Memphis
and Liverpool
“Well,
it’s a mighty long way down rock’n’roll,” according
to one masterpiece of the genre, “from the Liverpool docks
to the Hollywood Bowl.” The song in question is Mott The
Hoople’s tribute to he Anglo-American cultural alliance,
“All The Way From Memphis” – a number that brilliantly
makes the intuitive link between rock’s twin capital
cities.
The
fact is, there are plenty of places WHERE music is made. But
few cities are reasons WHY music is made. Two such
destinations, however, are Memphis, Tennessee and Liverpool,
England.
This
is a Tale Of Two Cities. Whatever their superficial
differences, Liverpool and Memphis are soul mates. Together
they shaped the popular culture of the 20th century and,
therefore, the world that we have inherited. For that reason
alone they merit the sort of attention that historians have
previously reserved for Rome and Athens. What’s more,
Liverpool and Memphis are towns alive to their heritage –
their hearts still beat to the pulse of rock’n’roll. Any
music-minded traveller in search of 21st century good times
is assured of satisfaction.
The
Mersey or the Mississippi? Either is fine. Both would be
just perfect.
Memphis
has rightly been called “the cradle of the blues and
rock’n’roll’s home town”. Liverpool has a plausible
claim to the title of pop culture’s global HQ. Look at it
this way – the two seminal events in rock music were Elvis
Presley’s arrival at the Sun Studio, Memphis, on July 5th,
1954, and the meeting of John Lennon with Paul McCartney at
a Liverpool summer fair on July 6th, 1957. Modest
events at the time, each proved cataclysmic in the
development of modern music. But their historic impact was
only possible because of the uniquely fertile cities in
which they occurred.
Glance
at a map and the clues begin to reveal themselves. Beside
the mighty Mississippi in the heart of the American South,
Memphis was a crossroads of commerce and the bright hope of
an army of rural migrants in search of a better life.
Liverpool, England, where the Mersey led to the
international shipping lanes, was the conduit for every
commodity from human slaves to American cotton. Amidst
appalling poverty, Liverpool grew into one of the Empire’s
wealthiest ports. Memphis enjoyed a comparable boom. To
whole generations of African Americans, Memphis was at least
a taste of relative freedom; and for thousands of Irish
fleeing famine, Liverpool was their nearest chance of food
and shelter.
Many
ethnicities, of all colours and creeds, sought succour in
these cities. The desperate energy of migrant populations,
and their heartfelt need for beauty and self-expression, are
somewhere in the very souls of Memphis and Liverpool.
Neither
city has had an easy history. The bitterest divisions of
American history found their European echo in Liverpool,
whose prosperity depended once upon slavery and thereafter
on cotton: in defiance of the British Empire it once flew
Confederate flags from every high building. Racial and
sectarian conflicts were endemic to both cities.
Yet
it can be said, without sentimentality, that music proved to
have a healing power. The young Elvis Presley, a white
country boy whose parents moved to Memphis, grew up on the
Negro blues and gospel that his new home town made available
– mainly via the radio waves that crossed all tracks,
literal and metaphorical. The Beatles were born into a
cosmopolitan city unlike anywhere else in Europe: a raw
compound of British tradition, Celtic romanticism,
Afro-Caribbean vigour and ready exposure to imported
American sounds.
**********
Memphis
has more claims to musical fame than anyone can count.
It’s the birthplace of stars from Aretha Franklin to
Justin Timberlake. It’s been the home of legends such as
Elvis Presley and Al Green. And as any reputable jukebox
could tell you, it’s repeatedly name-checked in the
funkiest songs ever written, whether it be W.C. Handy’s
“Beale Street Blues” or Credence Clearwater Revival’s
“Proud Mary”
Above
all, though, Memphis is a recording centre with a glorious
track record.
That
history did not begin with Elvis Presley. Even before 1954,
Sam Phillips’ Sun Studio had given us key recordings by
bluesman Howlin’ Wolf and the disc that many call the
earliest rock’n’roll cut of all, Jackie Brenston’s
“Rocket 88” featuring Ike Turner. Earlier still, the
bars and clubs of Beale Street were home to jazz and the
rural Delta blues that morphed here into the precursor of
R&B. Soon it became the natural home of American roots
music in all its forms – Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, B.B.
King and Carl Perkins were just a few of the Memphis success
stories.
The
greatest label of Southern soul, Stax, was built around the
historic multi-racial house band of Booker T & The MGs
(their name was short for “the Memphis Group”). They
were the engine for epic hits by Otis Redding, Wilson
Pickett and others. Across town at Hi Records, the gifted
producer Willie Mitchell worked with vocalist supreme Al
Green. Other important studios have been Ardent and Chips
Moman’s American. From the former came Big Star, an early
70s rock band led by Alex Chilton and Chris Bell – they
have become the rock’n’roll cult band par
excellence.
