1971 Memphis TN River City Blues Festival - 3-Page Vintage Article for Sale

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1971 Memphis TN River City Blues Festival - 3-Page Vintage Article For Sale

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1971 Memphis TN River City Blues Festival - 3-Page Vintage Article:
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1971 Memphis TN River City Blues Festival - 3-Page Vintage Article
Original, Vintage Magazine articlePage Size: Approx. 8\" x 11\" (21 cm x 28 cm) each pageCondition: Good
Memphis has long been a very special bluestown. Today it remains so, even though historicBeale Street has been torn down, rebuilt and de-prived of musical activity. The blues doesn’tseem to enjoy the popularity it once had withlocal blacks, as there are few active bluesbands or clubs. WDIA does, however, play moreblues than the average R&B station (especiallyon Rufus Thomas’ late-night program), and onereason for the lack of a strong current bluesscene is that many prominent bluesmen desertedMemphis in the ’50s for Chicago or other northernblues centers.But the blues community that remains stillmakes Memphis unique. The city has some con-temporary artists who play and record locally;however, many people today think of a differentcircle of musicians when they think of MemphisBlues. This special circle comprises oldetmusicians, veterans of the prewar blues dayswhose music was eclipsed by the amplifiedMemphis sound and who lived in obscurity untilthe rediscovery of country blues in the ’60s.This clique of blues artists, many of whom usedto play together on Beale Street, has gained aloyal, appreciative local following (mostly youngand white). They have by now played many con-certs and festivals together, in Memphis andthroughout the country. Most of these musiciansare now also under contract to the same recordcompany — Adelphi, which recently issued atwo-volume Memphis anthology. And these werethe artists who starred in the River City BluesFestival on December 3. •Under the direction of Steve LaVere, theRiver City Blues Festival (not connected withthe five previous Memphis Country Blues Festi-vals, except that many of the same artists ap-peared) proved to be an undisputed success,artistically and financially. 1500 people filledEllis Auditorium to hear a well-planned array of15-minute sets. Though the artists were in asense limited by the short sets, the format ac-tually worked quite well. The performers had re-hearsed earlier in the day, and most were ableto concentrate their best efforts into the tightconcert sets.Backstage before the show, guitarist EarlBell asked if we had seen his picture in the lo-cal paper. \"If you saw the paper, you saw me,”he announced. \"That’s my picture on the front.”He boasted, “I got the biggest amplifier here,”and insisted we see it. A definite rivalry existsamong the Memphis blues veterans, but it allseems to be on a friendly level. Most of the mu-sicians jammed, talked or ate sandwiches, whileBukka White stretched out on some chairs to napand Sleepy John Estes sat serenely and waited.After Houston Stackhouse had finished a quietbut impressive impromptu set in the dressingroom, Richard \"Hacksaw” Harney took a turn onguitar and drew looks of astonishment and a rareround of applause with a flurry of rapid, accuratepicking. \"Ah, that’s nothin’,” one of the otherguitarists told the group of admirers. \"Youshould have heard him 25 years ago.”As it turned out, Stackhouse and Hacksawwere the standouts onstage as well. His mater-ial eclectic, his delivery exquisite, Stackhousewas chilling, vocally and instrumentally.. HeHe opened with a delicately sung Mean BlackSpider, added a beautiful falsetto on Cool WaterBlues, and switched to bottleneck guitar on afine rendition of Annie Lee. Hacksaw and Stack-house then teamed up on an uptempo instrument-al, followed by four solo instrumentals fromHacksaw — two on piano and two on guitar. Hedisplayed a full, fluent style on both instru-ments, but he left no doubt in my mind that heis one of the very finest authentic country bluesguitarists alive. Not a straight delta bluesstylist like most of the Memphis crew, hepicked both in a more sophisticated, swingingfashion and in a superb ragtime style. His fac- ...
Photo on page 3 - (Left to right) Fred McDowell, Mrs. Von Hunt, Sweet Charlene, Willie “61” Blackwell, Mose Vinson (at piano), Sam Clark,Willie Morris, Richard “Hacksaw” Harney, Dewey Corley, Lee Baker (seated), Houston Stackhouse (partially obscured),Sleepy John Estes, Hammie Nixon, Earl Bell (face away from camera), Furry Lewis (seated), Bukka White, “T.R.”