The Commercial Appeal - Go Memphis
Ed Helms talks hosting a musical ‘happy hour’
Grab a drink and belly up to the athome bar for “Whiskey Sour Happy Hour,” a virtual variety program aimed to tickle away the self-quarantine blues with a few laughs and plenty of tunes.
It’s a weekly program that highlights flourishing American roots music with a squeeze of comedy in between. Hollywood funnyman and self-described guitar nerd Ed Helms hosts the happy hour. And he’s stoked about it.
“I frickin love this lineup,” Helms said April 20 via phone. “Everybody in it, I am obsessed with.”
“Whiskey Sour Happy Hour” airs Wednesdays at 7 p.m. CST for free via The Bluegrass Situation, a roots music tastemaking website co-founded by the banjo-picking “The Office” star and Bonnaroo alum.
It’s escapism with a cause. Viewers can donate to a “Whiskey Sour Happy Hour” fundraiser, with proceeds split evenly between humanitarian group Directrelief and Musicares’ COVID-19 aid program. Musicares is a nonprofit wing of the Recording Academy, and the fund offers support to musicians and industry professionals impacted by the coronavirus.
“I hope it’s a wonderfully entertaining distraction from a very weird time that we’re all in, and I hope that it raises a lot of money for Musicares or Directrelief,” Helms said. “I’m always super excited to give a platform to musicians who are amazing and not always getting mainstream exposure.”
He continued, “It’s just fun, and I hope there is a great way to put some great music out there.”
The Bluegrass Situation staff began planning the happy hour in mid-march as virtually all live music halted and major cities entered safer-at-home lockdowns. With a “small but mighty” fiveperson team, website co-founder and Executive Director Amy Reitnouer Jacobs said it’s “been awesome” to focus creative energy on a positive project.
Producing the program feels a bit like organizing the annual Superjam that Bluegrass Situation hosted at Bonnaroo for five years — only this show trades The Farm in Manchester for living room sessions and, hopefully, some charity.
“What we’re hoping to do here is not only raise money for a good cause … but expand what people know about the genre, too,” Reitnouer Jacobs said. “We’re not just trying to support these charities. We’re trying to support artists and let people know that now is the time to step up and get behind your favorite artist, too.”
Each artist performs a song or two, with some performances submitted and others featuring an interview or comedy bit from the host. The show stems loosely from “Whiskey Sour Radio Hour,” a recurring Americana showcase hosted by Helms in Los Angeles.
It’ll be about an hour in length, with Helms transforming his living room into a makeshift studio anchored by an iphone camera.
What’s the transition to an at-home production been like?
“I’m grateful for the distraction and grateful to put my attention on (it). It’s easy to focus on really dark, weird things right now,” Helms said.
The show wants to feel “like a goodtime variety show, but a little homespun since everybody’s cranking it out of their living rooms,” he said. “It’s been a little bit of a mad dash, getting it all done. The shows will get a little more nuanced and complex as we go.”
A trained bluegrass musician who released music with The Lonesome Trio, Helms said he’ll also play a few songs during the show (he just wishes he could play alongside the guests).
Plus, there are likely to be a few surprise appearances from Helms’ circle of top-notch funny friends.
“You can put it on and, and sit at your desk and watch it, or you can put it on while you’re making dinner and just listen to it,” Helms said. “I just hope people tune in and feel moved to pitch in a couple bucks. Every little tiny bit helps.”
In early April, Los Angeles-based reissue label Light in the Attic released “Stone Crush: Memphis Modern Soul 1977-1987.” As the title indicates, it’s a survey of a somewhat overlooked period in local music history — a kind of lost decade between the end of the golden age of Memphis soul and the rise of Bluff City hip-hop.
With a package featuring 18 enjoyably funky tracks, as well a bonus 45 by roller-skating guitarist Mark Anthony and liner notes by noted Memphis music historians Robert Gordon and Andria Lisle, “Stone Crush” is not only the hands-down reissue of the year, but perhaps one of the most intriguing archival releases in recent memory.
“Stone Crush” was compiled and produced by Chad Weekley and Daniel Mathis, a pair of dedicated crate diggers and DJS. The two longtime friends — who both came up in the local skateboarding scene — had an unlikely route to documenting this forgotten era of Memphis R&B.
“Skateboarding videos are what got me hooked on music, period,” says Weekley, “and that led to collecting records, and eventually figuring out that Memphis was the backbone of hip-hop from all the old samples.”
