Chicago

"Say-rah?" rumbled from the kitchen. I peered around the corner, hand resting on one of the million couches in the living room. When he recognized my face, his lit up. "How you doin', girl."

I rambled across the room and into his arms. Hello Ralph. "Hello, You," I sang. My heart sang too. Tonight would be great. Tonight would be beyond anything we'd seen so far.

John stumbled past, shirt in hand. "Does this go together?" Chuck struggled with the futon. Derek seperated posters and gathered 45s. I grabbed a soda out of the fridge and sat back on the couch closest to the kitchen. Chuck came to sit beside me and I took his shoulder in my palm, the stress flowed, muscle to hand and out into the day. The sun streamed in through the multitude of windows and we all sat back for one moment...one full and quiet moment before the storm.

I was always one for a rainy day. The slight showers of the morning left the streets damp and the buildings perspiring. John's brow was the same. He hoped that there would be no more rain. With the barbecue set up outside the Hideout, the chairs and tables and benches, some under tent, most open air. We pulled up to the venue and spilled out of the car.

OUTSIDE THE HIDEOUT

Sean Michael McCarthy & Emily Oddo

Honky Tonk Barbecue

Brooks Porter

Emily Oddo & Charles Ciba


INSIDE THE HIDEOUT

MLE

DJ Andy Dyson & DJ Brian "Agent 45" Poust


Eli "Paperboy" Reed & the True Loves

Hermon Hitson

Ralph "Soul" Jackson & MLE


Adam Fitz & Ralph "Soul" Jackson

The Legendary Roscoe Robinson

Roscoe Robinson

Down Broadway, yeah Funky Broadway....

"Hipster Critic's Friend: Have you seen The Raconteurs live?

Indie Critic 1: No...they play at venues that seat more than 152.5 people. I saw The White Stripes in a loft in Brooklyn once. There were four people there. 3 of them had mustaches. The other one was dressed as a Kentucky Fried Chicken. (It may have been a protest)."

-- from Passion of the Weiss's latest article, "The Year in Review: The 7 Albums That Aren't Nearly As Bad As You've Heard"



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I stared at my computer for a little while this afternoon, completely befuddled by the date. The 8th? What happened? How did I get it wrong when one of the things I do all day is write those magic numbers "12/08/2006" on the top right hand corner of medical consent forms. It's a mindless task, one that starts so early in the morning that by this afternoon, when I finally sat back and looked at it, it seemed like a foreign language, like a secret code, like a total disappointment.

The Ralph Jackson show in Chicago was tonight, the 8th, which is not tomorrow.



As I'm sitting at the ER desk because I'm working a double shift, because I love my bosses, and because by the time of my discovery this afternoon it was too late for me to leave from Birmingham...

Crap.

Good luck, my friends. I hope the Hideout was packed. I hope Bob Mehr danced. And Emily, I hope to god that you boogalooed your heart out.

Vulcanny

B.H. Vulcan has been partying for two solid weeks. His handmade green and orange hat is pushed slightly to the side so you know that he's for real. His large head wags with every small child's hand, an irresistable golden worry wobble for all of the elderly ladies that sit before me, and from the old men, Bobble Head "Party God" Vulcan gets the occasional tilted head, a push, and a chuckle. B. H. Vulcan parties all day on the ledge of my desk. I sit behind him at my workstation, chair a little too low, desktop a little too cluttered, enormous monitor flickering in front of my face. I try to keep in the party spirit, just for the little guy. I play a little of Benny Goodman's "Bluebirds in the Moonlight" and swing around in my swivel chair, legs tucked in and skirt aflarin'.

"There are bluebirds in the moonlight. Silly idea, Bluebirds in the moonlight, but that's how I feel when I'm with you...
There are night owls in the daylight. Silly idea. Night owls in the daylight. But maybe my heart is saying who...who...who..whoooo..Who is the one for me, that's what you've done to me...."

I lean my head over to the far side of the partition, glancing up to the security mirror, making sure the coast is clear. And then I spin around again and again, head back and eyes bright. I love these late afternoons in the center. I'm sure I'll miss them come December, when I'll be flying every moment room to room in the new Emergency Room. My legs and heart and head will be tired by the end of the day. But now...right now...I turn my head to my dear friend Vulcan, and to the pictures of Ralph "Soul" Jackson, Emilybird, and Edwyn Collins (thank you, gorjus) gathered on the wall around my phone, Count Basie laces some pretty melodies in his "How Long Blues" and I turn to see that it's time for me to hit the road.

Have a good weekend, my lovelies. I'm sure I'll see you out and about.

