Mere days after the death of Alex Chilton, a panel scheduled at Austin’s South By Southwest festival on the legacy of Big Star was repurposed as a tribute to the life and times of Chilton. Entitled “I Never Travel Far Without A Little Big Star,” it included panelists from founding members of Big Star Jody Stephens and Andy Hummel, power pop legends Chris Stamey and Tommy Keene, additional current Big Star members Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow, to Ardent Studios owner and founder John Fry. Bob Mehr moderated the panel.

For the first time since then, video of the panel is available on youtube. Check it out in its entirety below!

Please join us at the Stax Museum on Friday, July 16th from 5 – 7 PM for the opening reception for “ELVIS! From Memphis to Manhattan – From the CBS Photo Archive.“

This collection of large-format photographs, never before shown in Memphis, depict Elvis young, sexy, feisty, and getting very famous. They were taken in and around his Ed Sullivan Show appearances.

$12 General Admission, FREE to Stax Museum Members. Visit www.staxmuseum.com for more information.

Stax Music Academy summer music experience grand finale concert!

“A Journey of the Soul”

Guests artist: Wayne Jackson of the Memphis Horns

Special Tribute to the Memphis Horns’ Andrew Love featuring Stax Music Academy Students & Kirk Whalum

Friday, June 25, 2010 7:00 PM

Victory University’s Auditorium: 255 North Highland, Memphis, TN 38111

Tickets are $10, general seating. Available at the Stax Museum or by calling (901) 946-2535, Ext. 338

Visit www.soulsvilleUSA.com for more information!

Larry Nix, mastering engineer and proprietor (with his son Kevin Nix) of L. Nix Mastering, Inc, was recently featured for an article in Memphis Daily News highlighting his newly refurbished record lathe. From the article:

Producing vinyl records – those albums that most people 40 and older grew up with – has rapidly become a lost art as technology has sent that format the way of the 8-track tape.

But a few local music engineers are turning back the clock by refurbishing a Neumann VMS 70 lathe – a machine that is used to cut vinyl discs – that Stax founder Jim Stewart began using in 1970.

Mastering engineer Larry Nix, owner of L. Nix Mastering Inc., and Jeff Powell and John Fry of Ardent Studios are using the lathe that was used to master vinyl recordings of many classic Stax recordings.

“We literally spent days in here replacing parts and electronics,” Nix said of refurbishing the antique equipment, which sells for about $49,000. “But now it’s in like-new condition.”

The lathe had fallen out of use because of economic pressures in the changing music industry. With the industry having long ago turned to compact discs as the preferred recording, and with people now downloading music, the market for music played on a turntable has diminished.

But vinyl has been making a comeback recently. Sales of compact discs have been slumping as MP3, Windows Media files and Apple have been claiming market share.

So while CD sales have been declining over the past decade, LP sales have been up. Many current artists are releasing their discs on vinyl and a lot of older albums are being re-pressed and re-released on vinyl – or pressed for the first time.

Soundscan, a music sales tracking service, reported a 33 percent increase in sales of vinyl LPs from 2008 to 2009, with sales soaring from 1.8 million to 2.5 million.

“I would love to see everything be more purist,” Ardent engineer Powell said.

Mastering audio for vinyl is a mechanical process, and it’s exactly the kind of process that digital media was supposed to price out of the market.

And the competitive pressure posed by digital recording and mastering were only part of the problem; distribution costs also effectively disappeared in a networked world. The lathe seemed doomed.

“I pretty much shut it down,” said Nix, who was the mastering engineer at Stax from 1970 to 1975 and has worked with prominent musicians like ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Al Green and Parliament.

Nix, who with his son, Kevin, has helped define the Memphis rap aesthetic, now maintains a separate studio within Ardent. He specializes in preparing mixed audio for its final format, be that radio, CD, television or vinyl disc.

With the lathe virtually obsolete, he made arrangements for the historic piece to go to a museum.

Powell asked him to demonstrate how it worked before it got away. When arrangements with the museum fell through, one client – Super 400 from Troy, N.Y. – lobbied hard to start using the lathe again.

