Music Notes

by Mark Jordan

Feting the Father of the Blues
I should be having this active a social life when I'm 124 years old and dead. This weekend the W.C. Handy House and Museum is hosting a pair of events to celebrate the anniversary of William Christopher "W.C." Handy's birth on November 16, 1873. Handy, of course, was the self-proclaimed "Father of the Blues," a title that, if deserved at all, was earned by the fact that he was one of the first composers to use the word blues in a published song title. The Handy House Museum at the corner of Beale and Fourth is a relocated South Memphis home that Handy lived in during his Memphis years from 1905 to 1918. To kick off the weekend's celebration, on Saturday there will be a parade and strut down Beale Street at 1 p.m. followed by a reception at the Handy House. And on Sunday, at 3 p.m., organizers will present the W.C. Handy Heritage Awards for Authentic Beale Street Musicians at a ceremony at Willie Mitchell's Rhythm-and-Blues Club. Recipients of the award will be Calvin Newborn, Willie Mitchell, Emerson Able, Fred Ford, Robert "Honeymoon" Garner, Herman Green, Alfred Rudd, Rudy Williams, Andrew Chaplin, Luther Lewis, and Wilbur and Morris Steinberg. Posthumous awards will be given to Phineas Newborn Jr., Onzie Horne, Nathan Woodard, and Bill Tyus. To request an invitation or other information, call 527-3427.

Showcase Stuff
The coming months may be crucial for Crossroads, Memphis' music showcase for unsigned bands. Eli Ball, organizer of the old Producers' Showcase and a noted producer whose name arouses either hatred or adoration but rarely indifference among local music types, returned to the six-year-old event earlier this year to help give it some focus and direction after a few years that saw the number of bands participating soar while the number of industry reps plummeted. After pulling together a credible '97 version of Crossroads in just a few weeks -- and as he now prepares to launch Bluestock, a blues-oriented offshoot showcase -- Ball is investigating how to revamp and reinvigorate the spring showcase. A new board has been appointed and Ball has been picking the brains of members of the music community (musicians, club owners, journalists, etc.) to help determine which road Crossroads should take.
The goal should be to shoot Crossroads into the stratum of music conferences/showcases that really matter -- events like New York's New Music Seminar and Austin's South by Southwest -- while at the same time promoting the local industry. Recent years have seen dozens of unsigned band contests and city showcases pop up around the country. And why not? After all, it gets bar owners a cheap band and a built-in crowd while bands get much-needed exposure. But what good really is a music showcase in Lexington, Kentucky or Richmond, Virginia?
Oddly enough, one event that Ball and others have expressly rejected as a model for Crossroads is the most successful of them all, South by Southwest. The problem, most observers agree, is that Austin has so much quality music and South by Southwest lets in so many bands that it all gets lost in the shuffle and nothing ever happens -- few signings, little buzz.
Still, that doesn't mean South By Southwest isn't worth a shot, if for no other reason than the chance to check out a lot of great music. Which brings us to this Saturday, which is the absolute deadline for submissions to next year's South by Southwest. Applying bands will need a tape, bio, photo, and all the usual stuff. For exact details, however, call South by Southwest at 512-467-7979 or check out their Web site at www.sxsw.com.

I Don't Want to Work
Good rule to live by: Drummers rule. Guitarists are skinny and self-important, singers vapid, keyboardists just weird. But drummers are cool, back there on their throne, laying down the beat. And if you like drums as well, you're in luck. This Saturday, starting at 2 p.m., the Memphis Drum Shop -- arguably the best music store in town and the capital of the Mid-South drumming world -- will be hosting another of their great all-day music clinics, Percussion Summit '97: a day of drums, drummers, and drumming. The summit will feature clinic appearances by Santana drummer Horacio Hernandez, the Lindenwood Percussion Ensemble, and Richard Graham. Admission is $10; $8 for members of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Seating is limited, and advance tickets are available at the Memphis Drum Shop and the local chapter of NARAS.

Won't Stop

Fleetwood Mac's return mirrors the die-hard attitude of Jurassic rockers.

by Matt Hanks

n the summer of '95, Fleetwood Mac found themselves slogging across the country on a dismal rock-and-roll revival tour, sandwiched between (God help them) REO Speedwagon and Pat Benatar. This ill-conceived tour was a vain attempt to promote The Mac's equally ill-conceived new album Time -- a total no-show artistically, and the worst-selling record in the band's 30-year career.

