Memphis Rent Party

Profiles and stories of Southern music from the acclaimed author of Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion.

The fabled city of Memphis has been essential to American music--home of the blues, birthplace of rock and roll, and a soul music capital. When Robert Gordon started covering Memphis music, the golden ages of his hometown had passed. But the links were there if you looked for them. Starting as a teenager, Gordon sought out old legends Furry Lewis and Mose Vinson, spent time at Junior Kimbrough’s house parties, went into the grooves of records by Leadbelly and Robert Johnson, and picked up the threads in the new sounds that were developing around him, becoming the official chronicler of the Memphis scene.

Memphis Rent Party compiles the best of these short pieces from the first three decades of Gordon’s career, many previously unpublished. The focus is on Memphis, but, like mint seeping into bourbon, Gordon gets into the wider world. In addition to homegrown renegades Alex Chilton (Box Tops, Big Star) and producer Jim Dickinson (Replacements, Rolling Stones), he spends time with those whom Memphis has inspired, like Cat Power, Jeff Buckley, and Townes Van Zandt. A rent party is when friends come together to hear music, dance, and help a pal through hard times. With this stellar collection, Gordon--a deep listener, passionate cultural commentator, and unparalleled scribe of Southern sound--throws a rent party that will keep readers reading, music lovers listening, and culture hounds howling for more.

“With his latest effort, Memphis Rent Party , Gordon digs into his archives to spin a paean to the rich musical heritage of the Bluff City . . . Where Memphis Rent Party really shines, for this reader, is in Gordon's tales of the eccentric and original talents that make Memphis a musical melting pot that has long struggled for the respect the city deserves . . . Gordon does an impressive job in capturing the grease, sweat, and heartbeat of Memphis music on the pages of Memphis Rent Party , and you can't really ask for nothing more from this literary love letter to the writer's hometown.”

[A] marvelous history… Mr. Gordon captures the glory years of Stax in a series of exciting chapters that reflect his fine ear for prose as well as for the music the studio made. The Wall Street Journal on RESPECT YOURSELF
The triumphant and tragic story of [Stax] . . . receives definitive telling in RESPECT YOURSELF . . . Gordon imbues it all with a wealth of fresh insight and perspective. The Austin Chronicle
The voices of the members of the Stax family, and Gordon’s deep knowledge of Memphis, give the book a significance that extends beyond a single recording studio. Robert Gordon knows the place, and he’ll take you there. The New York Times Book Review on RESPECT YOURSELF
To read RESPECT YOURSELF is to step back into a time and place . . . Gordon's writing goes deep within the music. Chicago Tribune (Best Books of the Year)

Robert Gordon has been writing about Memphis music and history for thirty years and is the author of 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 producing and directing the documentary Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story for PBS’s Great Performances, and he was also co-writer and co-director of the critically acclaimed Best of Enemies. Gordon lives in Memphis.

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