“They were really, really persistent,” Nix said.

It is a daunting mechanical challenge to cut tiny grooves into hard plastic, and the margin for error is minimal given the high cost relative to digital mastering.

“If one thing goes wrong, you start over,” Powell said. “Making two or three cuts can ruin your profit margin.”

The process is also done in real time, which means the engineer must seamlessly cut not only all of the songs to disc, but the lead-in, the spaces between the songs and the loop at the end.

The groove is microscopic and must be precise, so there was a refurbishing challenge. Nix is mastering about one project per week, usually in combination with a separate digital master.

While most of the work once came from labels, Nix gets most of his business from independent producers.

The City Champs are a Memphis soul powerhouse and are gaining critical praise. Their album “Safecracker” was recorded without digital technology.

Engineer Scott Bomar, owner of Electraphonic Recording, tracked the album on a Stax-era tape machine and mastered the discs straight to vinyl.

“Watching Larry Nix master vinyl is something really special to behold,” Bomar said.

Powell sees the market for better audio and is glad to have had the opportunity to work with Nix.

“It’s a blast,” he said. “He’s (Nix) the master.”

Original article by Joe Boon in The Memphis Daily News.

Those who missed Big Star‘s historic performance at the Levitt Shell on May 15th of this year need not fret, as the show will be broadcast on Sirius/XM as a part of their summer kickoff programming over Memorial Day weekend. The show was mixed by Jeff Powell and John Fry here at Ardent this week, with Adam Hill assisting. Larry Nix mastered the show, which will be broadcast on THE LOFT (SIRIUS channel 29 and XM channel 50) at the following times:

5/29/10, 6:00 PM (Eastern)

5/30/10, 7:00 PM (Easterm)

5/31/10, 6:00 PM (Eastern)

You can check out a full lineup of what the weekend holds in store on XM & Sirius here.

Ken Stringfellow’s blog about the show.

Bob Mehr’s article on the show in The Commercial Appeal.

Rolling Stone’s recap of the Big Star tribute show.

Read Van Duren’s account of his experience with the show weekend.

Photo by Greg Allen, taken 5/15/10 at the Levitt Shell in Memphis, TN. From L: Jon Auer, Van Duren, Ken Stringfellow, Mike Mills, Jody Stephens, Susan Marshall, Amy Speace, Adam Hill, Jimmy Stephens, Sondre Lerche, John Davis, and Brendan Benson.

The Big Star Box Set, Keep an Eye on the Sky, is available through Amazon.com.

The Deluxe Edition of Chris Bell’s I Am the Cosmos is available through Rhino Handmade’s site.

O My Soul: Big Star Tribute at the Levitt Shell

By Van Duren

Big Star drummer Jody Stephens called me in late April and asked if I would come and do a song with Big Star at the May 15th show at the Levitt/Overton Park Bandshell. Of course, there was no hesitation when I accepted his invitation. The show was originally scheduled as a Big Star homecoming of sorts, the first time the band had headlined in Memphis in years. Then Alex Chilton died suddenly on St. Patrick’s Day, and the show morphed into a tribute to Big Star’s music.

Jody asked me to do “Mod Lang”, from the RADIO CITY record, which was written by Alex and the great Memphis drummer, Richard Rosebrough (who also played on the original recording for the album). I happen to know that one, so it was cool. Turns out that “Mod Lang” had never been performed by the current line up since their forming in 1993. This made it even more interesting.

Friday night the 14th, there was a rehearsal at Dean Deyo’s house in East Memphis–thank you, Dean , for your gracious hospitality–and I was late in arriving because I had my regular Friday solo gig until 9 PM. I made it, though, and there is where the fun started. I met Big Star/Posies members Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow, who had just arrived in Memphis early that evening from a Posies show in Norway. We ran through the song twice. It was great.

But along the way that evening at the first rehearsal, I met Amy Speace and Brendan Benson, who were also invited to perform. I had missed Brendan’s run through, but we had a nice chat about parenthood (he’s a new father) while Big Star and Amy went through some material and worked out some harmonies.

