I was reluctant to dive into this post but couldn’t resist. In March 2022, if things work out, Laurie and I will embark on a music road trip to Nashville and Memphis. In preparation, I started working on a Memphis playlist built around a bunch of tunes I knew that referenced Memphis. After assembling a first cut I realized there was a lot more history of Memphis music that was worth exploring. I decided to split the playlist into two parts, the first focusing on songs recorded in Memphis at Sun, Stax and other studios. A second playlist goes into the deeper history of Memphis Blues and a bunch of more recent songs referencing Memphis and its musical legacy.
As I pulled the playlists together, I realized I wanted to capture more of the history and connective tissue between the songs, plus research them to more accurately tie the songs together. Hence this post, a labor of love and research. I love how each song has its own story and often surprising connections to other songs on and off the lists.
After putting many hours into these playlists and this post, I stumbled upon this list of “The 100 Best Songs About Memphis” put together by Memphis newspaper The Commercial Appeal. I should have started there. I added a few songs from this list that I’d missed, but I had most of them already. They even did a YouTube playlist of the songs which saved me the trouble of putting together one of my own, thank you very much.
Even later, I found there are more than 1,000 songs with Memphis in the lyrics. You’re lucky I’m not going through them all. The Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum suggests that Memphis has “the distinction of being included in the lyrics of more recorded songs than any other city on the planet (think not? prove it!).” Here’s an even more comprehensive list I found later.
I guess, in truth, my playlist will never be done…there’s always more produced and more to be found. It speaks to the surprisingly essential role of Memphis in American music history and consciousness.
Before starting this adventure, I mainly knew Memphis as ground zero for the birth of rock and roll at Sun Studio in the 1950s and as the home of Stax Records, a grittier alternative to Detroit’s Motown soul in the 1960s. So that’s where this playlist starts.
I wanted to begin with the well-known origin story of Elvis Presley coming to Sam Phillips’ Sun Studio in July 1954 to record a some songs. Between numbers, Elvis and the studio musicians began goofing around on Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s 1946 song, “That’s All Right“. Sam Phillips recognized this might be the “white man with the Negro sound” he’d been looking for. They recorded “That’s All Right” that night and “Blue Moon of Kentucky” soon after (Bill Monroe’s bluegrass original had been a hit in 1947). The following year, in August 1955, Elvis recorded “Mystery Train” (turning Junior Parker’s 1953 original R&B recording at Sun into a rockabilly and rock standard though it wasn’t released as a single). I thought Elvis recorded a lot more at Sun but most of his other 1950s classic hits were recorded in Nashville with RCA. Nevertheless, many consider the recording of “That’s All Right” to be rock and roll’s Big Bang moment (and rockabilly’s, too, though there’s a much deeper history for rock and roll). One of the milestones in that deeper history was the 1951 recording, also at Sun Studio, of “Rocket 88” by “Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats”, who were actually Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm.
I decided to set the playlist in mostly chronological order, though here and there I stray. So, the playlist leads off with Big Boy Crudup’s 1946 original of “That’s All Right” followed by Bill Monroe’s 1947 original “Blue Moon of Kentucky” to set the stage. Next comes “Rocket 88” from 1951, and Junior Parker’s 1953 “Mystery Train”, both recorded at Sun. Elvis’s groundbreaking 1954 recordings of “That’s All Right” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky” are followed by Big Maybelle’s March 1955 original of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” (produced by a young Quincy Jones).
Then we have a selection of Sun Studio’s other groundbreaking artists starting with Johnny Cash who released “Cry, Cry, Cry” in June 1955, backed with “Hey Porter” (which had been recorded nine months earlier but Sam Phillips didn’t release it). Elvis’s version of “Mystery Train” followed in August 1955. Carl Perkins’ “Blue Suede Shoes“, recorded in December 1955, became Sun’s first million selling record, earning Perkins a Cadillac from Sam Phillips (the subject of the Drive By Truckers’ “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac” later in the playlist). Roy Orbison recorded rockabilly hit “Ooby Dooby” at Sun in March 1956 (his third recording of the song) before moving on to greater success elsewhere in the 1960s. In April 1956, Cash recorded “I Walk the Line“, his signature song. Jerry Lee Lewis knocked out “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” in February 1957 and then “Great Balls of Fire” in October 1957 at Sun. Jerry Lee Lewis was discovered and produced by Cowboy Jack Clement who took over operations at Sun for several years as Sam Phillips moved into other interests. Cowboy Jack went on to have a hugely influential career producing, writing and recording in Nashville. Sun Records, however, declined in the late 1950s and eventually became a museum more than an active recording studio.