This is what it had come to. Fleetwood Mac, certainly one of the most storied entities in rock-and-roll history -- white-hot (not to mention white) blues practitioners of the '60s, financially well-endowed and critically vindicated rock juggernaut of the '70s, Top 40 mainstays of the '80s -- had become a cautionary tale.

What a difference two years makes. Presently, Fleetwood Mac are filling arenas, hoarding more MTV and VH1 airtime than artists half their age, and sitting at the center of one of the year's biggest media maelstroms. The reason for their turn of fortune is, for the most part, obvious. This is the first time that the Rumours-era lineup of the band (wrongfully cited by several writers as the "original" lineup. A round of applause for Peter Green, please, and a conciliatory nod to Bob Welch.) has toured in 15 years. But even the bankable magnetism of these five individuals -- Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, and Stevie Nicks -- doesn't account for the extent to which Mac-mania has taken hold.

Let's look at the Mac's peers. Take Peter Frampton, for instance. His '76 Comes Alive LP sold over 10 million copies, virtually inventing the AOR radio format and multi-platinum music-biz mindset that abetted Rumours' unprecedented success. At last report, our man Pete was knockin' 'em dead on the German club circuit. And how about the Eagles? Hell did indeed freeze over, and Mr.'s Henley, Frey, and company profited handsomely in the process. But theirs was a victory of hollow nostalgia and hard cash, nothing more.

Skeptics will accuse Fleetwood Mac of the same motivations, and they may be right. But that's hardly the point. You see, at their peak Fleetwood Mac -- and this is important -- were very, very good. Shoot back 20 years, and while the Eagles were churning out lobotomized West-Coast rubbish, and Peter Frampton was perfecting his speaking-guitar technique, Fleetwood Mac were creating some of the era's most evocative music.

The band's dual masterpieces -- Rumours and Tusk -- are caldrons of pop craft, studio precision, and punk (that's right, punk) subversion. In 1979, noted rock scholar Greil Marcus proclaimed that " if Fleetwood Mac is mainstream in its place in the music world, Tusk is radical in its refusal to the mainstream's limits I think the stand Fleetwood Mac has taken with Tusk is as brave as that Bob Dylan took with John Wesley Harding."

The fact that this "radical" and "brave" music was emanating from a group that could have given any daytime soap a run for its torrid dollar made Fleetwood Mac all the more enticing. No one could refuse them. Then or now.

Also, the fact that Fleetwood Mac have a firmer musical footing than the Framptons and Eagles of the world helps their current cause greatly. Though it's unlikely to increase their critical cache, the band's new live album The Dance won't diminish it either. And it makes for great copy.

Reportedly, the recording of The Dance had its share of missteps -- botched notes, fumbled lines, and the like. And as Fleetwood Mac roll across America, rumors (minus the "u") of bruised egos and flared tempers are starting to abound. But the band's fallibility has always been one of its most intriguing qualities. People are drawn to the reinvigorated Mac for the same reason that they cross continents to see the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain -- potential (if not imminent) disaster is a strong selling point.

In the case of The Dance, the music is, too. The five new songs range from intriguingly corny ("My Little Demon") to downright sublime ("Bleed to Love Her"). But let's not kid ourselves. We want the hits, and the Mac have an arsenal big enough to fill a boxed set. Among the old standbys, there are a few new revelations. The version of Christine McVie's "Everywhere" forgoes the over-the-top sheen that dogged the studio version, in favor of a more organic arrangement. Within that context, McVie's voice sounds better for wear.

The years have changed Nicks' too, her signature breathy delivery now replaced by a certain wistful dignity.

But The Dance's biggest surprise comes from Lindsey Buckingham. It's no secret that Buckingham is the group's strongest songwriter, but who knew he was such a whoop-ass guitar player? With meticulous finger-picking runs and soulful note-bending solos, it's obvious what Buckingham has been doing for the last 15 years -- practicing.

Speaking of hits, The Dance ends with one of the Mac's biggest -- "Don't Stop." It's a more appropriate capper than the band may realize. For a moment, lay asidea lingering images of the '92 Clinton campaign and consider the song's refrain in the here and now. The words carry an irony as thorny as the band that penned them:

Don't stop thinkin' about tomorrow

Don't stop. It'll soon be here

It'll be better than before

Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone.

But it isn't really, is it? It'll be better than before because yesterday's still here. If it were gone, we'd be short a few dreams to recycle, and at least five people might be out of a job.

Fleetwood Mac
8 p.m. Friday, November 14th
The Pyramid