Tommy Peters probably would have vetoed the idea of having an awards show named after him.
The late businessman’s daughter Bethany Peters Stooksberry told me after he died, “He has a brass note on Beale he never wanted to accept. He never wanted to be in the media. He wasn’t very ostentatious.”
But I think Peters would have loved The Tommy Awards, a show honoring local performers, that was held March 20th at Lafayette’s Music Room.
Between 400 and 500 attended the event — a benefit for the Memphis Music Hall of Fame — that featured 15 acts and 22 awards, says Julien Salley, general manager of Lafayette’s, which Peters owned.
The awards show “was Paul Moreau’s idea,” Salley says. “I’m a marketing professional for FedEx now and I’ve been a musician since high school, so, I’ve always been doing both. I’m in three bands: Thumpdaddy, Led Zep’n, and Rock the Boat. I love marketing and I love music. So, the past several years I’ve started merging both passions.”
Moreau began doing Merry KISSMAS fundraising concerts two years ago. “We had 12, 15 bands paying nothing but KISS songs.”
He got the idea for the recent awards show after a reading a Facebook post. “A member from one band just made a post on his page out of the blue where he was giving kudos to a guy in another band.”
The post went along the lines of, “I always thought you were good. But you’ve really gone from good to great. And I just want to say that publicly.”
“I read that and it got me to thinking, ‘Hey, there really ought to be a forum, a way for us to celebrate all these hard-working bands in the Mid-South area. They bring so much happiness to others. They have so much talent and work so hard to do it.’”
I thought, “‘Why don’t we celebrate each other together?’ So, I noodled it around a little while. What would really be cool is if we did a Grammy-style awards show.”
He took his idea to Lafayette’s.
“When he came to us, we said, ‘Yes. We’d love to host this awards ceremony,” Salley says. “Paul was showing up at our weekly manager meetings. We were blowing up his phone, email, text. It was constant communication. We partnered with him. Our team and Paul were in non-stop contact for the last three months putting this together.”
“I wasn’t sure what we could call it,” Moreau says. And, he added, “I initially suggested, ‘What if we call it ‘The Julien?’ Like the Oscar.
“I made this silly little image of an Oscar body with Julien’s head on it. But then he kicked it around and he said, ‘You know what would really be cool? If we call the awards ‘The Tommy’ in honor of Tommy Peters, who basically brought Lafayette’s back to life.”
Moreau liked the idea. He’d heard stories of the old Lafayette’s, which opened in 1972 in Overton Square. “I’ve seen pictures from the heyday of Billy Joel and KISS. It must have been a magical place.”
Peters, who died September 5th, 2021, was founder, president, and CEO of Beale Street Blues Company, which includes Lafayette’s Music Room, B. B. King’s Blues Club, and Itta Bena and Moondance restaurants. In Orlando, he owned The Wharf and Lizzie’s BBQ. In Montgomery, Alabama, he owned B. B. King’s Blues Club, Lucille, and Itta Bena in Wind Creek Casino. He also owned B. B. Kings Blues Clubs in the Holland American Cruise Lines.
“Tommy Peters wasn’t your typical leader,” Salley says. “He was a high-energy visionary that led from the front. Every day with him was exciting because we were always after something new. ‘How can we improve our live music program?’ ‘What new opportunities exist in the market?’ ‘What can we do to shake things up in Memphis?’ These were questions he was constantly asking.”
They used a few of the “guitar drop elements” from the Beale Street New Year’s Eve events at The Tommy Awards. These included the Sky Tracker, which flashed lights across the sky. Arriving guests were photographed on the black carpet runway. “Black is a little more rock and roll than a red carpet,” Salley says.
During one point, Loeb Properties president Bob Loeb introduced Peters’s daughters Bethany Peters Stooksberry and Sara Fay Egan, and Peters’s granddaughter, Grace Egan.
“We’re going to continue to carry on my dad’s commitment to Memphis,” Stooksberry said, “and his mission to support these musicians that are in this room tonight and this unique sound that can only be found right here.”
Six Feet Thunder did a tribute to Junior Grant, who recently died. They played Queensryche’s “Silent Lucidity.” That showed “just how united the band community in the Memphis area is,” Moreau says. “It was a beautiful moment.
Shawn Few and Shara Layne Matlock hosted the event.
Salley wore a glittering gold lame jacket, which also has a tie-in to Peters. Years ago, Salley had a Lansky Bros. jacket, which he was wearing the night when he had to break up a fight between two guys at Lafayette’s. One of the men left, but the other tried to fight Salley and also threatened to kill him. “I reached down to ball him up a little bit to drag him out,” Salley says.
That’s when the guy tore Salley’s jacket. “I felt it tear from top to bottom on my back. I was livid.”
The story ended when an undercover policeman arrested the guy and took him away. “Tommy felt sorry for me losing the jacket. The following Monday he shows up with this gold jacket.”
Originally Salley says he thought it was a lot of gold, a bit much. “Elvis, Prince, or the Bar-Kays could get away with wearing it, but not me. We wouldn’t be able to bring the lights down low enough for me to walk around in that thing.”
The Tommy Awards was only the second time he’s worn the jacket. Salley says he wore it to honor Peters.
“I feel like at this point I’ve seen every shape, size, and temperament a boss can have. And Tommy Peters is the best of all of them. It stings that I’ll never be able to repay him for everything he did for me. Every single shift I miss him. The entire team misses him.”