Stax Records, originally Satellite Records, was founded in 1957 in Memphis and had its first significant hit in 1960 with “Cause I Love You” by Rufus Thomas and his daughter, Carla. With that success, the company focused on what became labeled Memphis Soul music. The integrated house band, based around Booker T. Jones on organ, Steve Cropper on guitar, Al Jackson Jr. on drums, and Lewie Steinberg on bass (followed by Duck Dunn in 1965), played on hundreds of recordings and scored major hits of their own as Booker T. and the M.G.’s, including “Green Onions” in 1962 and “Time is Tight” in 1968, two of the coolest instrumentals ever recorded.
Major Stax artists included Otis Redding who released “These Arms of Mine” in October 1962, “I Can’t Turn You Loose” in 1965 and “Try a Little Tenderness” in 1966 (staff producer Isaac Hayes worked on the terrific arrangement). Eddie Floyd released “Knock on Wood” (co-written with Steve Cropper) in 1966. Albert King followed the same year with “Crosscut Saw“, a song originally recorded in 1941 by Tommy McClennan, updated by Al Jackson, Jr. and backed by Booker T. and the MG’s. Sam & Dave released “Hold On, I’m Coming” in March 1966 and “Soul Man” in September 1967 (both written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter). Albert King had another Stax hit with “Born Under a Bad Sign” in 1967. In late 1967, Otis Redding finished recorded “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” (which he wrote with Steve Cropper) days before his death in a plane crash.
In 1968 the Staples Singers signed with Stax after a long career in gospel, folk and civil rights. They had great commercial success with “Respect Yourself” in 1971 followed by “I’ll Take You There” in 1972, both recorded at Stax with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (Booker T. Jones and Steve Cropper left Stax in 1970).
Stax’s business fortunes declined in the 1970s. The company pulled together a big Wattstax concert in Los Angeles in 1972 featuring Isaac Hayes at his peak. The concert spawned a film and successful album, but by 1975 Stax was bankrupt and forced to sell its recording assets.
Stax wasn’t the only game in town in Memphis in the 1960s-1970s. Chips Moman left Stax in 1964 to form American Sound Studio and recorded a long string of commercial hits beginning with “Keep on Dancing” by The Gentrys in 1965 and “The Letter” by The Box Tops (featuring Alex Chilton) in 1967. Saxophonist King Curtis, who as a session musician played with a huge list of greats and also led Aretha Franklin’s band, spelled out the Stax recipe in “Memphis Soul Stew” in 1967 but actually recorded it at American Sound with their house band, The Memphis Boys. Merrilee Rush followed the same year with “Angel of the Morning“, produced by Moman.
Dusty Springfield recorded “Son of Preacher Man” from her acclaimed Dusty in Memphis album at American Sound Studio in 1968, co-produced by the influential Jerry Wexler and Tom Dowd who recorded many Atlantic Records stars in Memphis and Muscle Shoals. Elvis recorded two albums at American Sound in 1969 following his successful comeback TV special, including the hit “Suspicious Minds“. The same year, Neil Diamond recorded “Sweet Caroline” in the same studio. Things wound down at American Sound after Moman left in 1972 and the studio began changing hands.
Hi Records was formed in 1957 and employed producer and bandleader Willie Mitchell beginning in 1960. In 1969, Mitchell connected with singer Al Green. Their second record together in 1971 produced the hit “Tired of Being Alone“, followed by Green’s signature “Let’s Stay Together” in 1972. In 1974, Green released “Take Me to the River“, dedicated to his cousin, Junior Parker (“Mystery Train”). In 1979, now Rev. Green focused on being pastor of his Memphis church and released a string of gospel recordings, including “Rock of Ages” in 1982.
