All Dunn Up Stax bassist Duck Dunn joins Neil Young on his Silver & Gold tour. by jake lawhead Nineteen ninety-three was a good year for Donald "Duck" Dunn, bass player for the legendary Stax group Booker T. and the MG's. Neil Young, the so-called grandfather of grunge, couldn't complain that much either. First, about Young: It was round about '93, when many of the flannel-clad started giving credit where credit was due, citing "Down by the River" and "Cinnamon Girl" as the cradle of grunge. People started forgetting about the initial disappointments of Young's Freedom (1989) and Ragged Glory (1990) and started picking up the new Harvest Moon CD (1992). It was in 1993 that Young jammed his 1989 hit "Keep On Rockin' in the Free World" with the reigning kings of grunge, Pearl Jam, on stage at the MTV Music Awards. Young is an acoustic pioneer of lyric-driven bliss, and a master of feedback drenched garage insanity -- and that's where Dunn fits in. Dunn and Young became acquainted at a Booker T. and the MG's show in New York, where Young, not normally known for sitting in with many bands, played a Jimmy Reed number with the MG's. After another meeting, he invited Booker T. and the MG's to tour with him in 1993 and, subsequently, told the Stax legend he'd like to make a record with him, either with his perennial backing band Crazy Horse or by himself. Later, when Dunn called Young about a song for their box set, he was pleasantly surprised. "I called him and asked which version of 'Dock of the Bay' from the tour he wanted us to put on our box set," says Dunn, "and he said, 'I'm glad you called, come on out here and let's make a record.'" Dunn, who now resides in Florida, recently concluded the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young reunion tour, and was asked by Young to accompany the seminal group on VH-1. "The first couple of weeks [on tour] everybody was kind of shaky," he says, "but it settled in, and we really became a band . . . I was just a nervous wreck. I just didn't think I could play their music . . . thank God I didn't have to do 'Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,' they did that acoustically!" Young also hired Dunn to work on his latest release, Silver & Gold, a mostly mellow acoustic offering with a heart that is uniquely Memphis. Dunn lays down steady, masterfully meandering bass-lines to accompany Young's simple, characteristically plaintive melodies. Dunn was just one of several musicians summoned to California to cut 8 of the 10 tracks for Silver & Gold. After a brief solo tour, Young then called the group back together in Austin, Texas, to cut two more tracks for the album, which also features vocals from country divas Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt. Silver & Gold not only serves as a great example that Young still has everything that drew his earlier fans, it can also show the newer, post-grunge fans what "the granddaddy" is all about when he doesn't plug it in. Duck Dunn agrees. "It's great; it's like he's 20 years old. It sends chills up me, and I don't get that anymore . . . he's just an incredible artist [and] a sweetheart he listens to me and let's me do my thing. He's very open to any ideas, and regards it as a team thing he's really good about that." Dunn plans on joining Young on the Silver & Gold tour which is set to begin sometime around August. The tour will hit most major American cities and might even venture to Europe, and according to Dunn, the timing couldn't be any better. "I hope we go over there, because I'm buying a house and I really need the money," says Dunn jokingly. You can e-mail Jake Lawhead at letters@memphisflyer.com. Music Notes by Chris Davis Soulsville's Music Camp will CRACKLE & POP The board of Memphis-based Ewarton Museum has announced that it will kick off its Stax Museum of American Soul Music project with a summer music camp for area youth. This new camp, SNAP! 2000, will be held at Stafford Elementary School June 12th-July 14th, at 1237 College Street, just one block south of the original site of Stax Records. SNAP! 2000 is designed for area youth primarily between the ages of 8 and 16. The five-week program, held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday, will