The Memphis Scene

Pictures from the FREEZE party a couple weeks ago at Club Shadows have been posted on the Cocks n Hens site. I stopped by after work and had an OK time. Lord T & Eloise were definitely in the house. Check out my Music Fest interview with the crunk aristocrats here.

I'll be down at Tom Lee Park on Friday and Saturday for what threatens to be a stormy Beale Street Music Festival. Check out all the coverage, including interviews with bands, photos, interactive listings and -- wait for it -- a "Where's Michael Donahue" feature, at commercialappeal.com's Memphis in May site. Read here for more details on what you can expect.

Just days before her appearance at the Memphis in May Beale Street Music Festival, pop diva Fergie performs Friday night at SunFest in West Palm Beach, Fla. The Palm Beach Post has a few fun facts about the Black Eyed Pea-turned-solo star. Topics include Fergie's humps, her humps, and her lady lumps.

Fergie 101: The facts on the Black Eyed Peas singer
By LESLIE GRAY STREETER
Cox News Service
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- There’s a lot you probably know about Fergie, who headlines tonight’s SunFest festivities.
You know she’s a member of the pop-hip-hop outfit Black Eyed Peas, that she’s famous for singing about her humps and her habit of being up in the gym working on her fitness.
You probably even know that she’s engaged to the equally fetching Josh Duhamel of NBC’s “Las Vegas.”
But there’s a lot more to Miss Stacy Ann Ferguson that only die-hard fans or pop culture savants with lots of Googling time are aware of. And since we’re in at least one of those categories (ahem), we’d like to share:

1. She’s got the chiseled Jessica Rabbit-esque body of a 20-something Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, but Fergie actually is 33 years old, which gives hope to all of us 30-somethings. Not hope of actually ever looking like that. But some sort of hope, anyway.

2. She’s proven F. Scott Fitzgerald wrong, having not just a second but a third act in her life. She started as Stacy Ferguson, child star of the syndicated 1980s series “Kids Incorporated,” then became Stacy Ferguson, hottie girl group singer in the threesome Wild Orchid in the 1990s.

3. She was the voice of annoying kid sister Sally Brown in two Peanuts television specials - “It’s Flashbeagle,” “Charlie Brown and Snoopy’s Getting Married, Charlie Brown.”

4. She met future fianc? Duhamel when she appeared on an episode of “Las Vegas,” proving that it’s not always a bad thing to date on the job.

5. She had a small part in the 2006 ocean liner disaster flick “Poseidon,” playing a lounge singer named Gloria. Sadly, Gloria winds up dying. But until that point, her makeup’s perfect.

6. On the recent “Idol Gives Back” telethon, she not only performed with Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart, but did a series of one-armed cartwheels and immediately continued to sing, because she’s just cool like that.

7. She’s been very up front about her struggle with crystal meth, which, she told Time magazine, was “the hardest boyfriend I ever had to break up with.”

8. Her nickname, which she shares with Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson, isn’t her only royal connection - she performed at 2007’s memorial concert for Princess Diana at London’s Wembley Stadium.

9. She was only supposed to do one song, “Shut Up” (Black Eyed Peas Song) with the group for their Elephunk album, but was later invited to join as a permanent member.

10. She swears she got her ridiculously cut stomach by devotedly following the exercises in “Basic Ab Workout For Dummies.”

Incidentally, SunFest shares a bunch of acts with BSMF -- including Sheryl Crow, The Whigs, Michael Franti & Spearhead and The Black Crowes -- but adds festival favorites like Hot Tuna, Matisyahu, George Clinton and friends, The Bad Plus and Little Feat.

I've been deeply involved in this year's Beale Street Music Fest coverage, and we're working hard to get everything going for next weekend. Why, just today I was in contact with publicists for some of the acts to arrange live interviews. Go ahead and poke around last year's site to see what will be in store, and expect even more this time around (it'll be the same URL).

Drop me a word in comments if you have suggestions for Music Fest coverage. Or just comment about whom you're looking forward to seeing, or about how this is the best/worst Music Fest lineup every.

Memphis in May will announce Thursday afternoon the full lineup for this year's Beale Street Music Festival, and for now we have the names of a few top acts to go on.

Announced so far ...

