Like a kid playing records for his friends after school, Memphis director Craig Brewer is trying to turn people on to some of his favorite music artists with his current MTV-backed multimedia extravaganza, "$5 Cover."

"The initial hope was that the world could see them," Brewer says of the project, which tells the barely fictionalized stories of a diverse cross-section of local artists, including rapper Al Kapone and roots-rocker Amy LaVere.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

More Music Reviews

• Concert Review: Loaded R&B concert with Maze is amazing
• Concert Review: Lambert keeps party going in Tunica
• Concert Review: Maxwell melts the crowd at FedExForum

Share and Enjoy [?]

"I just loved all these artists, and I knew I wanted a lot more people to know who they are."

The multiplatform production debuted May 1 and includes weekly Web and broadcast episodes as well as a Web site, online documentaries and a soundtrack. The hope, Brewer says, is that audiences will like what they see and hear and want to learn more about the artists involved.

"It's going to be great that people in Tokyo can log on to '$5 Cover' and watch Harlan T. Bobo," he says. "But I'd even love it if kids in Cordova did it. I'd love it if there were kids in Collierville who went, 'Who are the River City Tanlines?' Because there are too many people that have watched my show -- Memphians -- who don't know half the cast."

Hoping to build on that expected curiosity, a number of acts, either by design or happenstance, have records coming out in the coming weeks and months. Imminent are albums from Snowglobe, Two Way Radio, and, making their major-label debut, Lucero. But the first batch of release from "$5 Cover" artists have already hit stores.

Of all the musicians-turned-actors in "$5 Cover," LaVere has enjoyed perhaps the most substantial "role." If she becomes the breakout star of the series, it will not be an overnight success. She has been knocking around the local music scene for the better part of a decade and had already received national attention for her two releases on Memphis' Archer Records before Brewer and his cameras came along.

To take advantage of her "$5 Cover" exposure, Archer last month released the EP Died Of Love (). It's just a teaser while LaVere completes the follow-up to 2007's Anchors & Anvils, but as filler goes, it packs a wallop. It's a typically eclectic affair with a couple of covers, a couple of new originals and a "reloaded" version of Anchors' "Washing Machine."

As usual, LaVere glides effortlessly between styles, giving Tom Waits' "Green Grass" an appropriate torch-song treatment and chugging vigorously through Michelle Shocked's "If Love Was A Train." Most satisfying, though, is the newly prominent role played by LaVere's touring band: longtime drummer (and "$5 Cover" co-star) Paul Taylor and especially guitar player Steve Selvidge, who even takes a lead vocal turn on the moody epic "Lazarus."

Jack Yarber, better known to Memphis music fans the world over as Jack Oblivian from his stint in beloved '90s garage-punk trio the Oblivans, doesn't have a very big part in "$5 Cover." It essentially boils down to a sweaty, all-too-brief Earnestine & Hazel's performance with his band the Tennessee Tearjerkers working through "Ain't Got No Money" off their 2005 album Don't Throw Your Love Away.

Nonetheless, Jack-O, as he now bills himself, has turned in the frontrunner for local record of the year, The Disco Outlaw (Goner Records, ).

Since forming the Tearjerkers in 2001, Jack-O has steadily retooled his sound for spins outside the garage. On the band's fourth full-length outing, he has tempered the punk excesses and, with a little help from guitarist extraordinaire John Paul Keith, raided the roots-rock storeroom for riffs and rhythms. At the same time, The Disco Outlaw shows Jack-O has become a stellar songwriter. Tracks like the rumbling "Against the Wall" and the evocative Mexican exotica "Blood Bank Blues" delight with catchy tunes and unexpected twists, and not once over the uniformly excellent 12 tracks does he repeat himself.

The blues-rock combo Hill Country Revue does not actually turn up in "$5 Cover" or on its soundtrack, but the group's debut disc, released this month on Razor & Tie, is bound to get a boost from group co-founder Cody Dickinson's appearance in the series in an episode that debuts tonight.

To mark that event, the Revue is playing a show tonight -- in a performance that is being billed as a CD release party -- opening up for Dickinson's other, better-known band, the North Mississippi Allstars, at Minglewood Hall. Also on the bill is the South Memphis String Band, the new side project from Cody Dickinson's brother and Allstars bandmate Luther.

The Revue actually started last year when Luther took a part-time gig playing with the Black Crowes, leaving Cody and bass player Chris Chew without a working band for the first time in a dozen years. The group quickly made a name as a live act, but their debut disc, Make A Move (), shows them threatening to overtake the Allstars.

To be sure, the Revue, which also features local guitar ace Kirk Smithhart, drummer Ed "Hot" Cleveland, and singer/harmonica player Daniel Coburn, trades in the same North Mississippi Hill Country boogie-rock that the Allstars have virtually made their own. But over these 10 tracks, the Revue focuses the sound in a more accessible, more commercial way than the Allstars ever did.

In his "$5 Cover" appearance, Cody Dickinson creates an entire track on the fly, coaxing sensuous vocals out of co-star Clare Grant. Unfortunately, that song did not make it to the official soundtrack ($5 Cover/MTV, ), along with a handful of other standout bits of music, including a stunningly tender ballad from the otherwise comical Muck Sticky.

Muck is represented with a couple of other cuts, however, as are all the other featured artists, again with the curious exceptions of Cody Dickinson and incidental music composers the City Champs. Otherwise it is a fine compulsory collection, a decent-enough souvenir of the show or, for the truly uninitiated, a modern Memphis music sampler.