Big
Star’s members were, ironically, just a few of the Memphis
boys whose heads were entirely turned around by the 1964
arrival of a Liverpool act called The Beatles. For if
Memphis had taught the world to rock, Liverpool was its star
pupil.
Before
the days of mass media, American music crossed the Atlantic
via the sea trade. Long before The Beatles, Liverpool
drinkers swayed to country and western choruses; in the
1930s Paul McCartney’s father played in one of Europe’s
earliest jazz bands. And here’s a nugget of
Memphis-Liverpool symbolism – The Beatles’ stomping
ground the Cavern Club was actually opened by an act named
The Merseysippi Jazz Band. (They’re together to this day.)
Rock’n’roll and R&B were swiftly taken up in a city
primed by long years of US interaction. Britain’s first
real rock’n’roll star, Billy Fury, came from the
Liverpool docklands.
Memphis
author Robert Gordon has suggested that rock’n’roll came
about when hillbilly boys such as Elvis tried to play black
R&B – they failed, but in failing they created a wild
new hybrid. Maybe Merseybeat was the same thing. By 1962
Liverpool teemed with teenage beat groups attacking American
music with energy and passion, if not always expertise. They
took the driving rhythms of rock and soul but also the close
harmonies and songcraft of US pop, to produce something
utterly fresh.
The
movement’s leaders were of course The Beatles. They and
other Liverpool acts like Gerry & The Pacemakers, Cilla
Black, The Searchers, Billy J. Kramer and The Fourmost
dominated the British charts and many were in the vanguard
of the British Invasion of the States. By 1966 the city’s
renown was so great that American poet Allen Ginsberg
declared Liverpool “the centre of human
consciousness.”
By
the mid 70s those creative juices were flowing again. At the
centre of the action was a new club, Eric’s, just across
Mathew Street from the site of the Cavern; within a decade
the scene here would generate a massive number of punk and
new wave luminaries such as Elvis Costello, Echo & the
Bunnymen, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Orchestral
Manoeuvres In The Dark. A little later came The La’s –
rather in the Big Star tradition, they wield a posthumous
influence out of all proportion to their commercial success
at the time.
It’s
remained the most musical of English cities to this day,
whether through dance clubs like Cream, fun pop acts like
Atomic Kitten or vibrant rock bands like The Coral.
********
For
a long time neither Memphis nor Liverpool paid much heed to
their illustrious histories. Those contributions were rather
taken for granted. Sites of immense musical interest were
thoughtlessly destroyed. In both cities, however, the tide
began to turn during the 1980s.
For
sure, there was a dawning appreciation of the commercial
value in “music tourism”. But there was a deeper
feeling, doubtless strengthened by the deaths of Elvis in
1977 and John Lennon in 1980, that an era was passing. We
could either see it slip into oblivion or recognise, honour
and celebrate that era. And – who knows – perhaps it
might inspire new generations of artists and citizens. In
fact this is exactly what has happened.
From
Beale Street, Memphis to the Beatle streets of Liverpool’s
Cavern quarter, these twin cities of musical legend now
offer more visitor attractions than ever before. The Sun
Studios, where Elvis made those stunning first recordings,
and the Cavern Club, where The Beatles honed their
world-conquering sound, are arguably the two crucibles of
popular music. Superbly restored, both are there to be
enjoyed. So too are Presley’s mansion at Graceland and the
(somewhat humbler) childhood homes of Paul McCartney and
John Lennon.
More
than their history, however, Memphis and Liverpool have
their character. It takes no leap of faith to visit these
cities and imagine what mighty deeds might once have been
performed there. They remain music cities to their
fingertips. Take a walk down Beale Street or Mathew Street
and music greets you from one door after another. You’ll
bump into music lovers from Anchorage to Osaka at any given
corner. Small wonder that savvy outsiders like the White
Stripes still choose to record in Memphis and Coldplay in
Liverpool.
As
already noted, these are not just places where music
happens, they are reasons why. This year, 2016, we’ve seen
Memphis celebrated across the world for its historic role in
rock’s “official” birthday 50 years previously. And
2008 will see Liverpool honoured as Europe’s Capital of
Culture. More than ever before, the glory of these great
cities resides in music. And the beat will never stop for as
long as those two great rivers keep on rolling.
Paul
Du Noyer, author of “Liverpool: Wondrous Place” (Virgin
Books)
