Another Memphis Music Report: Now For The Hard Part

Now, for the hard part.

Memphis has its latest blueprint for the future for music, this one by Sound Diplomacy on behalf of City of Memphis and Greater Memphis Chamber.

The overriding challenge is not to now treat the report as the outcome and find a shelf for it.  Instead, it needs to be the beginning of a multi-year process whose results are the real outcomes needed for Memphis music to be more successful. 

If there are lessons to be drawn from past plans, it is that top-down strategies, even when well-funded, have not proven to be sustainable; they failed to capture the organic nature and free spirit that characterize Memphis music; and they were not centered on the community organizing of local musicians who often were on the outside looking in as strategies unfolded.

Perhaps, the best way to sum it up is they were economic development plans and it is hard to infuse these kinds of plans with the creativity, the imagination, and the artistic impulse that lie at the heart of Memphis music – its culture, its heritage, and its present day reality.

As plans are created to put together a timeline for executing the recommendations of the Sound Diplomacy, it’s important to take all of this into account.

Can Musicians Make a Living Here?

There are two groups of people in Memphis who deserve to be cynical – Memphians living in poverty and Memphis musicians.  Often, they are the same people.  

They have seen plan after plan issued and celebrated as the magic answers for elevating Memphis music and musicians’ importance, but in the end, little changes.  That’s the ultimate test for the Sound Diplomacy report but whether it’s achieved doesn’t rest with the consulting firm.  Rather, it is in the hands of Memphians as a test of civic resolve and political will.

In truth, the ambitions of Memphis musicians are often modest.  Many aren’t talking about how to catapult to national prominence (although that would be nice); rather, they are talking about how, and if, they can make a living in Memphis doing what they love.

I’m reminded of attending a Bob Dylan concert at the New Daisy on Beale Street, and the person next to me said of someone standing nearby: “That guy is one of the best guitarists in Memphis.”  The person on the other side of me added: “And it put down the tile floor in my bathroom last month.”

It’s the reality of Memphis music today.  It showed up in 2003 when Richard Florida co-hosted with Carol Coletta the Memphis Manifesto Summit which was attended by delegations from 48 cities.  When Mr. Florida applied his definition of creatives to Memphis, the results were disappointingly small when it came to the numbers of musicians. 

It turned out that he was using IRS data and musicians often reported to the IRS that they had something like tile work as the primary source of income. (The same issue surfaced for New Orleans.)

Memphis’ Free and Wide Open Culture

It’s really not so surprising to those of us who know musicians here.  They tell about a city where every person is proud of Memphis’ music heritage but when they hire bands and musicians, they ask if they can pay them at a discount.

Another for the authors of music reports is building strategies that are not sterile when it comes to the fundamental DNA of Memphis but inject the characteristics that make Memphis so special in the first place. .

I’m reminded of comments by the legendary Jim Dickinson when we had lunch 20 years ago.  He talked about the distinctive independent spirit of the Memphis culture and its  musicians.  He went to Nashville but did not stay.  He said he preferred Memphis’ free and unbridled style over Nashville’s industrial approach to music. 

The Music Hall of Fame describes him and the music culture here  well: “Jim Dickinson embodied the spirit of independence in Memphis music, and he became a godfather and an inspiration for several generations of Memphis artists — musical, literary, and cinematic.  More than simply defiant, Jim was ever questioning, challenging the status quo and digging for a deeper understanding — of actions, of interpretations, of decisions.”

Rappers like Yo Gotti praise the same freedom and spirit that allow experimentation which has produced a variety of distinctive sound.  Back in the day, someone gave me a cassette tape (yes, a cassette of Memphis rap and when I told a friend we should listen to a Memphis rap tape, he asked if it was South Memphis, North Memphis, Frayser, or Whitehaven, and when I said “North Memphis, I think,” he asked what part of North Memphis.

In other words, there were no rules that had to be followed and because of it, hip hop here developed organically and distinctively, free of corporate mandates or expectations and leading to a variety of production styles.

The Memphis DNA

It is the absence of rules and the rejection of rules and expectations that makes Memphis music different, distinctive, and uninhibited, characteristics that remains the DNA of Memphis Music as much today as it did Beale Street was midwife to the American music that became the soundtrack for the world.

