ZZ Top, those blues-rocking, arena-filling legends, are so settled into their archetypal dirty-boogie sound, it's easy to take the popular music titans for granted.
Downplay ZZ Top's Bluff City connections - from recording here to covering such Stax nuggets as I Thank You and Tramp (the latter from new album "Mescalero") - and you still have a band buoyed by its own impressive wealth of tunes. Those include Gimme All Your Lovin', Jesus Just Left Chicago and Cheap Sunglasses, which all got rendered on Memphis time.
The Texas trio have closed Beale Street Music Festival before, and did the honors again Sunday night - their set ended just as the deluge began - for a reason. They're bad and they're nationwide.
And what better way to end Saturday's southernmost stage lineup at the Beale Street Music Festival than with superstar Sheryl Crow, who also took time earlier in the night to sit in with Willie Nelson.
"I feel like I'm home," said Crow before a packed Gossett Volkswagen stage, and she wasn't far off. Her Kennett, Mo., origins make her one of the biggest area acts going.
"I went to bed in Memphis, and I woke up in Hollywood," went the opening line of her set starter, Steve McQueen, which was so playfully constructed, you didn't mind its blatant appropriation from Steve Miller's Take the Money and Run.
And even though many of her tunes deviated little from the studio versions, what emerged from Crow's performance was the consistency of her catalog: All I Wanna Do, Every Day Is a Winding Road, My Favorite Mistake, If It Makes You Happy and A Change Would Do You Good on up to new tunes Soak Up the Sun and C'mon, C'mon. They all add up to some of the catchiest pop-rock numbers of the past decade.
Crow was sure to include her current country-crossover hit with Kid Rock, Picture, as well as a satisfying encore blast from Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll (a much better choice than her onetime cover of Zep's D'Yer Mak'er).
Early Sunday, the Gossett Volkswagen stage lineup offered the Gamble Brothers Band, arguably the best jammers in Memphis.
The R&B/jazz quartet combined the funky grooves of the Meters with the structural sensibilities of Steely Dan to create a pop-and-bop fueled package that was all Bluff City.
"How 'bout a big hand for living in the South, y'all," said sax-playing member Art Edmaiston from the stage. No problem, especially when it produces such fine groups.
The bona fide early day highlight was the Memphis-matched duo of acclaimed songwriters/performers (not to mention amusing cut-ups) Don Nix and Larry Raspberry. With a band that reunited piano-pounding Raspberry and his onetime drummer, Greg Morrow (now an A-list Nashville session player) and featured the unbeatable vocal chops of Susan Marshall and Jackie Johnson, this was one classic rock and roll show - eyes closed and it was 1972. Let's hope the tape was rolling on this one.
Selecting material from each other's illustrious careers, the twosome ran through such hailed Nix compositions as the Freddie King classics Same Old Blues and Going Down, as well as Raspberry's Rock & Roll Warning, from "High Steppin' and Fancy Dancin'," the album Nix once produced for Enterprise/Stax.
Little Rock newcomers Evanescence canceled, leaving New Orleans frat-rock favs Cowboy Mouth to perform instead. With drummer/vocalist frontman Fred LeBlanc in the audience by the first number, this ever-entertaining combo - whose "hurricane party" could turn the phone book into a shoutfest - made sure that Evanescence's chart-friendly goth-metal wasn't missed too much.
It seemed odd to put Robert Randolph and the North Mississippi Allstars - true brothers in musical spirit and with fans - on at the same time.
Those who chose sacred steel whiz Randolph got the liveliest soul-saving, feet-freeing jams for the Lord one could want, glorious in every sense of the word.
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