In 1985, Sun Studios was resurrected as a recording studio and tourist attraction. Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins reunited to produce the Class of ’55: Memphis Rock & Roll Homecoming album (documentary on YouTube). The “Birth of Rock & Roll” pretty much tells the whole story. “Big Train From Memphis” features Johnny, Roy, Jerry Lee and Carl along with John Fogerty (who wrote the song), The Judds, Dave Edmunds, Ricky Nelson, Sam Phillips, and June Carter Cash. I wish it were a better documentary with better songs. These guys just seem really old…and then there’s Dick Clark.
In later years, the band U2 showed up at Sun in 1988 to record “When Love Comes to Town” with B.B. King and several other songs connected with the Rattle and Hum movie and album. In 2014, the documentary film Take Me to the River married a lot of first generation Memphis soul artists with a new generation of black and white artists. The songs “Down in Memphis” and “Representing Memphis“, both featuring Booker T. Jones, come from these sessions. In 2016, Margo Price recorded her debut solo album Midwest Farmer’s Daughter in Sun Studio, featuring “Hurtin’ (On the Bottle)“. Since 2011, Sun Studios has been home to a PBS TV show called “Sun Studio Sessions” which features a wide variety of artists (see the show’s YouTube page for clips).
And the story goes on. I was genuinely surprised to learn so much was recorded in Memphis. I knew parts of the story but I’m glad to have a better appreciation. I look forward to learning more.
In addition to the extensive legacy of music recorded in Memphis, there are a ton of songs about Memphis. I started collecting them for this playlist and decided I had to combine them with a deeper look into the history of the blues and other musical styles along with stories referencing Memphis. Herewith, my look at 87 (give or take a few) recordings of songs about Memphis.
I quickly realized that any discussion of Memphis and the Blues starts with W.C. Handy who annointed himself Father of the Blues (bio from the Memphis Music Hall of Fame). I’d heard the name but didn’t really know much about Handy’s actual music. He was a professional musician (he played in a band at the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition, the “White City”) looking for ways to make a living in the post-Reconstruction, Jim Crow era. He traveled extensively and by 1909 he and his band were based in Memphis on Beale Street. Publishing sheet music was the musical financial mainstream and in 1912 when he was 39-years-old, Handy’s first written song, “The Memphis Blues“, sold very well…but for someone else — Handy sold the publishing rights for $50 because he was in debt. I haven’t found an early version of “The Memphis Blues” on iTunes but the song’s Wikipedia page has a 1914 version by the Victor Military Band that has been added Library of Congress National Recording Registry. Listening to that version, “The Memphis Blues” was closer to ragtime than what I think of as blues. It’s certainly not true Delta blues, the music from a very specific region of the east bank of the Mississippi between Memphis and Vicksburg which Handy mined for this and future hits. “The Memphis Blues” actually inspired the Foxtrot dance craze which is hardly associated with the blues…but nevertheless it is widely credited as the first commercially successful blues song. I include several later versions of “The Memphis Blues” a little further in the playlist, but decided to start the playlist with “St. Louis Blues” for which I found earlier recordings.
Handy published “St. Louis Blues” in 1914 through his own newly formed company. The song became a huge sheet music hit selling more than a million copies, this time to Handy’s benefit. My playlist starts with four versions, first by W.C. Handy’s Memphis Blues Band recorded in 1923 and presumably close to Handy’s own concept for the song. It strikes me as a jaunty march from Havana habanera through New Orleans Dixieland to St. Louis ragtime, a bundle of memorable musical hooks that is certainly catchy, deservedly popular and danceable…but again I hardly recognize it as the blues. Bessie Smith’s 1925 version with Louis Armstrong on cornet, on the other hand, is undeniably blues and tremendously powerful. I am hard-pressed to understand how she got there from the original but this series of posts in Shmoop (my first encounter with this education site which looks interesting even if its pages are overly ad-laden) at least partly explains the commercial motivations for Handy to write the song vs. Bessie Smith’s artistry in inhabiting the song and earning her Empress of the Blues title. Armstrong’s own 1929 version (more background and versions) hews closer to Handy’s original and is in the Grammy Hall of Fame. Armstrong’s 1954 version unites the instrumental version with its (mostly) original blues lyrics and has fun with both.
