Delve into Memphis music and history with Thacker Mountain Radio Hour this Saturday at 7 p.m. on your MPB radio station. Featuring Grammy-winning Memphis music historian Robert Gordon.
Your hosts: Jim Dees and house band the Yalobushwhackers.
The guests: Robert Gordon (Memphis Rent Party), veteran Americana musician David Olney (Don’t Try to Fight It), drummer/slide guitarist Cam Kimbrough.
LITERATURE
Robert Gordon
Robert Gordon is the author of Memphis Rent Party (Bloomsbury), a collection of essays from his 30 years of writing about Memphis music and history. Subjects include Jim Dickinson, Tav Falco, Jeff Buckley, Cat Power, and Jerry Lee Lewis, among others.
His previous books include It Came from Memphis, Can’t Be Satisfied, The King on the Road, The Elvis Treasures, and Respect Yourself. He won a Grammy in 2011 for his liner notes to the Big Star box set Keep an Eye on the Sky. His film work includes the PBS documentary Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story and the critically acclaimed Best of Enemies. Gordon lives in Memphis.
MUSIC
Cam Kimbrough
Cameron Kimbrough is an accomplished drummer and slide guitarist. His latest single is “Still Standing.” Other releases include the EPs Breakfast for Dinner (2013) and Head for the Hills (2016).
Kimbrough is the grandson of North Mississippi Hill Country blues legend Junior Kimbrough and the son of blues drummer Kent Kimbrough. Robert Gordon includes a previously unpublished essay on Junior Kimbrough in Memphis Rent Party.
David Olney
Acclaimed singer/songwriter and globe-trotting performer David Olney has released more than 20 albums over four decades, including six live recordings. His latest CD is Don’t Try to Fight It (Red Parlor Records). He is the host of the You Never Know streamcast, in which he plays and sings a song and shares the story behind it (Tuesdays on DavidOlney.com and YouTube).
“Known as a masterful wordsmith, Olney has a knack for creating the ideal atmosphere for his gothic noir tunes.”
—Acoustic Guitar Magazine