Music Notes
edited by Mark Jordan
A Hard Opening
The invitations are in the mail, but plans are still being made for the
grand opening of Memphis' Hard Rock Cafe on Sunday, November 16th.
The latest news is that Minneapolis' the Jayhawks have been added to the
bill of the free outdoor concert that will trumpet the club's opening. That
concert will kick off at 5:30 p.m. with opening act Memphis' North Mississippi
All-Stars and headliner the Wallflowers joining the Jayhawks. Besides hailing
from the same state as Wallflowers lead singer Jakob Dylan's troubadour
dad, Bob, the Jayhawks and the Wallflowers have a rootsy, classic-rock sound
in common, too. And Jayhawks lead singer-songwriter Gary Louris made a guest
appearance on the Wallflowers' hit album, Bringing Down The Horse.
The band came on the scene back in 1986 and has been cranking out records
steadily and building a loyal cult following ever since. Despite the recent
departure of original member Mark Olson, the group has just put out its
fourth CD, the critically well-received Sound Of Lies.
While thousands will be enjoying the free outdoor concert, a select few
hundred will be inside Beale Street's newest club at an invitation-only
charity gala, benefiting the National Civil Rights Museum and the Memphis
chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Entertainment
at the $75-a-plate benefit will include Marvell Thomas, Stax songwriter
Dan Penn, and rockabilly legend Billy Lee Riley.
Walk a Mile In My Shoes
Mike Freeman and Cindy Hazen, authors of Memphis Elvis-style are
taking their show on the road -- literally. The pair, whose book details
local sites visited by Elvis, is hosting "Downtown Elvis-style,"
a 3-hour, 2-mile narrated walking tour, which is being held every Saturday
(until it turns cold), starting at 10 a.m. Among the stops on the tour are
The Orpheum, the Cook Convention Center, Sun Studios, and the Police Museum.
Besides noting the E-significance of each point, Freeman and Hazen will
be soliciting signatures from their audience for cards that they will then
send to MHA and HUD, protesting the proposed razing of Elvis' childhood
home in Lauderdale Courts. The cost of the tour is $7, plus 50 cents for
the trolley. Call 274-7187.
-- Susan Ellis
by John FloydA Sure Thing
Former Stax artist Ollie Nightingale gave his soul to music fans.
mid
the treasures packed into the 1991 Complete Stax/Volt Singles box
is a song so sly, so removed from the harrowing melancholy of the label's
greatest hits, that it stands out even among the company of Otis Redding,
Sam and Dave, and William Bell. "I've Got a Sure Thing" was the
closest the Nightingales and their recently deceased lead vocalist Ollie
"Nightingale" Hoskins ever came to a genuine hit, and that wasn't
very close; it hit 73 on the Billboard Top 100 upon release in 1968, while
checking in on the magazine's R&B chart at 16. Despite the tepid national
response, "I've Got a Sure Thing" not only captured the late 
singer at the peak
of his talents, but the song boasted an emotional assurance and confidence
that set it apart from the more tormented shots from the dark heart of soul
-- the stuff that punched your gut like James Carr's "Pouring Water
on a Drowning Man" or ripped into your heart like Percy Sledge's "It
Tears Me Up."
"Sure Thing" was a testimony to the value of trust and comfort in a lasting relationship -- the kind of peace of mind that, as Hoskins and co-writers Booker T. Jones and William Bell defined it in the song, comes from sticking together through all kinds of weather. Without that confidence in mutual commitment, the security in knowing that any storm will be watched together as it fades into the past, you can lose yourself in a sea of self-doubt, pain, and paranoia. (Just listen to Roy Orbison's "Running Scared" or Otis Redding's "Pain in My Heart" for proof.) On "Sure Thing," Hoskins is content, at peace with his heart, and the heart of his sweetie is beating on the same measure. The music is perfect for the sentiment, with Motown-styled strings darting in and out of the chorus, a lightly swinging rhythm section, and the Nightingales crooning in the background. But the song belongs to Ollie: About the time it's coming to a close, Hoskins lets out a growl of unbridled pride and lustful joy, which hammers the point into your heart with a carpenter's precision, like he knows that sometimes mere words can't get the feeling across as well as a few good yelps from the nether recesses of the soul.
That's something Ollie Hoskins -- born 1936 in Batesville -- learned in the late Forties, when he first started singing gospel in South Memphis with childhood friend Curtis Payne. They formed the Wayside Travelers Juniors, named after the group led by Payne's mentor, Lee Artist Townsend. They broke up in 1950, and Hoskins fell in with the city's Gospel Writer Junior Boys, who as the rechristened Dixie Nightingales cut a few singles for the Nashboro and Pepper labels, as well as a handful of mid-Fifties demos in Memphis at WDIA. The surviving cut from those sessions, "In My Savior's Care," issued at last on Rounder's 1988 collection Bless My Bones, is a magnificent outpouring of faith propelled by Hoskins' piercing, rough-hewn tenor.
The grind of the gospel touring circuit and the lure of big money in the secular market drew Hoskins and most of the Dixie Nightingales to Stax Records in 1968, not long after Al Bell assumed leadership of the label. A few gospel singles were issued on Stax's Chalice subsidiary, and the Nightingales first non-devotional outing was "I've Got a Sure Thing," which gave the group something close to a hit and ushered in a few nice follow-ups as well as a terrific self-titled long-player from 1969. The Nightingales landed on some national package tours and played throughout the Southern club circuit, but after each of the group's post-"Sure Thing" follow-ups floundered on the charts, Hoskins embarked in 1970 on a solo career that never panned out the way he wanted. He recorded only sporadically through the Eighties while working myriad day jobs.
I first met Hoskins in early 1992, when I profiled him for The Memphis Flyer shortly after he landed a steady gig at the now-defunct Mik-Neil's in Midtown. We spent a Saturday afternoon there for an interview, Hoskins smoking cigarette after cigarette and telling the story of his life and career with little of the cynicism, remorse, or vitriol that most journeymen draw upon when discussing the pain of never quite getting the right song or the right break or the right whatever it takes to find a place in the pop pantheon. "I wouldn't say I'm ignored, but I'm looked over," he remarked that day when I made a comment about his relative absence in the history books. "But I've been here all my life."
Hoskins wasn't the first "journeyman" I had interviewed, but he was the first -- and one of the few I've met since -- who looked at his career and its less than stellar faring with a pragmatic eye. And when the story I wrote about Hoskins came out in the Flyer, he seemed both appreciative and hopeful: "Let's see if it'll help dig me out of this obscurity." I don't know that it did, and I never kept up with Hoskins the way I should have. But I know he was working right up to his death, playing clubs and festivals, making a cameo in the movie The Firm, and recording three albums for the local Ecko label.
But when I heard of his death last week of heart failure at age 61, I immediately dug out "I've Got a Sure Thing" and played it for the first time in too many years -- to remind myself of the song's greatness, but mostly to recall the comforts that it celebrates and how it defined so well the personality of the man who sang it.