W.C. Handy published “Beale Street Blues” in 1917, another big sheet music hit which also became a recorded standard. My playlist includes four versions which again may as well be four different songs. The first, from W.C. Handy’s Orchestra (in 1923?) is again more ragtime than blues. Fats Waller did an otherworldly solo pipe organ version in 1927 with Alberta Hunter adding a vocal verse at the end. Louis Armstrong’s 1954 version shows him as a consummate singer, trumpeter and interpreter; it’s my favorite. Duke Ellington’s 1959 version with Johnny Hodges on sax sounds like it came from the coolest, classiest lounge in the world.
Turning back to “The Memphis Blues”, the subtitle for the song is “Mr. Crump”, a reference to “Boss” Crump who dominated Memphis and Tennessee Democratic politics for the first half of the 20th century. It’s said Handy originally wrote the tune as a campaign song for Crump in 1909 (his band entertained at Crump campaign rallies) then added lyrics and published “The Memphis Blues” in 1912. The Beale Street Sheiks — the guitar-playing duo of Frank Stokes (father of the Memphis Blues guitar style) and Dan Sane adapted the tune of “The Memphis Blues” for “Mr. Crump Don’t Like It” in 1927.
My playlist includes four other versions of “The Memphis Blues” which again shows a range of adaptations by artists over the years. There’s one by Dick Stratton and the Nite Owls from 1938 that features the original racially problematic lyrics. The Nite Owls were a collection of Nashville studio players but I can’t find a whole lot more about them. Bing Crosby performed a very pop version of the song (with scrubbed lyrics) with Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald on his Chesterfield Radio Show in 1950. The legendary Nashville guitarist and producer Chet Atkins did a fine instrumental version in 1953 that highlights his amazing guitar technique. Each of these versions helped me more fully respect and enjoy Louis Armstrong’s 1954 version of “The Memphis Blues”, the best version I’ve found. This self-referential performance from his W.C. Handy tribute album does a pretty good job encapsulating both Armstrong’s and Handy’s full careers, but mostly it’s just a good time and that’s a big part of what Memphis music is all about.
From the files of totally irrelevant coincidences, W.C. Handy died on the same day I was born: March 28, 1958. He died in New York City a rich man, his funeral attended by thousands. He is remembered with parks and memorials in Memphis and around the South — deservedly so — though he spent the last half of his life in New York as a successful businessman. I find it interesting that Handy is known more for the songs he wrote and published than for his actual performances; if anything, he seemed to stop performing once he became a successful publisher. I’m not so sure he really earned the title “Father of the Blues” but he was an important musical entrepreneur who popularized and legitimized a regional strain of Black music with a much wider audience.
Jumping back in time and focusing on other Memphis-related songs, two years before she recorded “St. Louis Blues”, Bessie Smith recorded “Beale Street Mama” in 1923 as a slow blues, I think among the first songs she recorded. “A song that delivers love, loss, longing, sex and death – the key ingredients of the blues – in one perfect barrelhouse ballad,” per the Memphis Commercial Appeal. A 1932 version of the song by Cab Calloway turns it into a swing dance tune. Bessie Smith recorded “Jazzbo Brown of Memphis Town” in 1926 about a legendary delta blues musician.
The Beale Street Sheiks (Frank Stokes and Dan Sane) recorded “Beale Town Bound” in 1927, an early example of guitar-based blues. From the same year, also referencing Memphis, was “The Rising High Water Blues” by Blind Lemon Jefferson (“If I don’t leave Memphis, backwater spill all over poor me”). These songs better reflect the emerging Delta Blues style.
The Beale Street Sheiks are not to be confused with the Memphis Sheiks, a.k.a. the Memphis Jug Band, a popular and evolving ensemble that played for decades across the South. The Memphis Jug Band recorded “Memphis Jug Blues” in 1927 (I love the counterpoint vocals), then recorded the catchy “Fourth Street Mess Around” in 1930. In 1934 they recorded “Memphis Shakedown“, a great example of proto-rock and roll. The song has all the energy, excitement and structure of early rock and roll, including a 1-4-5 chord structure and what I’ll call the “Rock Around the Clock” bass line used in thousands of rock, rockabilly and boogie-woogie tunes. It’s as rock and roll as you can get with a jug and fiddle (and kazoo?) as the main melodic instruments, recorded 20 years before Elvis’s Big Bang at Sun Studio. Note: the Carolina Chocolate Drops frequently did their own version of “Memphis Shakedown” with Rhiannon Giddens doing the kazoo part, proving both that she can do anything and that not everything she does is necessarily wonderful. Further note: The story of the Memphis Jug Band is featured in the first episode of the American Epic documentary series.
