 |
| MEMPHIS SELECTION FROM THE WALL OF SOUND |
The recent book on the Cultureberg bedside table was Warren Zanes 33 and 1/3 study of Dusty in Memphis. In it he goes a bit Greil Marcus about The South and Memphis in particular. "It seemed that mythic place gave him something inestimable, something underpinning his very sense of self. On some level I've come to believe that we all need such places, that we go to these places to act out the possibilities within us that might otherwise lie dormant, untapped." This sliding down to Memphis may be understandable to the former lead singer of The Del-Fuegos (No, me neither), but the questions in the Cultureberg Cranium were about the others who made a similar pilgrimage, for that is what it was, at about the same time......
We'll come to Elvis later, but let's start with Dusty Springfield. (I'd commend the book to you, though not as much as I'd commend the LP). The book's thrust, reduced by a thousand percent in volume and persuasiveness, is that Dusty's love of black soul music, and her need to inhabit a persona which could contain her otherness, was fulfilled and emboldened by this record. She had just signed to Atlantic . with the proviso that Jerry Wexler be involved to guide the transition, a role he was happy to take on. Dusty in Memphis one of those records which improve and deepen over time and with subsequent listens, its uniqueness becoming more apparent. Why is this?,
Primarily I put this down to the choice of songs, which are not the obvious choice for a performer frozen by standing where Aretha and Wilson Picket once stood. They are not covers of Atlantic
