Memphis articles
 

ROAD TO MEMPHIS "It's born!" said David Bryan as he made his way down a red carpet into Finz in Salem on Thursday night. That's where a gala after-party was held for "Memphis," which enjoyed its world premiere at the North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly earlier that night. Bryan, the Bon Jovi keyboardist who collaborated on the music for "Memphis," was beside himself with joy, as was fellow collaborator Joe DiPietro, director Gabriel Barre, and Jon Kimball, NSMT's artistic director. Jon Bon Jovi had attended the opening but couldn't make the party because his wife wasn't feeling well. "I loved the show," Bon Jovi said before disappearing into a limo. "I know that David has been working his [butt] off for five years, and he really deserves all the attention." Lead actor Chad Kimball, playing the role of a Memphis DJ who first played "race music" on a white-owned station, was also at the party. "This is the biggest role I've had. I love the energy of it," said Kimball, who attended the Boston Conservatory before moving to New York. "People say that it's hard to sing a rock score night after night, but if it challenges you, you can sing it forever." Also at Finz was Ruth Pointer (of the Pointer Sisters), who hung out with cast member Cynthia Thomas, with whom Pointer had toured in "Ain't Misbehavin'." Pointer noted, "I was talking to David [Bryan], and he said they've been working him hard. And I said, `David, if you want to work hard, the theater is the place to go.' "

http://www.boston.com/ae/celebrity/a..._pinkers_mind/

Rock 'n' roll lives in 'Memphis'
By Ed Siegel, Globe Staff, 9/27/2003

BEVERLY - When rock 'n' roll meets musical theater the result is usually rock 'n' snooze. The rebelliousness of rock and the uplift of show music often make for pretentious crossovers rather than for harmonious soul mates.


Not so for "Memphis,'' which blends the virtues of both genres into a most agreeable mix in its world premiere at the North Shore Music Theatre. To its credit, the theater averages one new work a year, and this is easily the best since "Abyssinia'' in 1995. It is also, judging from Thursday's opening-night audience, a real crowd pleaser.

By now, of course, early rock 'n' roll doesn't threaten the empire the way that it used to, or the best of rap or alternative music does today. That kind of rock rebellion was mainstreamed when Elvis went Vegas, if not when he went Hollywood. Oldies stations finished the job.

The story concerns the life of white disc jockey Dewey Phillips, who broke down radio barriers by introducing rhythm and blues, then called race music, to radio. Unlike the utterly conformist "rebels'' on today's commercial rock stations, Phillips - here renamed Huey Calhoun - followed his muse into the heart of African-American music.

"Memphis'' is more restrained than he was, but the musical still captures the teen spirit of the 1950s while telling a compelling story. The show unites the talents of Joe DiPietro ("I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change''), who wrote the lyrics and book, with the musical compositions of Bon Jovi keyboardist David Bryan. The result becomes "I Love You, You're Black, Let's Rock,'' as the heart of the story involves a mixed-race romance between Calhoun and a singer named Felicia Farrell.

Bryan's music is a wonderfully deft blend of gospel, R&B and Broadway melodies, all the more impressive considering his lack of experience with show music. In fact, everything about "Memphis'' is intelligently and professionally executed. DiPietro's writing and Gabriel Barre's savvy music-in-the-round direction never let the story bog down, and every time you think the show is headed toward the maudlin or mundane, they shift the action and throw in new sparkle.

Much of that sparkle resides in the two very likable leads, played by Boston Conservatory graduate Chad Kimball and Montego Glover, who was last seen hereabouts playing the young Alberta Hunter in ``Cookin' at the Cookery'' with the Huntington Theatre Company. Both are fine singers and even better actors. It is amazing how Kimball, who looks like a cross between Patrick Swayze and Jack Paar, can make the same head swivels and hand gestures connote naivete in the first act and braggadocio in the second. And there's not a false note from the strong supporting cast or from the band.