If there is any question about the special culture here, consider what British urbanist Sir Peter Hall wrote in his 1400-page tome, Cities in Civilization, which laid out the history of the world in the stories of about 20 cities.  His list included Memphis, and in around 50 pages, he concluded that in Memphis “a remarkable event in human history took place: cultural creativity and technological innovation were massively fused…The special reputation of the place, free and wide open, helped it all to happen…the music of an underclass could literally become the music of the world…This was a revolution in attitudes and behavior, as profound as anything that has happened in the last 200 years.”

In other words, when approaching Memphis music, it needs to be done carefully, because it is about a culture rooted in freedom and liberation that still exists and awaits ways for it to be leveraged for more value for musicians without losing what makes it special in the first place.

Because no Memphis export has had more impact than our music is passionate about this heritage and our favorite bands and musicians today, we all should read the recent $150,000, 169-page report by the consulting firm, Sound Diplomacy, which had been described as an assessment with recommendations for a plan of action.

Sound Diplomacy describes itself as committed to “building and supporting sustainable ecosystems that bring economic development to people, places, and cities.”  So, it should not be surprising that is more akin to economic development analysis than a creative economy assessment. 

Mayor Young has also been an enthusiastic booster and he has previously proven himself a big hip hop fan.   It makes sense that hip-hop should be a focus for Memphis music because it has prospered with little structural support (hopefully, a plan can also address Memphis’ national reputation as a place where rappers kill each other and whose music, according to reviewers, is heavy on violence and drugs).

Mud Island Amphitheater, More Questions Than Answers

It’s also unsurprising that it feels like an expansion and further refinement of the Chamber’s Economic Research Group’s 2023 Rhythm and Roots report, which followed Chamber head Ted Townsend’s cheerleading in 2022 at the Chamber annual luncheon for Memphis as a hip-hop center as part of his Digital Delta goal.  After all, the Chamber is a sponsor and advocate for the report.

The Sound Diplomacy report is chockful of graphs and charts and consultants’ buzzwords and feels weighted toward its sponsors, the Chamber and Mayor Young’s administration, but it’s well worth reading because it is ambitious, it aims high, and it challenges Memphis to step up to the plate with the money, the political will, the determination, and the persistence to actually execute a longer term plan. 

For me, the most valuable and informative part of the report is found in its 11-page SWOT analysis of music in Memphis.  It is thorough, instructive, and illuminating. 

As in any report of this kind, there are things to nit pick.  For me, the emphasis on Mud Island raises more questions than it answers but it was the recommendation that grabbed headlines as a result of the amphitheater being currently in the news.

Media headlines suggested that concerts in the amphitheater could create $25 million a year in economic impact but as comparables,  it used Huntsville’s Orion Amphitheater and Wolf Trap in Vienna, Virginia.  The former venue has about 30 concerts a year and the latter has 100.  

More Mud Island Questions

The report is silent on the cost of bringing the Mud Island amphitheater up to market standards – which could cost as much as $30-35 million – or why Mud Island is the optimal place for a downtown arena in the first place.  Using Huntsville’s 30 concerts as a yardstick for Memphis, it immediately raises the question of how to turn around Memphis’ national reputation as a soft market which deters concert promoters from booking here in the first place. 

As for 30 concerts, my recollection is that the amphitheater didn’t have that many concerts during its honeymoon period in the early 1980s.  In its later years of its operations, you could count its concerts in single digits.  For context, Snowden Grove, which is often held up as an example of the concerts Memphis should Mud Island, has 10 concerts this year.

The report did not mention the impact, if any, of the 1,300-seat Live Nation venue being built in Crosstown or Grind City Amp, the outdoor music venue at Grind City Brewing Company with capacity of 4,500 which is within walking distance of Mud Island.   The report suggests that increasing the city’s hotel-motel tax is a potential source of funding, but that fund’s increase to the maximum allowed by law has already been pledged to the renovations at FedExForum. 

But this is majoring in minors.  There is plenty of meat to the report in addition to the SWOT analysis.  There is asset mapping and some provocative dissection and extrapolation of data. 