“Memphis Yodel” was written and recorded by Jimmie Rodgers in 1928, a year after Rodgers took part in Ralph Peer’s Bristol Sessions. The song has the basic lyrics and structure of a 12-bar blues mixed with Appalachian finger-picking guitar and a demented yodel thrown in (not Rodgers’ first song with a yodel, which was “Blue Yodel“, but recorded very shortly after). Two years later, Rodgers recorded “Standing on the Corner (Blue Yodel No. 9)” with an uncredited Louis Armstrong on trumpet and his wife Lil Hardin Armstrong on piano. Why were they uncredited? The answer is not entirely clear (“Everything surrounding the record is shrouded in mystery“), though it was the only time they recorded together (check the dippermouth post for the fun story of Armstrong rediscovering the song in 1952 and Armstrong’s 1970 TV performance of the song with Johnny Cash; here’s another good post about the song though it doesn’t clear up the mystery). With these songs and others, Rodgers helped introduce Delta blues styles to a much larger white audience and influenced generations of blues, country and rock performers. Where exactly he picked up the style is less clear to me but it reflects an explosion in the popularity of blues styles through the 1920s.
Influential guitarist and singer Memphis Minnie recorded “North Memphis Blues” in 1930 with her then-husband and collaborator, “Kansas Joe” McCoy. It sounds like an advertisement for what was evidently a real (though now long defunct) cafe; the Memphis Commercial Appeal calls it, “that rare blues song about food that really is about food.” A 2005 version done by fiddler/singer Suzy Thompson pays tribute.
Roy Acuff (“The King of Country Music”) recorded “Night Train to Memphis” in 1940. The song became an excuse for a film of the same name in 1946 that I haven’t had a chance to see. In 2017, Charley Crockett did a terrific cover version which I actually knew first. But listening to Acuff’s version (“Where?”), it’s pretty terrific, too.
The explosion of music recorded in Sun Studios and elsewhere in Memphis began in the early 1950s and is the subject of my other Memphis playlist. Oddly, while Memphis took center-stage for a while in American music, there weren’t that many songs about Memphis that I’ve found from this period.
Chuck Berry, who hailed from St. Louis and didn’t have much direct connection with Memphis, released his song, “Memphis, Tennessee” in June 1959. It’s one of my favorite songs about Memphis, with a poignant twist that Marie is the narrator’s 6-year-old daughter (I like the clever turn of phrase “with hurry home drops on her cheek that trickled from her eye”). Later that year, Chuck Berry was arrested and later jailed for sex with a minor, becoming persona non grata for a decade but his music lived on. In 1963, rootsy session guitarist Lonnie Mack recorded an instrumental version that became a hit. In late 1963 and early 1964, Elvis recorded several versions of the song but hadn’t released it when (somewhat controversially) Johnny Rivers released his own version that became a hit. Elvis never released his version as a single but included it on the 1965 album, Elvis for Everyone. Meanwhile, over in England, this and other Chuck Berry songs became standards in the early repertoire of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Animals, and other would-be invaders, though frankly none of their versions of “Memphis, Tennessee” stand up to the ones I’ve included.
Blues pianist Memphis Slim (Memphis Music Hall of Fame bio) had a long career recording hundreds of songs from the 1940s-1980s. He moved to Paris in 1962 and helped popularize the blues throughout Europe. “Memphis Boogie” was recorded with Willie Dixon and others at the American Folk Blues Festival series of European concerts in 1963.
Delta bluesman Mississippi John Hurt recorded a handful of songs in 1928 but found no success at the time. He was “rediscovered” in 1963 when he was 70 and went on to record and perform extensively, influencing a new generation of folk and blues artists with his singing and precise guitar picking. This version of “Coffee Blues” is probably the one recorded live in 1965 at Oberlin College. This song was probably not really about coffee but was definitely the inspiration for the name of the band The Lovin’ Spoonful.
