By John Beifuss
“My city got talent, man,” raps local hip-hop hero and tireless Bluff City enthusiast Al Kapone, accompanied by legendary keyboardist Booker T. Jones and the North Mississippi Allstars — brothers Luther and Cody Dickinson — at the late Jim Dickinson’s Zebra Ranch studio in Coldwater, Mississippi. “We got our own sounds, it’s a Memphis thang ...”
Coldwater isn’t exactly Memphis, you say? That’s not really relevant. You might as well claim that grits ain’t groceries and Mona Lisa was a man, because if the Dickinsons don’t represent the spirit of Memphis music, past and present, who does?
The family of the late Willie Mitchell does, you say? And the Hodges brothers, of the incomparable Hi Rhythm section? They’re in the movie too, their bloodlines like tributaries of the Mississippi — the river alluded to in this new movie’s name and depicted in its stylized logo.
The Kapone segment is the first of nine spirited recording sessions that make up the bulk of “Take Me to the River,” a film that is not so much a traditional documentary as a 95-minute musical celebration of Memphis’ status as what host Terrence Howard calls one of the “special places on this Earth,” a “place of origin” known for Elvis, Al Green and the “integrated musical Utopia” of Stax, among other glories.
Directed and produced by California-based Martin Shore, a longtime musician and film and music producer, “Take Me to the River” was four years in the making. The long gestation bears bittersweet fruit, as several of the soul and blues artists in action here — including Bobby “Blue” Bland, Hi stringbender Mabon “Teenie” Hodges, Howlin’ Wolf collaborator Hubert Sumlin and Stax “wah-wah” guitarist Charles “Skip” Pitts — died before the film was ready for release. Their presence gives some of these sessions an urgency and historical value that are more undeniable than the movie’s stated mission of creating “a historic new album” to “reintroduce the influential music of Memphis by pairing legendary musicians with stars of today.”
The goal is overstated and the strategy dubious (is Snoop Dogg, 42, a “star of today”?), but the pairings — which often team a rapper with a soul veteran — produce dynamic results, as Bland is joined by Yo Gotti on a remake of “Ain’t No Sunshine,” Bobby Rush and Frayser Boy tackle Rufus Thomas’ “(Do the) Push and Pull” and Stax great William Bell revisits his classic “I Forgot to Be Your Lover,” with the aid of a reverent Snoop.
Meanwhile, Otis Clay finds himself unable to out-mug a much younger but already experienced scene-stealer, Lil P-Nut, during a rambunctious run through “Trying to Live My Life without You.” Soul queen Mavis Staples and “swamp boogie bad-ass” Charlie Musselwhite also appear, as do the City Champs, Eric Gales and many other recognizable session and star musicians, including Otis Redding plane-crash survivor Ben Cauley of the Bar-Kays.
Cody Dickinson is one of the film’s producers, and his almost slapstick on-camera excitement is infectious. Another producer is Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads, seen here helping to produce the Bell/Snoop session. Also a producer is Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell, grandson of the late Willie Mitchell, founder of Royal Studios on South Lauderdale, where much of the recording takes place. Some other sessions are at Young Avenue Sound and Scott Bomar’s Electraphonic Recording on South Main. Shore employs as many as eight cameras for some scenes; the project MVPs may be editors Julie Janata and Maxx Gilman, who found memorable moments of comedy and insight as well as virtuoso performances among the 4,000 hours of available footage.
The last two Oscars for Best Documentary Feature went to the music movies “Searching for Sugar Man” and “20 Feet from Stardom.” The producers of “Take Me to the River” hope this momentum will increase interest in their film, but the episodic “River” lacks the focus of its predecessors. Because the new music is so crucial, the movie sometimes feels like an elaborate example of the type of behind-the-scenes DVD occasionally included as a bonus in a CD package. Attempts to break away from this format — including digressions about the impact on the city of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the shameful white-establishment disinterest in saving Stax from bankruptcy — are interesting but familiar and disruptive. Themes of race and economic injustice are more naturally interjected by the artists themselves, in seemingly casual conversation, as when Bell comments that inside Stax “we just didn’t see color,” but “the minute we walked out of the door, it hit us in the face.”
That’s what the music here does, but in a good way: It hits you in the face, motivates your feet and squeezes your heart. It’s through the exuberant musical performances that “Take Me to the River” will be embraced and prove valuable through the years, especially as more and more of its irreplaceable participants join Bland, Pitts and Teenie.
“Take Me to the River” is playing exclusively at the Malco Paradiso.
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