'It came from Memphis'

[skylarking]

Most staggeringly excellent of musical line ups on soon at the Barbican here in Londontown, hosted by Casual records, the team behind the acclaimed 'Way Beyond Nashville' shows and album (which featured My Morning Jacket's - Bermuda Highway'). Unmissable.

http://www.mojo4music.com/html/mojo_memphis.shtml

  IT CAME FROM MEMPHIS
In April 2005 the Barbican celebrates the spirit of Memphis with a major festival It Came From Memphis, drawing its name and inspiration from the timeless account of the city in Robert Gordon's book of the same name. Supported by MOJO, the festival tells the story of this legendary city in a way that has never happened before, and will probably never happen again, with special concerts, a short season of films, and talks with the artists.

Sunday 3 April - 7:30pm
Ardent Studios
North Mississippi All Stars, Jim Dickinson, Tav Falco & Panther Burns, Jimmy Crosthwait, Sid Selvidge, Jack Oblivian plus more artists tbc
This evening's rare line-up will reveal how the Rolling Stones would sound had they learned from blues musicians and not recordings. Mud Boy (with Jim Dickinson) shaped Tav Falco©ˆs Panther Burns, who in turn shaped the North Mississippi All Stars (featuring Dickinson's sons). Since the early 1960s, Ardent Studios has been a haven for musical free-thinkers (and for clean sounds). As the home of Big Star, Ardent has more recently attracted a starry host of bands such as REM, the Replacements, Primal Scream and Spiritualized, all searching for the Memphis 'sound' and inspiration.
Plus FREE live music in the foyer from the Tearjerkers
Tickets £15 £17.50 £20 £25


Saturday 9 April - 7:30pm
Muscle Shoals
Rhythm section: David Hood, Jimmy Johnson, Bryan Owings, Spooner Oldham, Clayton Ivey, Larry Byrum
Guests: Bonnie Bramlett, Donnie Fritts, George Soule, Tony Joe White Special guest Mavis Staples
A hinterland compared even to Memphis, Muscle Shoals, Alabama, is home to its own cultural collision between black and white. The members of this sinuous rhythm section made stars of Percy Sledge and Aretha Franklin, made hits for Willie Nelson and Cher, and were more recently "rediscovered" in the superb Country Got Soul releases. This evening, they perform the Country Soul tracks with Bramlett, Fritts, Soule and White, plus there's a very rare reunion with Mavis Staples, whom they backed on I'll Take You There and Respect Yourself.
Plus FREE live music in the foyer from Seasick Steve & more tbc.
Also Charlie Gillett broadcasts live from the Barbican on BBC London 94.9fm
FREE Clubstage after the gig with Country Soul DJs
Tickets £20 / £25 / £30

Sunday 10 April - 7:30pm
Delta Blues
Olu Dara, Little Milton, T-Model Ford
The blues is the root of all popular music today and is itself an evolving form, tonight's concert showcases some of the Delta's finest blues artists. Guitarist T-Model Ford and drummer Spam embody a traditional blues style, while Olu Dara, a Mississippi native, brings jazz and traditional African influences. Little Milton recorded blues for Sun, Chess, Stax, and Malaco labels, and is among the few major blues artists today as popular with black audiences as white, he recently featured in the Martin Scorsese film,"The Road to Memphis."
Plus FREE live music in the foyer from Son Of Dave & more tbc
Tickets £12.50 / £15 / £18.50 / £22.50

Sunday 18 April - 7:30pm
Sun Studios
Featuring: Ike Turner and The Rhythm Kings, Sonny Burgess and The Pacers.
Plus Billy Lee Riley and Cowboy Jack Clement
Sun Records - where Elvis and Howling Wolf recorded, where rock and roll was born. Amongst those present at the birth was Ike Turner, who in 1951, at the tender age of 20, rolled up to Sam Phillips' studio and recorded the legendary Rocket 88 with his band The Rhythm Kings. Tonight, he's back for a rare appearance playing his fiery brand of rhythm and blues and hopped-up swamp boogie. Joining him is Jack Clement, who wrote and produced many of the label's biggest hits; and by Sonny Burgess and Billy Lee Riley, the two Newport, Arkansas Wildmen , whose "Red Headed Woman" (Burgess) and "Red Hot" (Riley) preaged the Sex Pistols.
Tickets: £12.50 / £15 / £20 / £25

Friday 22 April - 7:30pm
Hi Records
Rhythm section Teenie Hodges, Leroy Hodges, Marvell Thomas, Archie Turner, Howard Grimes.
Guest vocalists: Ann Peebles, Syl Johnson, Percy Wiggins
Perhaps no sound was silkier, slinkier, and sexier than the Hi Rhythm Section's deep grooves on Al Green's records. In this, their first ever UK appearance, Hi Rhythm will play a set of instrumental classics, then introduce vocalist Percy Wiggins, a voice even Steve Winwood would aspire to. The evening includes Hi legend Ann Peebles, John Lennon called her 1973 Can't Stand The Rain "the greatest record I've heard in years" and Syl Johnson, who is known for Back For A Taste of Your Love and the original hit Take Me To The River.
Tickets £20 / £25 / £30

Monday 25 April - 7:30pm
Stax - Soulsville USA
Booker T. & the MGs, Bo-Keys, Eddie Floyd, William Bell, Mable John plus more artists tbc
Soulsville USA, bedrock of Sweet Southern Soul Music. Stax Records is the house that Booker T. and the MGs built, playing their own hits Green Onions, Hip-Hug-Her and backing so many others, from Otis Redding to Sam and Dave. The crowning concert of It Came From Memphis features the MGs with their own set, then backing the stellar talents from Eddie Floyd Knock On Wood and William Bell You Don't Miss Your Water to the deep bluesy soul of Mable John, plus other guests tbc
Tickets £20 / £25 / £30 / £35 (Returns only)

ps: My Morning Jacket's Early Recordings, B-sides, Covers Y Mas Volumes 1 & 2 received a fine review in this month's Mojo (Joy Division's Ian Curtis honouring the cover this month).

"Collected marginalia of Kentucky's hirsute country-psychedelicists.  As the title promises, these obscure gems from a most precious band range from home-recorded demos (a heart rending Just One Thing, no less windswept for its budget synth-strings), to inspired covers (Rocket Man, drenched in blurry reverb like all drug-anthems should be; Erykah Badu's Tyrone, its sultriness intact), to a cherishable live Olde Sept Blues, all eerie Hawaiian twang and vulnerable, dignified doo wop/country mourn.  More light-heartedly, an early cover of Take My Breath Away depicts singer Jim James finding his voice in the dreamy trails of the Berlin original, and affecting mockney for a straight-faced West End Girls.  Spinning an unlikely web between Roy Orbison's poignant desolation, Pink Floyd's trippy expansiveness, and Robert Pollard's home-baked aesthetic, My Morning Jacket's cosmic soul music is a beautiful and bounteous thing"  Stevie Chick (Mojo, April, 2005 ed.)

 

[EC]

Wow.  That sounds pretty cool.

Is the Barbican one of the venues at the London International Mime Festival?