …
Debut of the Lucky 7 Brass Band at Growlers
I got an invitation on Facebook a week or so ago from a musician friend, trombonist Victor Sawyer, to come to the debut performance of …
Around the Tennessee Delta on Labor Day Weekend
After Bradley Hanson of the Tennessee State Archives sent me a link to recordings made of a fife and drum band in rural Fayette County …
R. L. Boyce, Cam Kimbrough, Joyce Jones and the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band at the Memphis Music and Heritage Festival
New Orleans’beloved Jazz Fest celebrates the wide diversity of New Orleans music, but the Memphis equivalent, the Beale Street Music Festival generally does not feature …
The Death of Nelson Street
About halfway between Jackson’s Farish Street and Memphis’ Beale Street was Greenville’s Nelson Street, the Main Street of the Black Mississippi Delta. Lined with professional …
A Death In The Delta: Tallulah’s Tragic Decline
In my childhood, Interstate 20 east ended at Waverly, Louisiana, which I remember as a railroad crossing with a store (where we would stop for …