The Birmingham Sound

The Birmingham Sound -



John Ciba and I met 4 years ago while I was calling around to order catalogs from distributors for my record store-that-never-was (Chachi Loves Vinyl). I called Choke Distribution, a Chicago indie, and John picked up the phone. When he found that I was in Birmingham, he started asking all sorts of questions, not just about the city, but about what I knew of soul music. I guess I knew a bit more than the average 23 year old girl, having the Dad I did who allowed me to scavenge through his record collection time and time again as I was growing up. John was a collector of soul music and had become interested in the South's offerings. He spoke of the amazing recordings that had come out of Muscle Shoals. Our conversation went on for over an hour and we talked the next day and the next and the next..the conversation kept going until three months later he traveled down from Chicago and we drove up to Muscle Shoals, met with Dick Cooper, and toured the Muscle Shoals Sound, Fame, and the newly refurbished 3614 Jackson Highway studio. We also spent alot of time in Birmingham, touring the Jazz Hall of Fame and speaking with Doc Adams, going to shows, and ate alot of Barbecue.



John went back to Chicago and we continued to email and call. Over time, his interest spread from the Muscle Shoals Area to Birmingham's Soul era, a time of music that was always overshadowed by the Civil Rights Movement. Through John's trading and buying and researching, he had heard about a small label in Birmingham from the 60's. The man who owned the label also had started the Sound of Birmingham Studios in Midfield. He was a plumber. A nice guy who loved music, wanted to work with music, with musicians. Neal Hemphill. In his studio, Sound of Birmingham and it's later incarnation Hemphill Studios Neal recorded country acts, gospel groups, southern rock garage bands, and lots of soul music: Sam Dees, Frederick Knight, Jerry Weaver, Ralph Jackson, Roscoe Robinson....

Neal had passed away in 1985, and since he had always kept his family life apart from his music life, his children had little interest in the stuff left over form their father's "side career". They took all of the contents of the studio, put it in a storage place, where it sat for 20 years. Through all of the friends we had made in the Shoals, through a bit of digging and calling and pestering, John finally found Neal's family. On one of his trips down early last year, he finally met with Neal's children and acquired from them the contents fo the storage space. All of these demos and reels had little or no documentation. Boxes and boxes of tapes with nothing but the name of the bands or singer and a song title. That's where the fun started. We had to find out who played on what and when, who engineered it, who wrote the songs. John would fly down once a month and we'd interview all of these amazing people, Don Tinsley, Roscoe Robinson, Wayne Peterman, Mike Dee, Shelly Stewart, Mark Harrelson, Roszetta Johnson.



Roscoe was a trip. We met him for lunch one day and ate and talked and listened and took notes, he came out with story after story. A wrinkled, beautiful little man, with many tricks up his sleeves and a certain twinkle in his eye. He made people rise form the dead (Eddie Steele, a singer who we were looking for and were told had passed was actually selling shirts that day out of the back of his car at fife's sandwich shop). He had crazy connections like you wouldn't believe (went to high school with Michael Jackson's dad in Arkansas), and somehow had found the fountain of youth (it's in his voice, when he sings, the years, the wrinkles just melt away).

Ralph...we met him at an Arby's in Montgomery. Spooner Oldham (Muscle Shouls Rhythm Section, Neil Young) had gotten us in touch with him. He thought we were there just to ask him a few questions. Instead John played music for him on his laptop, Ralph's music that he hadn't heard in 30 years, he cried and laughed. He's been working as a mechanic for a long time, had made some music since his time at Sound of Birmingham, but only for himself...he thought that no one cared about his music. Then John played a couple of tracks of the great Sam Frazier coviering his songs. Ralph was on cloud 9. Since then, John has set Ralph up with a band in Chicago, is sending him on tour to Europe this fall... Crazy.

So all of this, sitting through the interviews and John and Emily's library trips, poring through stacks and stack of old handbills and newpapers at Jim Reeds books, Ryan's photoshoots, and I'm sure so much more that I'm not eveni aware of up there in the Windy City has come to this, the love John Ciba's life, the Soul of Neal Hemphill, this collections of the best of what was left behind. Even if I was just John's hostess, navigator, and notetaker, I've found that my appreciation for this city's rich history has only grown and grown, as has my addiction to the sweet and incredible sounds of soul music.
It's been one of the greatest experiences of my life.
I can't wait to see John and Emily when I get off of that plane tomorrow. I can't wait to be in chicago. I can't wait to see the show. I can't wait to dance. It will be amazing. And I get to do it all over again next weekend here in Birmingham.