Is it us or does just LOOKING at the music line-up for Cooper Young Fest make you sweaty? Okay, it might also be the fact that it’s approximately eleventy-billion degrees outside right now – but CY Fest is definitely one of our favorite end-of-summer opportunities to sweat out a beer (or five) and see a great line-up of Memphis music. The fest announced its line-up this week – here’s info on that and other stuff we found around Beyonce’s internet.
C-U AT CY
Bailey Bigger headlines this year’s fest. Get the full line-up here.
Everybody wants Memphis on the track, even Bey
In the latest installment of Memphis music is errrywhere, we present to you: the Queen Bey edition! Beyonce’s new album RENAISSANCE features Memphis songwriters, samples and smooth sax – as you peruse the full liner notes over on Pitchfork, be on the lookout for the masterful pen game of Jozzy, the sax stylings of Kenneth Whalum and a sample from our own Tommy Wright III.
An old Memphis soul in The New Yorker
“When he was growing up, his mother boarded performers who were barred from Memphis’s segregated hotels, Ellington among them. Lloyd, besotted with the saxophone since stumbling on one in his grandfather’s house at the age of three—“I saw those pearl keys!”—hung on the musicians’ every word. “I was in heaven,” he said. “I would wait for those guys to get up in the morning because I had so many questions.” One day, his mother told Ellington that her son wanted to be a musician. “Duke said, ‘No, he has to be a doctor, lawyer, or Indian chief, because this stuff is too hard—the life. Don’t let him do it.’ But by that time I was bit by the cobra, and there was no turning back.” – on Charles Llloyd and his recent performances in NYC, The New Yorker
Ms. King Sings the Gospel
“King recently released a new album of gospel music, called I Got A Love. She went into Studio B at Sam Phillips Recording in Memphis with her daughters, Betsy Spring, Sonjia James and Yolanda Sherrod, and recorded four songs, one of which is an a cappella live version of “Give Me Wings.” The performances were recorded by Matt Ross-Spang, produced and mixed Bruce Watson, and feature Will Sexton on guitar and bass and Will McCarley on drums and percussion.” – (watch and) listen to Elizabeth King performing with her daughters on NPR’s World Cafe