The dress rehearsal was on Saturday at 12:30 at Ardent’s Studio A. There I met John Davis of the band Superdrag, who would end up blowing me away with his versions of 3 Big Star faves. Mike Mills was there. Brendan, his wife Brittany and their 3 week old son, Declan were taking it all in, and Amy, Susan Marshall, and my buddy Rick Steff were floating in and out of songs, too.

As promised, I brought along with me my 17 year old son, Ian, who is a huge Big Star fan but an even BIGGER Brendan Benson fan. Put that together with being in Ardent, where ALL of this incredible music was recorded–Ian was just over the moon, but cool…The first person we encountered upon entering the building was studio owner and sonic mastermind behind the 1st 2 Big Star records, John Fry. Of course, Ian, being a Duren, was wearing a SUN STUDIO t-shirt. John said hello to us, taking a long glance at that t-shirt, and then led us to the rehearsal room.

The renovated 1930′s Overton Park Bandshell is about 4 or 5 blocks from Ardent. The sound is state of the art, with top-notch engineer Dawn Hopkins at the helm. All in all, a beautiful venue.

The show was magical. I have never seen Jody play with such ferocity, soaked with sweat from the high Memphis humidity. John Davis absolutely killed “In the Street”, Don’t Lie to Me”, and “When My Baby’s Beside Me”. Soon enough, my turn came, and I walked out to a big crowd, and a handshake from Ken. We rocked hard with smiles all around. It was one of the most comfortable, inspiring moments of my career. And after 3 minutes, we were done. As I walked back to the stage door with my guitar, a female voice in the crowd shouted, “We love you, Van!” That really touched my heart. I just blew the audience a kiss and then I was backstage.

All of the guest stars were amazing. It began to rain, lightly. They played on. Rain got a bit heavier, and Ken said to the crowd, “You don’t want us to cut any songs, do ya?” The crowd screamed. “NO!” Big Star never stopped. Norwegian pop artist Sondre Lerche came out and did a solo version of “I’m In Love with a Girl”, and suddenly there was Brendan Benson standing beside him, holding an umbrella over him. Beautiful. Perfect.

The show closed with Brendan singing brilliantly loose versions of “O My Soul” and “September Gurls”. The encore had Ken and Jon doing “Take Care”, and then a loose jam on Alex’s “A Whole New Thing” with everyone onstage playing, singing and dancing. A light mist fell, and the show was over.

The crew from the Big Star documentary-in-progress, “Nothing Can Hurt Me”, was there throughout the dress rehearsal and show–great people who love this music. The show was also recorded, and there is talk of it being broadcast at some point on XM radio.

The most emotional moment for me, though, was an unexpected one. Before the show, all of a sudden I ran into David Bell, Chris’s older brother, and we embraced. I hadn’t seen him for many years–he lives 4 hours away from Memphis. Seeing David brought back to mind what I had been thinking on and off all day: Alex would have hated this, but Chris would have LOVED it. Jon and Ken used Chris’s old Gibson J-45 acoustic during the show, and Jon played Chris’s Gibson ES-330 while he sang Chris’s “I Am the Cosmos”. Chris was there, to me.

Ian and I hung out backstage for a little while, where the mood was so joyous. I asked Jody how he felt. “RELIEVED!” was his instant response. At one point, I thought I’d go see if the crowd was gone. As I walked out onto the stage, a guy called out to me from the front of the stage, holding a copy of “Are You Serious?” and asking me to sign it. I was amazed at that. I signed it and thanked him

Ian and I said our goodbyes and headed for the truck. As we approached our parking space, a lady rolled down her window and shouted, “AWESOME SHOW!” She asked if she could take a picture, and then got out and started searching for her camera. As she found it, I glanced at her license plate–New Jersey. I asked her if she and her two friends had come all the way from New Jersey to see the show. She said, “We had to. As soon as we heard about it we bought tickets.” Again, amazing. So her friend took a pic of me and her, and I wished them safe travels.

