Speaking o’ Memphis

Here’s a radio show of some 60’s-70’s rarities.  I love the ones by the Breakers and Flash and the Memphis Casuals.  I bet they kicked ass live (I’m not old enough to have seen them, although I did see about half of the others on this list).  Unlisted after the Tommy Hoehn song is a pretty terrible cover of “I Walk the Line” by a band called Hot Dogs, who had some good songs;  why on earth was that chosen?  I find Chris Bell’s acoustic version of “I Am The Cosmos” too slow, sludgy, and depressing–which I guess makes sense, as he was chronically depressed.   It’s the sound of Quaalude abuse.  The official single version moves along better, although there’s still about as much sludge as I can endure.

4 Replies to “Speaking o’ Memphis”

  1. He’d go play in New York pretty regularly, so he did have a small cult following outside of Memphis. I didn’t know him well, but we were on speaking terms. He played solo pretty much weekly at a club downtown called Jefferson Square, which burned down sometime in the 80’s. It’s a parking lot now. I saw him play there very many times. I loved his voice, I could listen to it all night and often did. I also admired how he kept up a low-key music career while being a professor at Southwestern (Rhodes, whatever). During that time I was white-knuckling between college and an insane band life, so I was impressed.

  2. Thanks. His son is a gifted musician.

    Somebody I know with a band needs to cover Don’t Send Me No Flowers. That song is a burner.

  3. Oh, and I saw him play with Mud Boy and the Neutrons (Jim Dickinson and Lee Baker’s occasional band) a number of tmes. I’m thinking Sid might have been the first musician I encountered who was also a functioning adult. A rarity in Memphis, and maybe anywhere.

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