In 1965, Bob Dylan “went electric” and recorded the album Highway 61 Revisited, No. 4 on Rolling Stone‘s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time“. The album and title track refer to U.S. Route 61 that runs from Minnesota (Dylan’s birthplace) down the Mississippi River, through Memphis and the heart of the Delta Blues corridor. The song “Highway 61 Revisited” doesn’t explicitly reference Memphis but I think well qualifies for inclusion in this list. The next year, Dylan made a pilgrimage to Nashville to record his album Blonde on Blonde which included “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again“.
Jerry Lee Lewis recorded “Memphis Beat” in 1966 at the Memphis studio Sam Phillips opened in 1960 to succeed Sun Studio. The Memphis Commercial Appeal decided this was the #1 Best Song about Memphis, calling it “an encapsulation of the infectious, transcendent power of the city’s musical environs.” Well maybe, but I don’t think it’s #1 (and just to be picky, why haven’t more bands covered the tune?).
Chuck Berry released “Back to Memphis” in 1967, a bit of a toss-off for Chuck but the song has legs. The Memphis Commercial Appeal voted it the #2 Best Song about Memphis and I’d argue it should be #1. The Band recorded a loose version of the song, retitled “Going Back to Memphis“, in 1973 that was intended for their Moondog Matinee album but wasn’t officially released until 2001. But they often played the song in concert, including to open their set at the massive 1973 Watkins Glen concert. The Band’s drummer and singer, Levon Helm, grew up in Turkey Scratch, Arkansas, about 60 miles from Memphis. Levon had an affinity for songs about Memphis, as we will see and hear later in this list. Levon did a great live version of “Back to Memphis” for his Ramble at the Ryman album recorded in 2008.
Nashville session guitarist Jerry Reed wrote and recorded “Guitar Man” in 1967 which became his first solo hit. Elvis Presley liked the song and quickly recorded his own version the same year — with Reed on guitar — to fill out the album for his movie Clambake.
Rufus Thomas, who helped get Stax Records started in 1960, recorded “The Memphis Train” in 1968, #4 on The Commercial Appeal’s list.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed in Memphis on April 4, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel. The next day, with riots already underway in Chicago, veteran bluesman and pianist Otis Spann recorded the deeply moving and sorrowful “Hotel Lorraine“. It’s like an open wound.
It’s not easy to transition musically or emotionally after Otis Spann’s performance, but there’s a lot more Memphis music to go.
In 1968, John Fogerty wrote “Proud Mary” which his band Creedence Clearwater Revival released in early 1969. It became a big hit and though I never loved CCR’s original — I thought the rhythm was too slow and stuck in the mud — it was easy to strum along on guitar. I never heard Solomon Burke’s 1969 version until I did this list but it’s a big improvement and evidently inspired Ike & Tina Turner’s 1971 smash.
In July 1969, the Rolling Stones released “Honky Tonk Women” about a gin-soaked barroom queen in Memphis. Our high school band tried very hard to play this but we never got close. I didn’t realize until researching this that Charlie Watts didn’t play the cowbell in the opening — it was done by producer Jimmy Miller. Our band’s drummer, Mark Wallis, would have benefited from this knowledge. He could never get the opening sequence right.
The prolific Nashville songwriter and singer Tom T. Hall released “That’s How I Got to Memphis” on his debut album in 1969. The song became a country standard (#3 on The Commercial Appeal list) recorded by many others, including Charley Crockett in 2018. It’s not my favorite song or style, but it earns a spot on this playlist.
Memphis Slim, still based in Paris, recorded “Memphis Heat” in 1970, a jam with the band Canned Heat. “Down on Beale Street” was recorded with fellow pianist and early mentor Roosevelt Sykes in 1971 (I think). “Born in Memphis Tennessee” was also recorded in 1971. Apparently, Memphis Slim cracked the code on brand synergy around 1970.
Steve Goodman wrote and released “City of New Orleans” in 1971, a year before Arlo Guthrie had a much bigger hit with it. The song, about a train ride from Chicago to New Orleans (“changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee”) became an American classic recorded by many, many others.