Big Star rose to the occasion as only they could have. A number of songs were performed with just the 3 of them, and I just couldn’t get over what a great band they really are. Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow covered a lot of ground, with perfect harmonies and background vocals and monster musicianship. They were as gracious, light-hearted, and hilarious as they could be, even in the rain.

I’ve known Jody Stephens since 1969. To me, he has always been one of the premier drummers in all of the rock canon. But his talent is so much more than that. I have always felt blessed with his friendship. He is just one of the good guys.

After we got home, Ian and I laughed and talked about our experience. I know he will never forget it. And you know, not many dads can say they have a teenage son who loves Big Star.

Around midnight, Ian went to bed. And then the bottom fell out of the sky and it rained hard, almost like it had held back when we needed it to but couldn’t hold back any longer. The last thing I remember thinking as I drifted off to sleep was: I am one lucky guy.

Photo by Lisa McGaughran. L to R: Jon Auer, Van Duren, Ken Stringfellow. Hiding behind Ken is Jody Stephens on the drums.

The Big Star Box Set, Keep an Eye on the Sky, is available through Amazon.com.

The Deluxe Edition of Chris Bell’s I Am the Cosmos is available through Rhino Handmade’s site.

Join us for food, drinks and fantastic blues at The Beale Street Caravan 2010 Blowout! This year’s fundraiser will be right here at Ardent Studios, June 3, 2010 at 5:30 PM. We’ll party in the hallowed halls where music greats like White Stripes, ZZ Top, and B.B. King have recorded. 

Grab a drink from the open bar and enjoy the gritty, juke-joint Blues of Mississippi’s own “Homemade Jamz.” This group of young talent has appeared on The Today Show and the CBS Sunday Morning show and have been named “The Youngest Blues Band in America” & “Youngest Blues Music Award Nominees.” 

Learn more here: www.hmjamzbluesband.com

Snag your own piece of music history, fine art or a weekend getaway at the silent auction. The proceeds from this auction benefit Beale Street Caravan programming and help us keep the show free of charge to our stations that carry the program promoting Memphis music around the world. 

Tickets are $75 per person. Get them today and help spread the word!

BUY ONLINE: http://bealestreetcaravanblowout.eventbrite.com/

To our friends in Nashville: Jody will be traveling your way this weekend to participate in the Musicares benefit at the Mercy Lounge on Friday, May 21st. The benefit, entitled “Thank You Friends: A Tribute to Big Star and Alex Chilton” will feature Jody Stephens (Big Star co-founder), Brendan Benson (Raconteurs), Carl Broemel (My Morning Jacket), David Mead, Bill Lloyd, Joe Marc’s Brother, David Vandervelde, John Davis (Superdrag), Roman Candle, The Shazam, Michael “Grimey” Grimes, Ken Coomer, Neilson Hubbard, Blue Eyed Blacks, Chris Stamey (The DB’s), Mitch Easter (Let’s Active) and more.

From the Mercy Lounge’s Web site (where tickets are also available): Nashville’s Music Community will pay tribute to the pop genius of Memphian Alex Chilton and his seminal band Big Star by gathering onstage at Mercy Lounge for a night of incredible Big Star/Alex Chilton covers (including special one-time only all star band collaborations) honoring his legacy and raising money and awareness for musicians in need. Musicares has recently set up a special fund to help those recently affected by the historic Nashville Flood. Big Star co-founder Jody Stephens is making the trip over from Memphis and Rhino Records has generously donated Big Star box sets and limited edition 7″s for the cause.

Proceeds go to MusicCares.

www2.grammy.com

Remaining Big Star members Jon Auer (from left), Jody Stephens and Ken Stringfellow are shown in this file photo from the Alex Chilton tribute concert in March at the South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas. Photo by Sandy Carson.

The Big Star Box Set, Keep an Eye on the Sky, is available through Amazon.com.

The Deluxe Edition of Chris Bell’s I Am the Cosmos is available through Rhino Handmade’s site.