“It was the same for me,” adds Mathis. “Once I got into hip-hop, and hearing the samples, it was like working backwards to all these great R&B and soul records that were made in Memphis.”
Just over a decade ago, Light in the Attic entered the landscape of Memphis music. The label began working on a number of local projects including releases from Stax alums Packy Axton and Wendy Rene. Light in the Attic head Matt Sullivan connected with Mathis
The cover of Light in the Attic’s “Stone Crush” compilation, by James “Brick” Brigance.”
and Weekley on a 2009 trip to the Indie Memphis Film Festival.
“He came over and hung out, and we went through some rare Memphis 45s,” recalls Mathis. “After that, maybe a couple weeks later, Matt reached out and said: ‘What do you think about doing a compilation?’”
Although they conceived of various possible comp permutations, initially focusing on ’60s and ’70s funk, eventually the pair settled on a collection that would focus on the more unknown period between 1977 and 1987.
Following the fall of Stax Records in
1976, a vacuum emerged, in which a new group of Memphis R&B aspirants began making and releasing records. Over the years, Mathis and Weekley found a selection of these singles and LPS that had fallen between the cracks.
In some cases the artists were moonlighting from their regular jobs and lives, like O.T. Sykes, “The Singing Dentist,” or bricklayer Frankie Alexander, or sign painter Cheryl King of the group Kick. There were short-lived combos, like Silk Satin & Lace, and larger-thanlife characters, like Libra Lee, a former costume designer for funk stars the Bar
“Stone Crush” artists Cato.
Kays, who would go on to lead her own church. There were gifted industry journeymen like Magic Morris, who’d worked as a staff writer at Mercury, Brunswick and eventually Hi Records, before cutting his own sultry soul singles. And there were also mysterious figures like the late Laurence “L.A.” Armour, of whom little is known.
These records sometimes found the artists backed by notable session players and producers from Hi and Stax — like Willie Mitchell, Ben Cauley and Bobby Manuel — and occasionally working at established studios like Royal and Ardent. But in nearly all the cases, the projects were funded by the artists themselves.
“They wrote them on their own and did really hard labor to get the money together to record and put them out,” says Mathis. “In some cases, they may not have even had a band. Some were very loose projects.”
As a result, the records brimmed with a kind of outré inventiveness; these were artists with fresh creative ideas,
large aspirations, and little — aside from money and experience — to hold them back.
“With Stax going down, these guys had a lot of freedom,” says Weekley. “More creativity was coming out. And they were hungry. It felt like there was an opportunity in Memphis at that time. They were taking advantage of an opportunity by trying to make a hit record.”
While Mathis and Weekley had the records, actually finding these littleknown and long-forgotten artists — in order to get them to agree to let their music be used on a new compilation — proved the start of a nearly 10-year odyssey.
Even after doing their detective work and locating the artists, it often took additional months and years to win their trust. Many of the performers were suspicious of a pair of white kids who suddenly appeared out of nowhere after 30 years offering to release their old records.
“Usually the first conversation, there was a little shock, but also a lot of appreciation,” says Mathis. “You’re talking to them about something that’s from so long ago, maybe a dream that was very personal, so you get a range of emotion.
“The second conversations we had could get a little rocky. They’ve started to think about it and are wondering if it’s too good to be true. Some people thought we were trying to pull some scam or steal their identity. There’s all kinds of things I’ve been accused of,” says Mathis. “But in the end, once they got the paperwork, and we showed them who they were working with, and even got them (licensing) deals, it opened up their eyes to the fact that there were people out there who really wanted to hear this music.”
Light in Attic had planned a gala release event at the Stax Museum featuring some of the artists on the compilation. Many of the artists — including O.T. Sykes, Libra Lee, the members of Kick, and Paul Phillips of Silk Satin & Lace — are still around and even performing (although many have left R&B behind for gospel). Unfortunately, the Stax event was canceled due to COVID-19. Still, the response to “Stone Crush” has been gratifying, with pieces in Rolling Stone and on Bandcamp, bringing the project national attention.
It’s a belated recognition for artists
“Stone Crush” artist O.T. Sykes, “The Singing Dentist.”
who, as Robert Gordon observes in his liner notes, were making “funky tracks of hope.”
“These are songs forged by determination and self-confidence, and each was paid for by the artist,” noted Gordon. “Few of them ever had anything to do with a hit, and many had only a single experience in the recording studio — making this one song. But across the board, each believed.”