span such topics as Memphis music history, instruments introduction, music appreciation, theater, dance, movement, photography, audio/visuals, and set design. SNAP! 2000, Soulsville's Hands-On Music Camp for Area Urban Youth, is the first pilot program of Ewarton's proposed music academy. Tuition is $10 per child per week and includes lunch and snacks, a SNAP! 2000 T-shirt, a cast dinner, and a tour of the Rock 'N' Soul Museum. Registration will take place June 6th, 3-7 p.m. at LeMoyne-Owen College's gymnasium at the corner of Walker and Neptune. The headquarters for SNAP! 2000 are located at 802 Walker, Suite 105, Memphis, TN 38126. For more information, contact Deanie Parker at 942-7310. Where's Willroy? Part II A few weeks back this column alluded to the controversy surrounding the authorship of the blues standard "Crosscut Saw." While the song is generally attributed to blues great Albert King, Willroy Sanders of Fieldstones fame also claims to have penned the popular and frequently covered tune, and those interested in hearing Sanders' side of the story may now do so in the comfort of their own home. The Shangri La-produced documentary Willroy Sanders: The Last Living Bluesman is now available on videocassette at (where else?) Shangri La Records. Though artists as disparate as B.B. King and T-Model Ford might take exception with the title, the film's claim is not entirely inaccurate. With young urban upstarts like Kenny Wayne Shepherd flooding the blues market with electrified 12-bar crap, the certifiable dues-payin' bluesman has become an endangered species. Sanders' hard-drinking, tough-living, guitar-stroking lifestyle plays directly into the modern American myth of the journeyman, and in this film he represents not only himself, but countless kindred spirits lost in the mists of obscurity. The film includes a handful of Sanders' songs, including the skronky "Green's Lounge Shuffle," in which the last living bluesman calls out, "Good morning, everybody. Believe it or not, it is morning -- you fool you." Ax-a-Pro So you want to be a songwriter, eh? Well, you must have a ton of questions like, "Dude, is it cool to rhyme high with sky?" Local tunesmith Mary Unobsky will be on hand to field this and other questions at the Songwriters Guild of America Ask-A-Pro session on Saturday, June 3rd. Unobsky is a native Memphian and professional songwriter who has written songs for Bonnie Raitt, Patti LaBelle, Karen Carpenter, and Sheena Easton, to name but a few. The event begins at 2 p.m. at Strings & Things on Madison; admission is free, and, no, you shouldn't rhyme high with sky -- ever. A Show With Everything (Including Morgan Freeman) You heard me right. The Superfly of literacy, Easy Reader himself, was on hand at the 21st Annual Handy Awards, which took place at The Orpheum on May 25th. Mr. Reader (a.k.a. perennial Academy Award-nominee Morgan Freeman) presented the Blues Entertainer of the Year award to B.B. King (who accepted in absentia), concluding an evening of festivities that were, for the first time in years, quite festive. Extraordinary performances by Susan Tedeschi, Odetta, and Wilson Pickett more than made up for the unfortunate pairing of Little Milton with Gov't Mule. And the winners are: Blues Entertainer of the Year, B.B. King; Blues Band of the Year, Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers; Blues Album of the Year, Albert King/Stevie Ray Vaughan: In Session; Blues Song of the Year, "Change in My Pocket," Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets with Sam Myers; Contemporary Male Artist of the Year, Keb' Mo'; Contemporary Female Artist of the Year, Susan Tedeschi; Soul/Blues Male Artist, Wilson Pickett; Soul Blues Female, Etta James; Traditional Male Artist, R.L. Burnside; Traditional Female Artist, Koko Taylor; Acoustic Artist, Keb' Mo'; Best New Artist, Big Bill Morganfield; Contemporary Album, Albert King/Stevie Ray Vaughan: In Session; Soul/Blues Album, Wilson Pickett's It's Harder Now; Traditional Blues Album, Muddy Waters' The Lost Tapes of Muddy Waters; Comeback Album, Wilson Pickett's It's Harder Now; Acoustic Blues Album, Paul Rishell and Annie Raines' Moving to the Country; Reissue Album of the Year, Hound Dog Taylor's Deluxe Edition.