Bob Mehr

Alex Botwin is a familiar figure to Memphis music audiences.

Seattle group The WIRED Band! and Arkansas-based singer-songwriter Ray Bonneville were the big winners in the Blues Challenge. The five-day blues competition and event culminated Saturday night with finals at Downtown's Orpheum, capping a week of shows in and around ...

Only one other group of "backing musicians," Motown's Funk Brothers, has ever been recognized with the honor.

Thundering skies did not dampen the spirits of 2,000 performers and patrons who crowded Downtown for the International Blues Challenge.

"For music fans, finding something new is always the holy grail," says Blues Foundation president Jay Sieleman. Over the next week, blues aficionados will have plenty of chances for discovery as Beale Street and its neighboring Downtown environs will be ...

Even six decades into his career, the peculiar thrill of writing a song has not diminished for Loudon Wainwright III. “It’s still the most mysterious and exciting aspect of the job,” Wainwright says. “The moment when you actually get one. ...

Memphis turned out to be a kind of crossroads for Billy Joe Shaver.

Chris Knight is the sort of fella who lets his songs do the talking. A native of Slaughters, Ky., Knight has long been one of roots music's unheralded stars. A solo artist and songwriter -- he's had his tunes recorded ...

Alt-rock superstars the Red Hot Chili Peppers have been forced to reschedule their upcoming tour due to an injury suffered by front man Anthony Kiedis.

The UK group The Staves -- singing siblings Emily, Camilla and Jessica Staveley-Taylor -- did a lot with very little. With just a self-released EP to their names, the Staves managed to become one of most buzzed-about bands in Britain: ...

The past 12 months provided an interesting and more than symbolic glimpse into the current state of music and the music business. In looking back at the best releases of the year, no set pattern revealed itself. Instead, the entries ...

The Memphis Horns, who have worked with everyone from Elvis to U2, will be honored on Feb. 11 at the Grammy Special Merit Awards ceremonies in Los Angeles.

The days leading up to Christmas are a hectic time for families, shoppers, travelers and revelers. For Mid-South music fans, it will be a week filled with plenty of worthwhile concerts as well.

A mix of familiar names and up-and-comers are among the nominees for the 33rd annual Blues Music Awards. Nominations for the awards -- presented by the Memphis-based Blues Foundation -- were announced today. The ceremony will be held on May ...

It's only the most hard-hearted and churlish who would deny Bob Seger. And yet, despite his massive popular success over the years, the iconic Michigan rocker has often been overlooked by critics and the music industry at large. On Saturday ...

Ten years ago this week, Memphis lost one of its musical, cultural and civic icons: Rufus Thomas. To mark the 10th anniversary of his death, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music will host a special remembrance from 6 to ...

The family of Stax musician and late Memphis soul singer J. Blackfoot have announced his memorial services.

Music may be food for the soul, but when it comes to Memphis, singer Patti LaBelle isn't thinking metaphorically. "My times in Memphis have always been memorable," says LaBelle, "and one thing about the city is that it has some ...

Tommy Stinson is coming back to the Mid-South in a big way. Stinson, a revered rock and roll cult figure who helped co-found Minneapolis alt-rock legends the Replacements at the tender age of 12, has made Memphis a kind of ...

Memphis soul singer J. Blackfoot, a member of Stax vocal group the Soul Children and a longtime solo artist, died Wednesday at Methodist Germantown Hospital.

Although he's written his fair share of songs about rebels, rogues and miscreants, Jason Isbell doesn't consider himself one of them. "I don't think being a musician necessarily means you have to be a jackass," Isbell says with a laugh.

Tour guide, folk artist and cultural impresario Tad Pierson is a Memphis original.

Tav Falco -- a musician, filmmaker and now author -- will perform at the Hi-Tone Café, with his band, Panther Burns. The Arkansas native and longtime local resident, now based in Vienna, Austria, is best known for leading the long-running ...

The Jayhawks' Gary Louris knows that the best bands aren't always the easiest propositions. "It's like that with us as well. It's definitely an interesting group of people who are all very different," says Louris. Having recently reunited the classic ...

Paul Simon's Saturday night concert, which marked the final event of the Mud Island Amphitheatre season, came under less than ideal circumstances: a sudden cold snap plunging temperatures into the low 40s at show time. Despite the challenging conditions, Simon ...

