Overview

"For over one hundred years, Memphis, Tennessee, was been the center of musical innovation for American popular music. From W. C. Handy to Alberta Hunter and Lil Hardin Armstrong, in the early years, to B. B. King in the late 1940s, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis in the 1950s, to Otis Redding, Booker T. and the MGs, and Al Green in the 1960s and early 1970s, Memphis music sizzled with a level of creativity unrivaled in the history of American music. With the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, the city's music industry began going ""down, down, down"" only to sputter to a halt in the mid-1970s. In the decades since only Memphis native Justin Timberlake and Memphis producer ""Boo"" Mitchell, who produced Bruno Mar's hit ""Uptown Funk,"" have been able to show glimpses of the city's past glories. For five decades of the city's marvelous music history, author James L. Dickerson was at ground zero as a Memphis journalist, magazine publisher, and radio syndication owner, who had unparalleled access to many of the music greats of the latter half of the century. Originally published as ""Goin' Back to Memphis"" by Simon & Schuster's music imprint, this book was a finalist for the prestigious Gleason Award, previously given out annually by Rolling Stone magazine, BMI, and New York University. Memphis Going Down is an expanded and updated edition with additional text and photos. Memphis Going Down is told in the words of the record producers, performers, and songwriters themselves as they reflect on their lives and music and its impact on popular culture. You'll hear legendary record producers such as Chips Moman, Willie Mitchell, Sam Phillips, and Jim Stewart talk about the ups and downs of the industry. And you'll hear the artists themselves: Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Al Green, Bobby Womack, B. B. King, Bobby ""Blue"" Bland, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Rufus Thomas, members of the Box Tops, and the Fabulous Thunderbirds go one-on-one with the author in an effort to understand the mysteries of Memphis music."

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Reviews

Memphis native Dickerson sifts through more than 100 years of musical, political, and cultural heritage in this work of history-as-memoir to provide a captivating profile of the one-time murder capital of the world. Beginning with the impact of bluesman W.C. Handy in the early 1900s, Dickerson combines sordid tales of brothels, racism, and political corruption with the role Beale Street played in the simultaneous evolution of both the city and American music. Chapters spanning a decade at a time cover the early influence of blues women Alberta Hunter and Memphis Minnie, backwater politician E.H. Crump, the rise of Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash, the founding of the Sun and Stax record labels, famous artists drawn to Memphis (including U2, ZZ Top, and Stevie Ray Vaughan); and even fellow Memphians Justin Timberlake and former Survivor vocalist Jimi Jamison. Dickerson (Ashley Judd: Crying on the Inside) references personal connections-Elvis's father worked in a store owned by one of the author's family members-and first-person accounts of his own role in the Memphis music scene as a journalist overtake the final third of the book. Nevertheless, all musical cities deserve a biography this thorough.-Publishers Weekly, (March 2013) Dickerson has written a loving, decade-by-decade profile of the town that gave us-besides Elvis-Carl Perkins, Booker T. and the MGs, Jerry Lee Lewis, Otis Redding, Roy Orbison, Isaac Hayes, and even the Box Tops, who with 'The Letter' scored 'the first pop hit ever recorded in Memphis by Memphis artists' ... Dickerson takes us into the back rooms with the movers and shakers on the business end of the music, spotlights the fabled Stax house band (better known as the Blues Brothers band) and traces the social history of Memphis, all in highly readable, highly recommended style-Booklist, first edition review; reviewed by Mike Tribby

Author Information

"James L. Dickerson is an award-winning newspaper journalist and author. A longtime resident of Memphis and Nashville, he was an editorial writer for The Commercial Appeal and a book critic for the Nashville Tennessean. His Memphis-published magazine Nine-O-One Network, at one time the third-largest circulation music magazine in the U.S., made history by becoming the first Southern-based magazine to obtain newsstand distribution in all 50 states and overseas. Back issues of the magazine are available for study and research to visitors at the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum. His biography of Scotty Moore, That's Alright, Elvis (Simon & Schuster), co-authored with the guitar legend, also was a finalist for the Gleason Award. His music history, Mojo Triangle: Birthplace of Country, Blues, Jazz and Rock 'n' Roll, was a first-place winner of the IPPY Award for best non-fiction book in the South. His biography of legendary record producer Chips Moman has illuminated previously unknown dark corners of the Memphis music industry. His book ""Colonel Tom Parker"" was purchased by Warner Bros. for the 2022 film, ""Elvis,"" starring Tom Hanks and Austin Butler."

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