What the show could use are more blue notes in just about every category - the writing, music, and singing. DiPietro's lyrics aren't nearly as witty as in ``I Love You.'' Bryan purposefully leans more to gospel and r&b than electric blues, but the music is almost too upbeat. (Rather that than the opposite, which is the downfall of many a contemporary musical.)

A good deal of the difference between show music and rock or blues singing lies in the vocal range. Show singers tend to cover a wide range, while rock singers are more likely to home in on a narrower but more distinctive style. These singers understandably lean more toward show music, which does the trick, but which can also make ``Memphis'' seem a bit generic at times.

Nevertheless, the rock 'n' roll spirit is alive and well in ``Memphis.'' Most welcome is the putdown of the Wonder Bread antichrist of rock 'n' roll, Dick Clark, who inherits the mantle that Phillips/Calhoun should have worn. Calhoun's fall from grace is handled with particular skill. The downturn in his fortunes tells the story of rock's commodification and limns how Calhoun's virtues became his flaws.

Despite that fall, the final anthemic song leaves the crowd dancing. It's emblematic of all the talent and intelligence that went into this uncommonly good contemporary musical.

Ed Siegel can be reached at siegel@globe.com.

Memphis

Musical in two acts. Book and lyrics by Joe DiPietro. Music and additional

lyrics, David Bryan. Based on a concept by George W. George.

Choreography, Todd. L. Underwood. Set, Bill Stabile. Costumes, Pamela Scofield. Lights, Phil Monat. Sound, John A. Stone.

At: the North Shore Music Theatre, through Oct. 12. 978-232-7200.

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

Let's Rock 'n Roll: New Musical Memphis World Premieres at NSMT Sept. 23
By Andrew Gans
23 Sep 2003


Memphis, the new rock musical from Joe DiPietro (book and lyrics) and David Bryan (music and additional lyrics), begins its world-premiere run Sept. 23 at the North Shore Music Theatre.

Chad Kimball, who memorably portrayed the cow Milky White in the Tony winning revival of Into the Woods, heads the cast of the production, which will play the Massachusetts theatre through Oct. 12 with an official opening scheduled for Sept. 25.

Directed by Gabriel Barre, the company of Memphis also includes Randy Aaron, Edward Barker, Derrick Baskin, Anika Bobb, J. Bernard Calloway, Catherine Carpenter, Kevin Covert, Kevin Duda, Montego Glover, Frank Lawson, Neal Mayer, Susan Mansur, David Piel, Wayne Pretlow, Jenelle Lynn Randall, Sarah Stiles, Stephan Stubbins, Nell Teare and Cynthia Thomas.

Memphis concerns the story of a white deejay who plays African-American music to his white listeners in the 1940’s, “unknowingly giving birth to the music known as rock-n-roll.” About the production, North Shore Artistic Director and Executive Producer Jon Kimbell said, "Memphis is a rock 'n roll piece designed to reflect both modern and historical musical styles. We are extremely proud to be the first theatre in the world to produce [the musical]."

DiPietro — of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change fame — explained, "In working with David Bryan, a bona fide rock star, we were able to be true to both the roots of rock 'n roll and to what audiences want to hear today. This is a story about the era when black music was introduced to white, teenage audiences. It was a turbulent time, an exciting time, and that musical revolution did, indeed, change the world." And, co-author Bryan added, "It will be an entertaining eye opener for many people. And, as the composer, my goal is for the audience to walk out the door snapping their fingers and singing the tunes. That's what a good musical is all about."

The creative team for Memphis comprises George W. George (original story concept), Todd L. Underwood (choreography), Galen Butler (music direction), Daryl Waters (orchestrations), Christopher Jahnke (music supervisor and additional arrangements), Bill Stabile (scenic design), Phil Monat (lighting design), John A. Stone (sound design), Pamela Scofield (costume design) and Gerard Kelly (wig design).

