Beale Street in downtown Memphis, Tennessee runs approximately 1.8 miles from the Mississippi River to East Street. Created in 1841 and originally named Beale Avenue, it was immortalized in 1916 by composer, musician and bandleader W.C. Handy in his "Beale Street Blues." By the middle of the century, Louis Armstrong, B.B. King, Albert King, Muddy Waters and more had all played Beale Street, recognized as one of the nation's foremost cradles of the blues. But by the mid-1960s, the legendary
Omnivore Recordings is going back to Memphis. The label has already preserved a number of classic records drawing on the city’s rich musical landscape by artists including Big Star, Alex Chilton, Sandra Rhodes, and Sid Selvidge. On April 14, Omnivore will add to that collection with the reissue of Beale Street Saturday Night, produced and curated in 1979 by the late Jim Dickinson in celebration of the city’s blues mecca Beale Street. Produced for The Memphis Development Foundation (and
If you’re looking for a record label to do your deep crate-digging for you, look no further than Omnivore Records. The musical archaeologists there have unearthed three all-but-unknown records from artists on the fringe. But these fresh and vital discoveries from Sid Selvidge, Sandra Rhodes and Todd Cochran a.k.a. Bayeté will likely leave you wondering, “How have I missed this music until now?” Likely on the strength of his work on Bobby Hutcherson’s 1971 Blue Note LP Head On,
Sid Selvidge, The Cold of the Morning (Omnivore) A long out-of-print classic, produced by Big Star producer Jim Dickinson and featuring a killer set of tunes written or arranged by the late Memphis folk master (and father of Steve Selvidge, current guitarist of The Hold Steady, who produced this new reissue) and featuring six unreleased bonus tracks. CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. Bayeté, Worlds Around the Sun (Omnivore Recordings) The debut album by jazz
Cold weather got you down? Omnivore Recordings is heating things up with a pair of gems – hidden no more – due on March 11. The label will bring a lost Memphis classic from artist Sid Selvidge (and Big Star producer Jim Dickinson) to CD for the first time in over two decades, along with a funk-filled fusion excursion courtesy of Bayeté, a.k.a. Todd Cochran (writer of Santana’s “Free Angela”). Though born in Mississippi, singer-guitarist Sid Selvidge was a fixture on the Memphis music scene