What music came out of Memphis? A look at city's music history, from W.C. Handy to Yo Gotti

What music came out of Memphis?

Where do we begin?

In 1912, the sheet music for "The Memphis Blues" by W.C. Handy was published, enabling musicians everywhere to emulate the city's signature sound.

Other significant composers worked in gospel music. W. Herbert Brewster, longtime pastor of East Trigg Avenue Missionary Baptist Church, whose "Move on Up a Little Higher" was Mahalia Jackson's first hit, in 1948. Lucie Campbell's more than 100 songs include "Something Within," recognized as "the first gospel hymn published by an African American woman," according to the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.

In the 1920s, blues artists including Furry Lewis, Memphis Minnie, Jim Jackson and the Memphis Jug Band recorded such classics here as "Casey Jones," "Stealin' Stealin" and "Cocaine Habit Blues" — songs that would inspire and enrich such generations of underground and superstar (i.e., Led Zeppelin) musicians.

A band led by Manassas High School instructor Jimmie Lunceford cut its first record in 1930, and Lunceford become one of the most popular bandleaders of the swing music era.

Great jazz musicians emerged from the city's schools and clubs. Among the more significant and influential Memphis jazz artists were pianists Phineas Newborn, Harold Mabern, Donald Brown and Mulgrew Miller; trumpeter Booker Little; and saxophonists George Coleman, Hank Crawford, Charles Lloyd (still active at 86) and hitmaker Kirk Whalum, to name a very few.

Sam Phillips' Sun Records merged country and blues and kicked off the rock 'n' roll explosion, releasing records that arguably changed the world and certainly changed its music: "Mystery Train" by first Junior Parker and then Elvis Presley; "Rocket '88'" by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats; "Moanin' at Midnight" by Howlin' Wolf; "Blue Suede Shoes" by Carl Perkins; "Walk the Line" by Johnny Cash; "Flying Saucer Rock & Roll" by Billy Lee Riley; "Great Balls of Fire," by Jerry Lee Lewis; "Ooby Dooby" by Roy Orbison, and on and on.

Memphis studios and labels — Stax, Hi (with producer Willie Mitchell and Hi Rhythm providing an inimitably hypnotic swirl of sound), Goldwax, more — enjoyed great success in the 1960s and '70s with what came to be known as soul music: "Green Onions" by Booker T. & the MG's; "B-A-B-Y" by Carla Thomas; "Soul Man" by Sam & Dave; "(Sittin' on the) Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding; "Let's Stay Together" by Al Green; "The Dark End of the Street" by James Carr; "I Can't Stand the Rain" by Ann Peebles. In 1972, Isaac Hayes' "Theme from Shaft" won the Best Original Song Oscar.

Meanwhile, Chips Moman's American Sound Studio on Chelsea recorded hit records by Neil Diamond, Dusty Springfield, the Box Tops, Joe Tex and — in a triumphant return to this hometown — Elvis ("Kentucky Rain," "Suspicious Minds").

Memphis studios and artists who weren't associated with the city's most famous music space also had hits. "Woolly Bully" by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs was recorded at Sam Phillips' post-Sun studio, on Madison (which remains active). "Disco Duck," credited to Rick Dees & His Cast of Idiots, hit No. 1 on the pop charts in 1976. Three years later, schoolteacher Anita Ward topped the charts with "Ring My Bell."

Led by Alex Chilton and Chris Bell, power pop rockers Big Star didn't sell many copies of their back-to-back masterpieces of anxious majesty, "#1 Record" (1972) and "Radio City" (1973), but a half-century later, the albums continue to influence indie songwriters and rock-and-rollers. Notable venerators included the Replacements, who recorded their Jim Dickinson-produced 1987 "Pleased to Meet Me" album at Ardent Studios here; the record featured an anthemic tribute song, "Alex Chilton."

Also recorded at Ardent was the 1983 album that propelled veteran Texas rockers ZZ Top into the MTV-era stratosphere, "Eliminator," with its ubiquitous hits "Gimme All Your Lovin'," "Sharp Dressed Man" and "Legs."

With Dickinson and Chilton as collaborators, Tav Falco's Panther Burns innovated an "art-damaged" punk-roots-garage esthetic in the late 1970s that paved the way for scads of punk-indie fellow travelers in the decades since, including the Grifters and the Oblivians.

The dominant sound of Memphis for several decades has been hip-hop. Three 6 Mafia and Frasyer Boy brought another Oscar home when the song "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from Craig Brewer's made-in-Memphis "Hustle & Flow" won the Best Original Song honor in 2006. Also hugely successful is the duo known as 8Ball & MJG. Yo Gotti, Moneybagg Yo and the late Young Dolph became stars. In the art-underground scene, A Weirdo From Memphis is making noise.

Should we mention Justin Timberlake? He doesn't cut his records here, and he doesn't live here; but he was born here and raised in the Shelby Forest area, and he claims Memphis as, essentially, his hometown.

What music came out of Memphis?

Where do we stop?

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: What music came out of Memphis?