Memphis Rent Party: The Blues, Rock & Soul in Music's Hometown

by Robert Gordon

Profiles and stories of Southern music from the acclaimed author of Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion.

The fabled city of Memphis has been essential to American music—home of the blues, birthplace of rock and roll, and a soul music capital. When Robert Gordon started covering Memphis music, the golden ages of his hometown had passed. But the links were there if you looked for them. Starting as a teenager, Gordon sought out old legends Furry Lewis and Mose Vinson, spent time at Jr. Kimbrough’s house parties, went into the grooves of records by Leadbelly and Robert Johnson, and picked up the threads in the new sounds that were developing around him, becoming the official chronicler of the Memphis scene.

Memphis Rent Party compiles the best of these short pieces from the first three decades of Gordon’s career, many previously unpublished. The focus is on Memphis, but, like mint seeping into bourbon, Gordon gets into the wider world. In addition to homegrown renegades Alex Chilton (Box Tops, Big Star) and producer Jim Dickinson (Replacements, Rolling Stones), he spends time with those whom Memphis has inspired, like Cat Power, Jeff Buckley and Townes Van Zandt. A rent party is when friends come together to hear music, dance, and help a pal through hard times. With this stellar collection, Gordon—a deep listener, passionate cultural commentator, and unparelleled scribe of Southern sound—throws a rent party that will keep readers reading, music lovers listening, and culture hounds howling for more.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History, Essays

288 pages, Hardcover

First published March 6, 2018

About the author

Robert Gordon (b. 1961) is an American writer and filmmaker from Memphis, Tennessee. His work has focused on the American south—its music, art, and politics—to create an insider's portrait of his home, both nuanced and ribald.

Reviews

[Laura Larson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of interesting anecdotes, secrets, and previously unpublished interviews. This is an interesting read for people already interested in and knowledgeable about the Memphis music scene of decades past. Most of the stories center around the 80s. Even when interviews are more current, the subject matter is predominantly older. That said, this is not a good primer for learning about three subject. If you don't know who these people are already, there is little included to clear that up.

[John Lester · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily one of the best books on Memphis music I've read. This is about Memphis music people who in the 70's and 80's that I listened to, was told stories about and saw in the venues or walking down the street.
Memphis music is still here and isn't near dead. We're all just trying to catch up.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

The thing about reading Robert Gordon, is the music. Music by people one may never heard. An enticement that sends you to used record stores or the internet to buy all what he writes about.

If you’ve not read his, It Came From Memphis, I highly recommend that too.

[Mike DeCapite · Rating 5 out of 5]

Transcendent. Not just great music writing but great writing, period.

[John Spiller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I approached "Memphis Rent Party" with the same wariness as listening to a career-spanning compilation of outtakes by an esteemed, but not necessarily favorite, musician. Hope for the best, but expect the worst. It turns out "Memphis Rent Party" is pretty damn great. Even though the pieces are widely varied -- CD liner notes, unpublished articles, expanded interviews -- they actually hold together fairly well due to the unifying theme of Gordon's ass-backwards pride in Memphis (and to a certain extent, Northern Mississippi).

Gordon strikes the right balance between the reverence of a fan and the insight of a connoisseur. Even with a figure as widely covered such as Jerry Lee Lewis, you still come away with some great insights. (As a special bonus, Gordon shares some of the original lyrics to "It'll be Be" -- hilarious.) In the Afterword, as if he was telepathic, Gordon addressed some thoughts that ran through my head, such as "Man, I wish I had followed my passion for music and weirdos and created something great like Robert Gordon." As he puts it, there still plenty of fire ants and shards of glass in the greener grass. Meeting heroes and experiencing history are great, but so are a steady paycheck and health insurance that come with a job chained to a desk. Man, I really need to go back and re-read "It Came From Memphis".

[Richard Sanford · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of shorts, some unpublished or here in their originally-intended form, is an essential document from one of our finest writers about Memphis (which is to say American) music. As Gordon writes in the afterword, "We toil in our lonesome worlds, the darkness all around, but the past illuminates our future, warms our present. These joyous candles elevate us."