Little Feat released “Dixie Chicken” in early 1973 celebrating the bright lights of Memphis and the Commodore Hotel (which is actually in Linden, Tennessee). Bonnie Bramlett and Bonnie Raitt added vocal power to the track (more about the song and a nice live performance from 1977). This is one of my all-time favorite tunes and one of the reasons I’ve done this list.
English glam rock band and buddies of David Bowie, Mott the Hoople’s “All the Way from Memphis“, released in 1973, tells the story of a lost guitar, though I never figured that out before reading about it. Most notable for me are the snidely repeating title hook, inscrutable verses and the honking imitation of the Memphis horns. I never knew what they were talking about but it seemed like they were having fun.
Singer-songwriter Jesse Winchester grew up in Memphis before moving to Canada in 1967 to evade the Vietnam draft. He released the song and album “Talk Memphis” in 1981, recalling “the town that I love best”.
J. J. Cale included the song “Mississippi River” on his 1982 album, Grasshopper, a slinky ode about a man trying to get to Memphis to get his baby back.
In 1984, U2 released the anthemic “Pride (In the Name of Love)“, loosely about the assassination of Martin Luther King. It went on to become one of their most popular and enduring songs. Chrissie Hynde adds depth with backup vocals.
Lonnie Mack, who did the great 1963 instrumental version of Chuck Berry’s “Memphis, Tennessee”, resurfaced in 1985 with “Long Way from Memphis”, a song about his own career. Stevie Ray Vaughn co-produced and plays on the album, Strike Like Lightning, but not on this track.
John Fogerty’s “Big Train From Memphis” was included on his 1985 Centerfield solo album. The song, written by Fogerty and with all instruments played by him, feels like a lost 1950’s classic.
The Replacements played homage in 1985 to their idol/mentor from Memphis, Box Tops and Big Star singer Alex Chilton. The song “Alex Chilton” was one of The Replacements’ catchiest in a long and influential run of near-misses.
Paul Simon recorded his landmark Graceland album in 1985 and released it the following year. The title track percolates along with a great bass and drums rhythm track, supplemented with vocals by the Everly Brothers. The album was hugely successful, won many awards, revitalized Simon’s career and generated plenty of controversy over cultural appropriation. That aside, the song itself pretty darn smart and catchy, tying together geography, travels, Elvis, divorce, kids, New York, redemption and who knows what else.
In 1987, John Hiatt gathered a crack band of Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe and Jim Keltner to record the album Bring the Family in only four days. The first song they recorded was “Memphis in the Meantime“, another one of my favorites and honestly the top reason I’m doing this whole playlist…and the reason I want to have a meal at the Rendezvous. I love the clever story, Keltner’s distinctive drumming and Ry Cooder’s guitar work. Many have covered the song since, none more energetically than bluegrass mandolinist Sam Bush live in Telluride in 2000, featuring Jerry Douglas.
Marc Cohn wrote what became his signature tune and inescapable hit, “Walking in Memphis” not long after a 1985 trip he took to Memphis for inspiration but the song wasn’t released until his debut album in 1991. He’s had a long career since, despite getting shot in the head in 2005. He’s never come close to the success of that early tune but at least he got that one right.
John Prine released “Daddy’s Little Pumpkin” in 1991 (with its verse about “Going down to Memphis with $300 in cash”), inspired by Mississippi John Hurt’s finger picking and double entendres.
Trisha Yearwood’s version of “Wrong Side of Memphis” became a country hit in 1992. I stumbled upon the Pickin’ On version from 2005, my first exposure to this very extensive series of anonymous bluegrass covers of various artists.
Lyle Lovett’s 1992 album, Joshua Judges Ruth, led off with the jaunty “I’ve Been to Memphis”, featuring Matt Rollings having fun on the piano.
In 1993, Richard Thompson released “From Galway to Graceland“, his elegiac ode to an Irish Elvis fan gone mad. He wrote and recorded it sometime earlier but the song first appeared on the 3-disc compilation Watching the Dark.