We know from our history – and we suspect Sound Diplomacy would agree – that the report is the easy part.   We have proven in the past that the platitudes of support come easy, but the sustained attention to action falters. Hopefully, that will not be the case this time, particularly with a structured way to have musicians control their own destiny. 

Looking back, it certainly was definitely the wrong message about Memphis music when former Mayor Jim Strickland closed the 15-year-old Memphis Music Commission.  He said he believed private groups would better handle its duties, but it was his personality conflicts with the Commission staff that precipitated his decision to zero out its $225,000 budget. 

It sent the powerful message that Memphis music didn’t matter to city government, so Mayor Young’s outspoken support and he’s not relying on a board to translate his enthusiasm into action.  He created the Office of Creative and Cultural Economy which has major responsibilities assigned to it in the Sound Diplomacy report.   

Hopefully, the office can reverse a history of failure in our community.

Memphis Music Work in the Past

Contrary to Mr. Strickland’s opinion, private organizations have not been the answer.  There was the Memphis Music Foundation created in 2003 but after spending millions of dollars without much to show for it besides LA limousine bills and seats at the Grammys, it merged in 2014 with David Porter’s Consortium MMT (Memphis Music Town) which was founded to develop local music talent and help them increase their incomes.

 In the 1980s, The Commercial Appeal published an outstanding series about music and Memphis.  It led to an outpouring of financial support for a magic answer: to outfit a recording studio in an abandoned firehouse south of Beale Street for music producer Chips Moman who had written a legendary chapter in the city when he turned out hit after hit at American Studios.  The success was not to be replicated and after producing a mediocre album by Ringo Starr, he hustled to Nashville.

It didn’t help that it also smacked of racism.  Mr. Moman was White and attracted the financial support for Three Alarm Studio when only a few years earlier, the city watched quietly as the legendary Stax Studio building was demolished. 

All in all, these programs came and went without producing major results, which is why Memphis musicians and music advocates may be a tough audience to convince that there is real commitment to executing Sound Diplomacy’s recommendations.

As Sherman Wilmott summed it up in a comment on a Daily Memphian article about the Sound Diplomacy report: “The money to support music and the arts is there. Is the will? It’s strictly a guns and butter discussion. Cities and communities decide however they wish to prioritize their spending. 25 years ago, this community decided that NBA franchises (privately run and owned) are worth prioritizing. Since then, we have spent (including proposed taxpayer subsidies/grants) $900 million (approx. as per this news site) for approx. 50 years of subsidies. Were these same funds instead (properly) allocated and spent on the music industry and music scene (approx. $18 million a year), I promise you this city would be vastly different and vastly in better shape. (I wrote about this 25 years ago and shared proposals with Music Commission head Jerry Schilling). I would humbly submit that level of music investment would have paid off far more handsomely than the subsidies given for privately-owned sports teams. But it’s a decision that has been made already. The city can change its values and priorities at any time.”

Context for the Report’s Recommendations

Sound Diplomacy issued 25 recommendations with action steps for each.  It said every recommendation has been written with the intention of meeting one or more of the following goals (determined during inception of this work, and through research): 

• Grow domestic production and export in the Memphis music ecosystem
• Increase the role that music plays in Memphis’ diverse tourism offer
• Grow sustainable careers in music through ecosystem support and decent work
• Retain workers, businesses, and organizations
• Formalize support for the nonprofit sector and the essential part it plays in Memphis’ music ecosystem
• Attract artists, labels, and other entertainment related operations from elsewhere
• Further enrich and strengthen Memphis’ music identity of diverse heritage and future possibility
• Create an ecosystem that supports and values the music sector in Memphis, and in particular independent artist and intermediary professionals
• Identify and support key resources and expand organizational capabilities, particularly around increased communication
• Increase accessibility, equity, and diversity within the music ecosystem
• Improve and support music education in Memphis
• Grow the amount and degree of expertise that exists throughout the entire music ecosystem

Diversity, Access, Equity, Inclusion, and Sustainability Imperatives 

Examining the crucial aspects of diversity, access, equity, and inclusion within the music ecosystem is imperative. For this reason, Sound Diplomacy recommends the following considerations to be applied to all music-related programs and initiatives:

