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Putting Memphis Back on the Map: The Gamble Brothers Band Reintroduce Soulsville, U.S.A. to its Musical Past from An Honest Tune, November 2003 By Tom Speed Midway through the sophomore release from the Memphis based Gamble Brothers Band, during a song called "Land of Soul," keyboardist and vocalist Al Gamble sings: "I hear the voices calling out to me/Otis, Rufus and Booker T." It's a great line, one that follows another great one "Hernando De Soto, did you know/You were breaking ground in the Land of Soul." But it didn't necessarily need saying. On the nine tracks preceding "Land of Soul," those voices reveal themselves over and over, not so much calling out as being channeled. And The Gamble Brothers Band may be the first group of musicians in a long, long time to recognize the City's storied past, embrace it, and infuse it with fresh and vital energy. The Stax sounds of the 1970s provided Memphis with a musical identity, perhaps even more so than the days when Sam Phillips recorded Elvis Presley to bring black music to white people with what would come to be called Rock and Roll. It was the sound of Otis Redding singing "Respect," Rufus Thomas "Walkin the Dog" and the unforgettable pocket funk of Booker T & The MGs' "Green Onions" that turned the musical world on its ear and put Memphis on the musical map with an undeniable sound that identified a place within seconds. Wilson Pickett's "Midnight Hour" became a concert staple for everyone from the Grateful Dead to the Rolling Stones. Since the late seventies, when Stax slowly died away, Memphis' musical identity has been lost, unwilling to embrace its past and not sure where to go next. There were flashes of brilliance. Big Star was a Memphis band who, while not necessarily commercially successful, has been cited as one of the most influential rock bands in the country. In the 1980s and 90s, bands from around the globe-from U2 to ZZ Top-came to Memphis to soak up the soul and record albums. Big Ass Truck and Yamagata have been exploring jazz, funk and hip hop. And Free World has been a hippie-groove mainstay for nearly 20 years. But the glorious Stax sounds of the era were reduced to dime-a-dozen cover bands grinding out watered down versions of the hits over and over on a plasticized tourist-friendly Beale Street. Memphis Soul had become firmly entrenched in the past, stuck in an old Memphis that was little more than a historical curiosity and tourist attraction. But the Gamble Brothers are changing all that. Their first release, 10 lbs. of Hum, was a smart and sweaty mixture of Memphis Soul and New Orleans Funk. Originals like "Point The Finger" showed a real penchant for groove and an aptitude for song craft, while the two cover tunes-Lee Dorsey's "Everything I Do (Gohn Be Funky) and The Band's "Don't Do It"-pointed directly to their wide ranging influences. The release garnered them industry attention as they were selected for a Jim Beam independent ????? award based on the merits of that first CD. That resulted in a $3,000 grant to help produce their next album and defray touring expenses. The CD was also entered in The Independent Music World Series, sponsored by Billboard magazine. Out of more than 12,000 submissions, The Gamble Brothers Band was selected as one of the final contenders and invited to play in Nashville. They won. They were awarded $35,000 worth of gear. While receiving these accolades, The Gamble Brothers were also signing a deal with Ward Archer and his new Memphis-based label Archer Records. "The label is as old as our band," says Al Gamble. "They both started the same time, in 2001. In December of 2002 I told him that we were ready to make a record and we started preproduction in February and recording in March." So, with the praise coming fast and steady, they got to work at Archer's studio with Memphis producer Ross Rice. "Ross is a Memphian," says saxophonist Art Edmaiston. "He had a band called Human Radio in the late 1980s and has written with a lot of different people. He's a great songwriter too. What I hear, he's influenced by Beatles, Bowie. And he's a chops monster so he's into King Crimson and stuff like that and ended up co-writing some songs with Adrian Belew." Rice came with production and engineering experience too, having produced albums by Memphis bands Big Ass Truck, Yamagata and Free World, and proved to be a perfect match for the band. As the sessions began, the band began tweaking tunes from their live repertoire and creating new ones in the studio. Rice was influential in encouraging the band's creative process. "For the most part, every thing took a whole new life when Ross Rice got ahold of it," says saxophonist Art Edmaiston. "There were things that we thought were totally perfect like they were that he flushed and rebuilt. And other things that we tried to get rid of or redo and he'd say 'No, that's the good part!'" "Tiki Bar" is one track that benefited most from Ross' help. "It was a song I'd written a lot of times over and over and over and it never worked out," says Edmaiston. "And it was one that he pushed and encouraged us not to give up on. The chorus is basically his." Towards the end of the sessions, the band entered Willie Mitchell's Royal Studio, the place where so many classic Al Green records were cut for the Hi label. "Since you can't go back to Stax, that's as close as you can get," says Edmaiston. "There's a special Hi sound where they use a conga drum on the backbeat to accentuate, and it shows up on all these Al Green records. Well, [GBB drummer] Chad [Gamble] got to use the same conga drum that's on all those records too. So that was very inspirational being able to do that. A lot of the old equipment was there and there was a real spiritual vibe." They also recorded some additional parts at Sam Phillips studio, where Al Gamble had the opportunity to play on the same piano that Jerry Lee Lewis did, many years ago. In September of 2003, Back to The Bottom was released as one of the first CD's on the new label. Back To The Bottom digs even deeper into Memphis Soul, while infusing it with a variety of common influences. It's where the Ghost of Memphis Past meets the Ghost of Memphis Future. It's where Soul is embraced alongside Big Star. The overt odes to Stax are certainly there; witness the infectious instrumental "Escape Alley." But "Come On Sam" and "Old New One" exude the cool sophistication of Steely Dan, Gamble's vocals alternately recalling the finesse of Bruce Hornsby and the gravelly jive of Dr. John. "Share" takes a swirling Reggae/Ska beat and infects it with groove. And if the Gamble Brothers recall the early days of Stevie Winwood's Spencer Davis Group (and they do), it's not so much that they are taking a page from Winwood's book as it is that they're both taking the same page. On the 8 -minute opus "Caddillactopus" the Gamble Brothers Band reach for the stratosphere. It's a structured masterpiece that comes across as mad improvisation, but was actually much more pre-meditated. "The funny thing about the way it worked is that there are all these sections and one of the reasons we didn't play it a lot was because it sounded like it was all a bunch of different sections," says Edmaiston. "You'd get in the mood in the studio and cut it a couple of times and then you see how these different sections could gel together. And then, the improvisation within how all of us addressed those sections made it seem…we were all improvising but in the same way a jazz player would improvise on the same song night after night. It had places that it could go and we were able to connect the sections through improvisation. It's definitely our freakiest tune." One of the many standouts on Back to the Bottom is "Record Store"-a catchy slice of groove with an irresistible hook that has Al Gamble declaring "I've got a song to sing/It's got words and everything/For what it's worth and a little more/I'll put it in the record store/If you hear it on the radio/Get ready for your mind to blow/I know its what you're looking for." Indeed it is and Gamble's braggadocios words may well be prophetic. "Record Store" exemplifies what should be on the radio and indeed it has found its way to the airwaves, albeit primarily on the more hip non-commercial stations than the Clear Channel Corporate Conglomerate Conspiracy Channels. In much the same way that Galactic introduced a new, younger audience to the music of The Meters, The Gamble Brothers are likely to do the same with their Memphis counterparts, Booker T and the MGs. And by reconnecting Memphis to its past, the GBB re-christen Soulsville USA-the name given to Memphis to represent the endless array of Stax hits the city produced-as The Land of Soul. |
