Troubador Tuesday -- Lucinda Williams

Lucinda Williams is the most soulful, raw, and revealing songwriter of recent years. Here's her 2003 Hot Adult Top 40 (#36) hit, "Righteously":


You have to be truly hot to write words like that. Truly hot is more than being young and displaying the trendiest styles. Lucinda's continuing capacity for sensuality should be an inspiration for all women. As my next exhibit, I submit the title tune off her 2001 album, "Essence":


I recently watched an encore showing of a September 18, 2007, appearance by Lucinda on Austin City Limits and heard "Unsuffer Me" for the first time. If you're not struck dumb by that song, you haven't lived enough or hurt enough to appreciate it. If you have, you'll cry. The video PBS had up from the program is "Unsuffer Me"! Here it is:

Digital Billboards Under Fire

First it was Republican "Bluenose Mike" Ritz who, as Director of the Memphis/Shelby County Office of Planning and Development, wanted to make his name by devastating the outdoor sign industry to make Memphis as insipid as Germantown.

Now it's more officials with a residential development uber alles mentality, like City Council member Reid Hedgepeth and some bureaucrat named Mary Baker, who want to debilitate the new and wonderful digital signage made possible by twenty-first century technology.

As reported by Andy Meek in the Memphis Daily News:

New rules that are part of the amendments approved by the LUCB this month include that the entire area of signs may not exceed 672 square feet. There generally must be 2,000 feet between whatever electronic signs ultimately get built.

On-premise signs that have electronic elements cannot have more than 200 square feet of a sign featuring the digital component.
. . . .
Hedgepeth, a developer and former member of the LUCB, said he recently had driven by one of the projects approved by the LUCB a couple of years ago.

It was the Value Place extended stay hotel off Riverdale Road, and he did not like the flashing digital sign he saw that was attached to one side of the hotel advertising weekly rates and other specials.

“When I drove by it, I was shocked by what I saw,” he said. “I didn’t know that’s the kind of thing they were going to put up.”

I'm going to say the same thing as when then-County Commissioner Steve Cohen and I discussed this issue many years ago: "Bright Lights, Big City" (which I stole from the Jimmy Reed song of that title).

Here's the sign Herr Hedgepeth was horrified by:

Now here's what a city is supposed to have on its thoroughfares:

I rest my case.

Jump Back Jake

This may be the last time I ever try to help a musician or a band out on this blog, so don't expect anything effusive, because no matter how sterling my praise, I've never gotten so much as a thank you in the comments from any one of them.

This group has remarkable vintage taste in covers and sound, they can play their instruments, and even such a jaded and unkind critic as myself would go hear them again. One of their favorite musical places to go is The Meters, Papa Grows Funk, and the Gamble Brothers -- the NOLA sound, which I don't mind at all (and neither did the MG's). Singer seems to like Ray Davies also. And a band that encores with the 13th Floor Elevators' hit record, with Jake playing the jug part on electric guitar?

Here's their MySpace site, with free tunes (originals); and here's their own band site, where you can stream their entire new album in a popout player. OK, fugue-it, here's a video too, shot the night I first heard 'em:

MPD Anti-Crime Neighborhood Presentation

Here is a series of segments of a fine presentation given by Memphis Police Department Colonel Billy Garrett to the Vollentine-Evergreen Neighborhood Association on how residents can help police fight crime in the 'hood.  You can click on the video embed below to go to YouTube and pick the rest of the eight segments, or you can start at the first of the links below and hit them in order.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bmmHb-2F00
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWfBeHti5_M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LewHHka4JY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__oLIcUwyM4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwA1C28FY9M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvU10gnwmM8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC_-SkpH_YU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IO2pClbM_8
Or hit the uploader's channel at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/bvheinz01

Murder In Memphis

I recently saw a well-produced episode of Dateline on ID (Investigation Discovery Channel) that featured the Memphis Police Department's work on a murder case. Detective Marcus Berryman was lead investigator on the case.

As a criminal defense attorney, I've had some useful communications with members of the Homicide Bureau on other cases, and with Assistant District Attorney Jerry Harris as well. What you see on the TV episode, Murder In Memphis, is as good a chance at seeing how things work as you're likely to get, if you're not in the biz. I encourage you to watch the program before it goes off the air. Look for future showings of the series episodes on Memphis' Comcast digital channel 205 (DirectTV ch. 285, Dish ch. 192):

Here's the show's desciption on the channel website:

A single gunshot in darkness and a man is dead. The killer disappears into the night, leaving behind a crying widow and a mystery. We follow a determined detective as he hunts for clues, finds the suspect, and finally makes his move to catch a killer.

Having seen this program now, I've concluded the morale-raising value of such coverage to the police and citizens of Memphis far outweighs any bad publicity impact on prospective migrants to the city, regardless of pressure from some ostriches on the Memphis City Council to shut down Memphis Police Department cooperation on shows like this and The First 48. Ostriches still have asses sticking up to be abused; they just don't consider that when they feel like posturing.


I decided to use this post to give a shout out to some of the good cops I've had dealings with who have appeared on The First 48. You can read bios on all the officers in that series by clicking here and then picking Memphis.

Sergeant Joe Stark

Sergeant Mundy Quinn

Lieutenant Joseph Scott

I think Joe Scott got a big promotion; and the other two may have been promoted too. Thanks for the professionalism, guys.