• Consider gender balance of the artists, creators and performers involved in music ecosystem programs.
• Consider gender balance of the speakers, trainers, and mentors involved in all training sessions, panels and workshops and,
  where possible, consider sessions that specifically address the unique challenges and opportunities faced by underserved groups.
• Ensure that the different brands and promotional materials feature a diverse representation of Memphians,
  including gender, ethnic, and cultural diversity.
• Establish criteria that considers gender, ethnic diversity and cultural inclusivity when providing financial support.
• For each program or initiative, actively seek collaborations with cultural organizations that focus on gender equity
  and cultural diversity, in Memphis, Shelby County, Tennessee, and the United States.
• Include KPIs and metrics specifically related to gender equity and cultural diversity in the strategy’s impact
  assessment of each initiative.
• Ensure accurate representation of the racial demographics of the city. With the majority of the population identifying as
  Black/African American, all marketing and any other city-led initiatives reflect this.

 Additionally, recognizing the pressing need for environmental consciousness, music ecosystems must prioritize sustainability. Embracing
sustainability is not just an ecological imperative but a strategic move that aligns with global environmental goals
and attracts environmentally conscious consumers, fostering a responsible and resilient creative economy. For these reasons,
Sound Diplomacy recommends the following considerations to be applied to all music-related programs and initiatives: 

• Consider environmental sustainability in the commissioning of artists, creators, and performers through
  music ecosystem programs.
• Ensure that environmental sustainability is a concern for speakers, trainers, and mentors participating in training sessions,
  panels, and workshops, with a focus on addressing the unique challenges and opportunities faced by marginalized
  groups wherever possible.
• Establish eco-criteria or bonuses when providing financial support.
• Actively seek collaborations with organizations that prioritize environmental sustainability and cultural diversity in
  Memphis, Shelby County, Tennessee, and the United States, for each program or initiative.
• Include Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and metrics specifically related to environmental sustainability in the impact
  assessment of each initiative.

Sound Diplomacy’s 25 Recommendations

Finally, Sound Diplomacy recommended the following recommendations:

Recommendation 1. Create a Music Ecosystem Development Fund
Recommendation 2. Introduce a Multisectoral Music Board
Recommendation 3. Champion Workforce Diversity through a Music Workforce Equity Subcommittee
Recommendation 4. Incentivize Improved Quality of Work across Memphis’ Music Ecosystem
Recommendation 5. Advocate for and Create a Fair Play Model
Recommendation 6. Found an Annual Memphis Recording and Publishing Conference
Recommendation 7. Provide or Sponsor Training and Networking Opportunities for Music Industry Professionals
Recommendation 8. Identify a Music Professionals Liaison Role for Visiting Artists and Intermediaries
Recommendation 9. Open a “Performance Equipment Library” to Improve the Quality of Local Live Music
Recommendation 10. Organize an Annual Memphis Hip-Hop Cultural Summit
Recommendation 11. Update the Chamber’s One-stop Shop to Incorporate Music-related Licenses and Permits
Recommendation 12. Create an All-ages License for Music Venues
Recommendation 13. Create an Events Sustainability Guide for Memphis
Recommendation 14. Implement an Agent of Change Policy
Recommendation 15. Define and Promote the Memphis Music Brand
Recommendation 16. Evaluate and Consolidate Promotional Websites and Calendars
Recommendation 17. Introduce an Inner City Shuttle Bus; Advocate for Improved Public Transport Provisions across
the City
Recommendation 18. Identify and Repurpose Vacant Spaces as Affordable Music Spaces
Recommendation 19. Create a Memphis Music Passport
Recommendation 20. Develop a Safety Campaign for Music Venues & Festivals
Recommendation 21. Improve the Individual and Social Health of Memphians through Music
Recommendation 22. Identify Infrastructural Issues on Beale Street and Initiate a Music-focused Rejuvenation Project
Recommendation 23. Develop Programming Initiatives that Encourage Daytime Activity on Beale Street
Recommendation 24. Advocate for Music Education as a Line Item in the Education BudgetRecommendation
25. Define and Formalize Routes for Young People to Gain Professional Insights and Experiences

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