[Nate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent excellent book. I've rarely read such a cohesive and emotionally powerful collection of an author's short pieces. Gordon makes the case for (greater) Memphis' musical eccentrics, noted visitors and all those ignored or used and tossed aside by the music biz. It's an apologia for music writing, for music loving, for saving and sharing the tunes one loves.

[Csimplot Simplot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book!!!

[Jeff Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a cracker, gold nuggets scattered throughout, the musical heart and soul of mighty Memphis.. love Gordon's style and subject matter

[Robert A. Kalanja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book- Memphis music- yes!

[Streator Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent series of essays about the music of Memphis. I have recently visited the place and this book felt like a guide book for the town. Loved it!

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I don’t know how this got into my list, and I don’t really listen to the blues. But I am intrigued by Memphis as a phenomenon. I also didn’t have any idea who Robert Gordon was before reading. So it’s a little weird to hear how he frames himself as a middle class, suburban white kid peeping in on Memphis blues culture, which is predominantly Black — and in many of his stories laced with family, drama, crime, mental illness, and poverty. It’s not that he judges, necessarily, but because we know he is observing as an outsider, some of the profiles feel slightly exploitative. But I will give him credit for acknowledging that, and eventually in a couple of forewords and afterwords to various pieces, acknowledging the weirdness of his presence on the scene.

All that said: it’s an amazing collection of profiles. I had no idea about most of the people he talked about, and even the ones I knew, I didn’t realize their connection to Memphis in most cases. His afterword starts out bitter, for good reasons. And even though he says that he feels this phrase means “I wouldn’t do what you do“: I admire all of the artists he profiled. It’s not an easy life, and to do it anyway means a lot. I’m more likely to visit Memphis now than I ever have been.

[Liam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually, 3½ stars; a perfectly decent sequel, addition and/or update to Gordon's extraordinary 'It Came From Memphis' (first published 1995), which I would highly recommend reading before you read this current book (you might want to pick up the original companion CD to that book as well). A new revised trade paperback edition (It Came From Memphis) was recently published by "Third Man Books", which I presume is the book division of Jack White's Third Man enterprise; I don't actually know for sure because neither my wife nor myself has spoken to Jack in well over a decade. If so, good for him. That book should never have been allowed to go out of print, and while there are enormous differences (both stylistic & historical) between Detroit music and Memphis music, most of the musicians I know enjoy both and think they complement each other beautifully...

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Memphis, a city of pharaohs, barbecue, and musical mixology. It's a city of Kings and where King's go to die. Robert Gordon has been writing about music for in the late 1970's while still at uni. This book is a collection of published, unpublished and author's edits of articles he has written over the years (adding back in important details cut by magazine editors). While he covers a wide range of musical styles in the articles, there is one unifying thread: all artists are either from, or have called Memphis home. There are fantastic insights into: LeadBelly, Jim Dickinson, James Carr, Charlie Feathers, Bobby Blue Bland, Alex Chilton Cat Power, Jerry Lee Lewis and more. While not exhaustive, this is a good primer for learning more about the Memphis Music scene along with his book from last year: Respect Yourself, the Stax Music story. Good fun and a quick read

[Nick Spacek · Rating 4 out of 5]

profiles of blues musicians, rock 'n' rollers, and associated persons of interest in memphis. they're all fascinating in one way or another, and the way gordon sets the scene for each of these pieces is nothing short of wonderful. he's a master storyteller, and it's given further proof by the before-and-afterwords he's added to these vintage pieces, wherein he sometimes admits he didn't get it quite right.

even when he's wrong, he's pretty solid, though. there's even a selection of recommended further reads and listens in the back, with reasons behind each, and this book has the potential to create enough blowback to occupy a solid month or two with ancillary material. there's definitely worse ways to spend four weeks, though.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up for the chapter on Memphis' legendary Fabulous Fieldstones, who I had the pleasure of sitting in with in the early 90s, and ended up loving the entire book. Great work as always by a master of soulful music.

[Ted · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit spotty but interesting

[Brian Pannell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love my hometown Ain all its' weirdness!

[Christopher Klug]

Quite a variety of articles, in subject, length, and style. I'd like to hear music by all of them!