The North Shore Music Theatre is located on Dunham Road in Beverly, MA. Tickets — priced $26-$64 — are available by calling (978) 232-7200 or by going to the theatre's website, www.nsmt.org.

http://www.playbill.com/images/photo...ontegoChad.jpg
Montego Glover (L) and Chad Kimball of Memphis.

Thanks Becky - I wish I could get to Boston to see it. It sounds like something I would like. Maybe it will stay around for awhile.

Kathleen

Score one for `Memphis': Bon Jovi keyboardist adds rock touches to DJ musical
By Terry Byrne
Wednesday, September 17, 2003

Inside a rehearsal room adjacent to the North Shore Music Theatre, young actors run through their lines, another group works on some dance moves and a third chats with director Gabriel Barre about the logistics of a particular scene. It looks like a typical rehearsal until the composer sits down at the piano.

That's because this composer, David Bryan, is moonlighting from his regular gig as keyboard player for the rock band Bon Jovi. Now that the band has finished its tour, Bryan is sitting in on rehearsals, writing new songs and tweaking others as he prepares for the world premiere of ``Memphis,'' which opens Tuesday.

``It's not really that much of a stretch musically,'' says Bryan. ``As a classically trained musician, part of my role in the band is to add a broader musical palette. When Jon (Bon Jovi) and Richie (Sambora) came in with `Dead or Alive' (one of the band's biggest hits), they had guitar sounds. I put in the strings, the color and the voicings. I see the emotional content of the lyric and build that into the song. The music has to validate what's being said.''

What's being said in the case of ``Memphis'' comes from the pen of Joe DiPietro, best known for ``I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change.''

``I was originally commissioned to write a show about Dewey Phillips, the Memphis DJ who introduced black music to white audiences, and I loved the character,'' says DiPietro. ``He was a rebel, and in the segregated South what he was doing was dangerous. But he didn't do it for money, he did it for the love of the music, which he wanted to share with the world. It's really about the power of one.''

DiPietro says it was also important to work in a love story as well as the darker elements of danger and heartbreak that were a part of Phillips' life.

``I don't think you can underestimate how completely segregated Memphis was,'' says DiPietro. `` `Hairspray' is more of a cartoon version of the story.''

After sketching out a story and some lyrics, DiPietro sent out his draft to various people who might be interested in composing the score for him.

``I was looking for someone who could give the story a rock 'n' roll feel,'' says DiPietro. ``But when I got a call from David I was completely surprised. I'd never gotten a phone call from a rock star before, and I didn't know if he was dangerous or anything.''

``Are you kidding?'' interrupts Bryan. ``The most dangerous thing we ever did was break into a roller-skating rink.

``When I read the script, I immediately heard every one of these songs, and it was not drug induced,'' Bryan says, laughing.

``He made a demo of `Music of My Soul,' '' says DiPietro, ``and it was perfect. He understood right away that this song defines the lead character'' (renamed Huey Calhoun for the musical).

``The biggest challenge for me was staying true to the characters and writing from their point of view,'' says Bryan. ``One minute I had to tell myself, `OK, now I'm a black teenage girl, now I'm a club owner, now I'm a worried mom.' As long as I can build a memorable melody around the character, I'm set.''

Although the process for getting a musical onstage is usually slow, both DiPietro and Bryan say ``Memphis'' has gone remarkably fast.

``I saw a workshop production of the show last year and fell in love with it,'' says Jon Kimball, NSMT artistic director and executive producer.

``We were shocked,'' says DiPietro, ``because he came up to us at intermission, before he'd even seen the second act, and said he wanted to do a full production in his following season.''

The creative team brought in Barre, and he cast Chad Kimball, a Boston Conservatory grad who starred in the now-legendary production of ``Side Show'' there as well as on Broadway as Milky White in the revival of ``Into the Woods.''

``The show does what musicals can do best,'' says Kimball. ``It captures the joy of music and how it can change lives. Musical theater is all about the emotions passing the intellect and going straight to the heart. That's what `Memphis' does.''