These days, life for Grammy-nominated songstress Ledisi is pretty good. "I'm very happy with myself now, so that feels wonderful," she says. "I'm not competing with anybody else; I'm in my own lane and I'm being me." Ledisi undertakes her ...

Say what you will about him, but Chris Brown knows his audience. On Wednesday night, during the opening moments of the R&B superstar's concert at FedExForum in Memphis, he asked the near capacity crowd how many ladies were present. Seemingly, ...

Art is everywhere in Memphis this week: on the streets of Downtown, in the city's schools, and on the minds of the more than 100,000 people who are expected to attend the annual RiverArtsFest on South Main.

Singer Aretha Franklin’s upcoming show at Harrah’s Tunica has been canceled. On Tuesday, Harrah’s officials announced the concert by the Memphis-born “Queen of Soul,” which had been scheduled for Nov. 12, would be rescheduled for a later date.

Singer Aretha Franklin’s upcoming show at Harrah’s Tunica has been postponed. The concert by the Memphis-born “Queen of Soul,” which had been scheduled for Nov. 12.

The Stax Museum of American Soul music is making a push to raise funds with its “Get Soul’d” membership drive. The campaign, which runs through the end of October, is designed to reach out to local and national patrons. Membership ...

Most rock and roll bands don't have happy endings. No matter how much success they achieve along the way, few groups ever make things work for the long haul.

Singer-songwriter Peter Yarrow knows a thing or two about the struggle for justice. In the early 1960s, he marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Alabama and Washington; later, he stood singing amid the spray of tear gas at ...

A scheduled performance by New Orleans musician Cyril Neville at the Levitt Shell on Saturday has been canceled due to a family emergency, the Shell announced today.

Hard rock titans Guns N’ Roses are coming to the Mid-South. Later this week, details will be formally announced for a concert date at the DeSoto Civic Center.

Aaron Neville is best known for his featherlight falsetto, his catalog of pop hits and his work with his brothers, as part of New Orleans' "first family of funk," but don't try to pin him down creatively.

The Memphis and Shelby County Music Commission on Tuesday will offer a free public symposium on music production called "Masters of the Game." The event, which takes place at Harris Concert Hall on the University of Memphis campus, will feature ...

Tickets for a Memphis concert by iconic singer-songwriter Paul Simon go on sale this Friday.

For Eric Friedl, the last week in September is the payoff to a whole lot of planning and effort. As the co-owner of the Goner Records label and retail store, Friedl spends much of the other 51 weeks a year ...

Two years have passed since the death of Memphis musician and producer Jim Dickinson at age 67, but the world has not forgotten him. This weekend, Dickinson's rambunctious spirit lives on in a series of special events being held in ...

Los Angeles-based roots rock band Dawes has a rather unusual audience for a fast-rising, young band. It's a crowd that tends to skew slightly older, filled with more bearded musos than young nubiles. But all that is just fine with ...

Bluegrass/jazz banjoist Béla Fleck will be the "surprise" guest during the opening night of the Levitt Shell's free fall concert series this evening. Shell officials have confirmed that the Grammy award winning Fleck will be performing as part of the ...

Iconic singer-songwriter Paul Simon is coming to Memphis.

Singer-songwriter Robert Earl Keen likes to joke that “no cymbals were harmed” in the making of his latest record, Ready for Confetti. A musically light, rhythmically bouncy record, Keen’s 15th album is another twist in the always-intriguing catalog of the ...

Jack Yarber has a problem. The Memphis garage-roots cult hero -- better known as Jack Oblivian -- is an artist burdened by an unusually high level of expectation. Take, for example, Yarber's new record, Rat City. Set to be released ...

A new exhibit celebrating the life and legacy of soul music legend Otis Redding opens at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music on Thursday. “I’ve Got Dreams To Remember: An Exhibit from the Private Collection of Zelma Redding” will ...

On a late July night under the white hot glare of Times Square lights in New York City's tourist district, a crowd has gathered to hear a group of Memphis teens singing a medley of soul songs.

Since the Stax Music Academy refocused its program toward high school students in 2008-09, 42 students have graduated. All have been accepted to college, with 18 having received scholarships and many going on to study music and the music business.

From the window of his second story office on East McLemore in South Memphis, Soulsville Foundation president and CEO Kirk Whalum can see the past, present and future.

In the last few years Jake Vest has turned up onstage in various guises: as a member of prog-pop band Augustine, roots-rock combo Bulletproof Vests, and backing a slew of local artists from Jake Rabinbach to Jack Oblivian. But more ...