Aretha Franklin
Lou Reed
Sheryl Crow
My Chemical Romance
Buddy Guy
The Roots
Black Crowes
Charlie Musselwhite
Bettye LaVette
Cat Power
Joan Jett & the Blackhearts

Also, Project Pat, Lord T. & Eloise, Pinetop Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Turkish band Duman and more.

Some thoughts ...

* It's great to see The Roots back on the Music Fest bill, after their well-received appearance a three years back. Let's hope we can get drummer ?uestlove to do another after-show deejay appearance like he did back then.

* Will Chan 'Cat Power' Marshall reassemble for this show the Memphis Rhythm Band, which helped her record breakout album "The Greatest" and accompanying tour? (Check out this review of a show they played at Young Avenue Deli.)

* Aretha Franklin is quite a timely "get" for this festival. She a native of Memphis, of course, but she's also back in the news after her performance at last month's Grammys -- and her subsequent upbraiding of Beyonce Knowles.

* Franklin's Memphis roots and Cat Power's Memphis collaborations aren't the only local interest storylines (beyond the obvious connections like Jerry Lee Lewis). Recall that superstar Sheryl Crow is a native of the Missouri bootheel, very much in the Memphis center of gravity. And don't forget that Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars is playing with the Black Crowes these days.

* As Bob Mehr points out in the story linked above, the festival is particularly strong with female artists. I predict Joan Jett will be one of the most popular acts this year.

Join the discussion. The comments section awaits you.

I'm about to head down to the finale of the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, where I'll make the rounds, sip a few beers and nibble on some of that Other White Meat. My crew: a Reform Jew, a nonobservant Muslim, and a former vegan. Deep down, everyone needs Memphis barbecue ...

We've been having some system hiccups the past couple days, so pardon the lack of posting on my part. While you're waiting, read up on all things barbecue over at M3mphis.

It's all here at The Commercial Appeal's Memphis in May mini-site. Don't miss a thing.

Also, check your Memphis Playbook in Friday's newspaper for an embarrassment of Beale Street Music Festival coverage, including in-depth interviews with Steely Dan and Corinne Bailey Rae, capsule profiles of every band playing at Tom Lee Park this weekend, as well as a handy pullout map of the Music Fest grounds.

This certainly improves the situation a bit. Iggy Pop and the Stooges have been added to the Friday night lineup for the Memphis in May Beale Street Music Festival. Also joining the bill well after the official lineup rollout: Canadian pop-punkers Sum 41 on Friday and, from the honored country Spain, Catalan act Companyia Electrica Dharma on both Saturday and Sunday.

I'm just now getting around to following up on my previous post on the talent lineup of the 2007 Memphis in May Beale Street Music Festival. The full list of acts is now available, some of you are even voicing your opinions in comments, so here I go.

* If I end up on the Music Fest coverage crew like last year, Saturday would be my day to go. We're talkin' Steely Dan, The Bar-Kays, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Ohio Players, Taj Mahal and Eddie "Knock on Wood" Floyd. Or, depending on your preference, Godsmack, Wolfmother and George Thorogood.

* If you're wondering why John Legend and Steely Dan are two of the 2007 headliners, look no further than the lineup of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Legend is headling New Orleans on Saturday, Memphis on Sunday; the Dan is doing NO on Sunday, Memphis on Saturday.

* Spain, this year's Memphis in May honored country, and the country that invented the frickin' guitar of all things, has -- as far as I can tell -- exactly zero representation on this year's festival. Even tiny Costa Rica at least was represented last year -- by the excellent Malpais. This is a serious omission, I believe.

* If I were a betting man, I'd take the under on 115,000 for three-day Music Fest attendance. Last year's, when the weather was particularly crummy, was 118,000.

* It can be fun to look at the individual stages' schedules to imagine whether bands playing consecutively might meld into each other's sets in a good ol' rock-and-roll jam session. I believe this happened two years back when The Roots followed Robert Randolph and Family Band. While the acts haven't publicly been broken down by stage yet, I think it's not too early to predict a massive Gov't Mule/Allman Brothers jam on Friday night. (Maybe Chris Daughtry and Papa Roach could be pitted in a contest of rock-star grimaces on Sunday?!)