Producer-director Danielle McCarthy, who over the course of the last 2 + years has become one of the greatest stewards of the great underdog story that is Big Star’s history, will return to Memphis this week to film the May 15th Big Star show in Memphis’ Overton Park (tickets available here). Joining her will be her co-director Drew DeNicola and her brother and cameraman Patrick McCarthy. The film is being initially funded by the kindness of Big Star fans, through Kickstarter, a fund raising Web site for the arts.

Nothing Can Hurt Me: The Big Star Story‘s Kickstarter page has already raised over $13,000, and is only open until Thursday, 5/13/10, so please take a look at the trailer and the opportunities to donate there!

From John Beiffus‘ article in The Commercial Appeal:

With pledge dollars and mouse clicks, fans around the world are helping to ensure the completion of a feature documentary about Big Star, the influential Memphis power-pop band led by the late Alex Chilton.

“I knew that people would want to see the movie, but the response was a real eye-opener,” said Brooklyn producer-director Danielle McCarthy, who hit her fundraising goal of $6,000 just a few hours after going public with her project last week on kickstarter.com, an online “funding platform” for artists, musicians, filmmakers, inventors and other creative types.

(Read more…)

(Read more about the project at the film’s Web site)

In the photo: filmmaker Danielle McCarthy, Ardent Studios/Records owner/founder John Fry, and cameraman Patrick McCarthy. Not shown is co-director Drew DeNicola.

UPDATE: Now that the Kickstarter page has expired, The Memphis Music Foundation is accepting donations  in support of the film and its crew. Please contact Pat Mitchell Worley at pat@memphismeansmusic.com, or you can call the foundation at (901) 527-1029.

The Big Star Box Set, Keep an Eye on the Sky, is available through Amazon.com.

The Deluxe Edition of Chris Bell’s I Am the Cosmos is available through Rhino Handmade’s site.

Pictured above are Jody Stephens and Rolling Stone Senior Editor David Fricke. Fricke has been a champion of Big Star for years, and interviewed Jody recently about the death of Alex Chilton and the upcoming tribute show to take place right here at Memphis’ Levitt Shell (tickets available here) on May 15th, 2010. From the interview:

On May 15th, the surviving members of the reunion edition of pop cult legends Big Star – original drummer Jody Stephens and singer-guitarists Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer of the Posies — will play one more show: a homecoming at Levitt Shell in Memphis, Big Star’s hometown. Their performance will be a tribute to late singer Alex Chilton, who died on March 17th. Like the all-star salute held in Chilton’s memory the weekend after his passing at SXSW in Austin, Texas, the Memphis concert will feature friends and guests singing with Big Star, revisiting songs from the band’s three classic Seventies albums. But Stringfellow told me, during the interviews for my recent tribute story on Chilton, that the show “should reflect more than the Big Star years,”¬ referring to Chilton’s early hits with the Box Tops and his later, eccentric solo material. “Alex would turn over in his grave if every memorial was intensely focused on Big Star. Now’s the time to put it all out there.”

Stephens admitted to me that this would be the final Big Star show, although not his last with Auer and Stringfellow. “I can’t see us going out as Big Star,” Stephens said. “But I would hate to compound the loss of Alex by saying,’That’s it’ for Ken and Jon, too. I can’t imagine not playing with them. There’s so much fun — but an emotional bond there too.”

In an interview for that Chilton tribute, Stephens spoke at length, fondly and frankly, about his time in the original Big Star — with Chilton, bassist Andy Hummel and singer-guitarist Chris Bell — in the early Seventies and with Chilton in the resurrection version with Auer and Stringfellow, from their first show together in 1993 until what turned out to be their last, in Brooklyn last November. Here are unpublished outtakes from that conversation.

Read the rest of the article on Rolling Stone’s page.

The Big Star Box Set, Keep an Eye on the Sky, is available through Amazon.com.

The Deluxe Edition of Chris Bell’s I Am the Cosmos is available through Rhino Handmade’s site.