Townes Van Zandt included “Going Down to Memphis”, yet another Memphis train song, on his 1994 final album, No Deeper Blue. I thought about gathering up all the train songs in one clump but it upsets the chronological flow…but if you’re keeping track (bad pun!!), there’s “Night Train to Memphis”, “The Memphis Train”, “City of New Orleans”, “Big Train From Memphis”, “Last Train to Memphis”, this one and I’m on the lookout for more.
Switching from trains, Guy Clark’s “Baby Took a Limo to Memphis” appeared on his 1995 Dublin Blues album. Rosie Flores did a nice version on the 2012 album, This One’s for Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark.
What was left of The Band (at that point, Levon Helm, Rick Danko and Garth Hudson supplemented by friends) put out a 1998 album, Jubilation, that included “Last Train to Memphis” with Eric Clapton guesting on guitar. The song was written by Louisiana’s Bobby Charles (the underappreciated king of swamp pop). Bobby Charles released his own version of the song on his 2004 album of the same name, though I can’t nail down when exactly it was written or recorded. Sonny Landreth provides the tasty guitar work.
The Band recorded a second song with the title “Back to Memphis” on High on the Hog in 1996 — this one written by Chuck Berry’s longtime pianist, Johnnie Johnson.
Veteran Memphis blues singer Bobby “Blue” Bland released the song and album “Memphis Monday Morning” late in his career in 1998.
Texas/LA/Nashville rockabilly artist Rosie Flores (who should be a bigger star in my book and did that Guy Clark cover a few songs back) was already a veteran when she released her rocking tribute to Sun Records “It Came from Memphis” in 1999 on her album Dance Hall Dreams.
The Drive By Truckers also celebrated Sun Records history in 2004 with “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac”. From Songfacts: “This song recounts the celebrated Sun Records label “Million Dollar Quartet” (Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash). Their boss, Sam Phillips, promised a brand-new Cadillac to the first one of the quartet to sell a million records. Carl Perkins won the prize for his “Blue Suede Shoes” disc, having recently smashed up his Chrysler Imperial.”
In 2004, Memphis rappers 8Ball & MJG (Memphis Music Hall of Fame bio) released “Memphis City Blues” which, if nothing else, takes an awful lot of pride in being from Memphis.
Old Crow Medicine Show revisited the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. with the 2008 song “Motel in Memphis”.
The Hold Steady released “Sequestered in Memphis” in 2008 on their album Stay Positive.
Blues guitarist Tommy Castro release “Make It Back to Memphis” on his 2009 album, Hard Believer.
In 2009, Memphis musician Papa Don McMinn released “Mr. Crump”, harkening all the way back to The Beale Street Sheiks’ 1927 “Mr. Crump Don’t Like It” take on W.C. Handy’s “The Memphis Blues”.
Justin Townes Earle (Steve Earle’s son) recorded “Memphis in the Rain” in 2012 for his album, Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Fell About Me Now.
Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell teamed up in 2015 to perform “Bring It on Home to Memphis“, a song Crowell had penned more than 20 years earlier but never released. It appeared on their second collaborative album, The Traveling Kind.
Ending this playlist on two blue notes, Justin Townes Earle returned to the inspiration of Memphis in 2019 with “Mornings in Memphis” for his final album, The Saint of Lost Causes, before dying of an overdose in 2020.
Also in 2020, “up and coming Memphis rapper” YNC Capo released “Memphis City Blues” (different than the 2004 song of the same name by 8Ball & MJG). In August 2021, he was shot and killed, evidently as someone hijacked his car. I feel under-qualified to comment on the song but there’s a mournful quality that seems appropriate — for his life, for his town, for his race and maybe for the recent direction and future of music — but there’s also some heart that touches the soul.
There is a whole constellation of notable Delta Blues artists, including Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Big Bill Broonzy and many more who made important records over the decades but did not, as far as I can tell, record a specific song about Memphis. I was surprised, for example, that B.B. King — so well known for his time in Memphis as a disk jockey and performer — doesn’t have a Memphis-related song I can include in this list.
Pulling together both of these playlists has been a labor of love and obsession for many, many hours over several weeks…much more than I bargained for when I started. I’m pleased with the results and didn’t suspect that they would cumulatively form what I now think is a pretty good overview of American music over the last 100 years. I’m looking forward to our trip and learning more. I daresay I may have some additions to make.