Memphis Music Hall of Fame: The biggest moments from this year's induction ceremony
Multiple singers, composers, instrumentalists and others were inducted Thursday into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame, but the name most often singled out for praise or invoked with awe during the evening ceremony was not that of a performer but that of the city itself — Memphis, which inductee Kirk Whalum, the gospel-jazz saxophonist, referred to as "the epicenter, the mecca" of popular music.
"When Memphis music found its way to the UK, I was in my early teens," said the British multi-platinum rocker Peter Frampton, who then cited a classic Stax album by Otis Redding: "The first time I heard 'Otis Blue,' everything changed for me."
John Sebastian, himself an inductee in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as leader of the hit-making band The Lovin' Spoonful, echoed that sentiment — and even that verb — as he praised Memphis. "At about 17, I started hearing some of this music, and it changed me," he said.
Seven inductees plus Frampton — the first recipient of the new "Legacy Award," intended to honor non-local musicians who embody and perpetuate the spirit of Memphis music — were honored during the roughly two-and-a-half-hour ceremony at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts.
With Soulsville Foundation executive director and president Pat Mitchell Worley acting as an intermittent master of ceremonies, the event mixed history lessons and acceptance speeches with live performances, backed by the Kurt Clayton house band. To celebrate some inductees, producer Joe Mulherin assembled all-star tribute combos, as when zydeco-soul queen Marcella Simien, guitar ace Steve Selvidge and 79-year-old blues legend Charlie Musselwhite laid claim to a medley of songs by inductee Don Nix.
Concluding with a performance by Whalum and beginning with the induction of the Spirit of Memphis Quartet, the evening was bookended by gospel; but in between was just about every type of Memphis music, representing literally a century of recording.
The seven inductees were:
The Spirit of Memphis Quartet, a still-active ensemble with a 90-year-history.
Cannon's Jug Stompers, an influential "jug band" featuring banjos, kazoos, washboards, fiddles and so on, that began making records in the late 1920s.
Deanie Parker, the Stax singer/songwriter/publicist who was instrumental in establishing the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and spurring the revitalization of the "Soulsville" neighborhood.
Musical polymath Don Nix, a Memphis Zelig who contributed to everything from the birth of Stax (as a member of the Mar-Keys) to George Harrison's "Concert for Bangladesh."
The late Jimi Jamison, vocalist for such rock bands as Target, Cobra and Survivor.
Hip-hop/neo-soul producer Carlos Broady, a studio wizard who has created hits for Lil' Kim, India.Arie and the Notorious B.I.G.
Kirk Whalum, a star in so-called "smooth jazz" whose saxo solo can be heard on Whitney Houston's megahit "I Will Always Love You." (As Kirk's nephew, trombonist Kameron Whalum, said when he inducted his uncle: "If you can't beat 'em, Whalum.")
Overall, close to 100 inductees have been chosen by the nominating committee of the Smithsonian-branded Memphis Rock 'n' Soul Museum (191 Beale, at FedExForum), which showcases Hall of Fame members in it exhibits.
Here are four highlights from Thursday's ceremony:
Don Nix a hit
Inducted by a now bald and bespectacled Peter Frampton, immediately after the 73-year-old rock hero (whose 1976 "Frampton Comes Alive!" album has sold 20 million copies) received the Hall of Fame "Legacy Award," 82-year-old producer/composer/performer Don Nix — relatively obscure to the general public but cherished by aficionados and his colleagues — demonstrated why everyone from Leon Russell to Furry Lewis to Eric Clapton wanted him around: He's funny.
Performing a sort of laconic, laid-back, seemingly impromptu standup routine from his wheelchair, Nix quipped: "I gave up a pickleball tournament for this?" Receiving his award, he commented: "Last time I got inducted into anything I ended up in boot camp in South Carolina." In a characteristically non sequitur moment, he identified one of his friends in the audience, the great Memphis guitarist Bobby Manuel, as "Roberto Manuel, former centerfielder for the Cleveland Indians." When the crowd applauded, Nix cut the clapping short: "The best he ever hit was .215."
Praising the Lord
The music program began on an inspirational note when lead vocalist Melvin Mosley and the current incarnation of the Spirit of Memphis Quartet performed an a cappella rendition of "On the Battlefield," a paean to spiritual dedication the group originally recorded for King Records in Cincinnati: "I'm on the battlefield/ I'm working for my Jesus/ I promised him that I/ Would serve him 'til I die..."
Best (?) dressed
Many of the inductees and presenters eschewed the flash and glam that typify the idea of "music star" in the popular imagination. But Bluff City Records hip-hop artist Maud Mulan, who joined singer Stephanie Bolton and rapper Frayser Boy (Oscar-winning co-writer of "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp") for a musical tribute to Carlos Broady, was essentially ablaze: She wore a bright red tight short dress, with diaphanous peignoir, hair and big-framed glasses to match.
THE CLASS OF 2022: Memphis Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony full of music, memories and Memphis love
Her only match was guitarist/vocalist Jim Peterik, who, although he hails from the Svengoolie-taunted town of Berwyn, Illinois, was outfitted in tight leather pants, a striped tigerish coat (appropriate, for a performance of "Eye of the Tiger") and sculpted hairdo, with a guitar decorated with a Union Jack pattern; think Austin Powers, undercover in a hair metal band. A founder of Survivor and co-writer of "Eye of the Tiger," Peterik was joined by the less flamboyant but definitely Sunset Strip-ready Jeff Adams of Starship for a musical tribute to Jimi Jamison that dug deep into the subgenres of "Karate Kid" power ballads and "Rocky"-sequel rock.
John Sebastian a one-man band
John Sebastian, 79, whose hits include the "Welcome Back Kotter" theme song and the Lovin' Spoonful favorite "Do You Believe in Magic," demonstrated his and his musical generation's indebtedness to Memphis folk-blues in general and Gus Cannon and Cannon's Jug Stompers in particular by interspersing his own songs (such as the Spoonful's "Younger Girl") with verses from various Cannon classics (the famous "Walk Right In").
Standing center stage with an electric guitar, Sebastian — who inducted the Jug Stompers into the hall — praised Cannon as "a great man" who led "a great band." Even as a teenager, he said, "I was aware that in this bouncy, funny music there was great sadness, just underneath."
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis Music Hall of Fame: Highlights from 2023 induction ceremony