( ``Memphis,'' at North Shore Music Theatre, 62 Dunham Road, Beverly, Tuesday-Oct. 12. Tickets: $26-$63. Call 978-232-7200 or go to www.nsmt.org

Walking in Memphis
A new musical resurrects an unheard rock-and-roll hero
BY CARLY CARIOLI
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The Memphis creative team

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The Memphis disc jockey Dewey Phillips is not as well known to most people as Alan Freed or Dick Clark, and that’s one reason to welcome a new musical that will get its world premiere this Tuesday at the North Shore Music Theatre. Memphis, with book and lyrics by Joe DiPietro (I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change; The Thing About Men) and music by Bon Jovi keyboardist David Bryan, centers on one Huey Calhoun, a freely fictionalized Dewey doppelgänger.

The real Dewey was dramatic enough: he was the first to play Elvis Presley on the radio, and by then he was already a pioneer (the pioneer) in playing, in the late ’40s and early ’50s, on a program he called Red Hot and Blue, a mix of black rhythm and blues, white country music, boogie-woogie, and jazz for a mixed-race audience. His personal style was as unhinged, unkempt, and unruly as rock and roll would soon become. A pill-popping hillbilly speed freak shouting and singing and talking back to the records as he played them, he invented and personified the image of the fast-talking, jive-spewing madman DJ. The musicologist Robert Palmer once wrote that Elvis Presley’s early "musical ideas were, at their essence, the compression of a Dewey Phillips radio show into a single song, a single person."

In Memphis, Huey Calhoun is a disc jockey who grows up poor, falls in love with both black music and a black woman, and alters the course of American culture. "We used the rough outline of Dewey’s professional life and then fictionalized it for dramatic purposes," says DiPietro. Think of it as a Hairspray with less John Waters than Muddy Waters. "It’s about the rise of rock and roll as seen through the eyes of the early white DJs who were the first people playing race music for white audiences. What was compelling about the story to me was the joy and freedom of this new type of music, and this dramatic conflict — a time where what this music represented racially was so frowned upon that it was downright dangerous to play these records, let alone make them."

In the end, Dewey Phillips was a tragic figure: his wild-man persona was no act, and it combined with years of drug abuse to form a volatile man who after pioneering the idea of playing records on television (two years before American Bandstand) proved too reckless for the air. He was fired when his co-host, in a monkey suit, manhandled a girl on a live broadcast; he sank into depression, drug abuse, and obscurity and died early.

Is Memphis a tragedy? "To some degree," says director Gabriel Barre, "although I think the audience will find that the show is a celebration of Huey’s life, and certainly wonderful things come out of his efforts. And in the end, what will be inspiring is that he stuck to his guns. But there are tragic things about his life that we don’t shy away from, that give it tension and truth. Our Huey takes painkillers, which in our show was the result of, at first, self-medicating an injury from an attack by three white racists, and we see that as well. We’re making a careful attempt to tell it like it was.

"I especially love doing musicals that are about music, because you ease that tricky leap that people in the audience seem hard-pressed to make — people singing their thoughts — when music is the lifeblood of the show itself, as it is for Huey. And one of the things I was drawn to is, it’s a great metaphor for the arts in general — breaking down cultural and racial barriers even if that wasn’t the goal originally. He really just loved the music, and inadvertently woke people up to the fact that we’re all of one race, the human race."

Memphis runs September 23 through October 12 at the North Shore Music Theatre, 62 Dunham Road in Beverly. Tickets are $26 to $63; call (978) 232-7200.



Issue Date: September 19 - 25, 2003

"Memphis" brings Bon Jovi to Beverly

By THOMAS LAKE

Staff writer


BEVERLY - These women slept in their cars near the ticket windows on a bitterly cold night, waiting to be first to get seats for the Gillette Stadium show. They bought season tickets for the Philadelphia Soul, his new arena football team, even though none of them live within 200 miles of Philadelphia. If Jon Bon Jovi told them to jump in the river, well, you never know.

Two members of Bon Jovi, the '80s hair band that can't stop rocking, appeared at the North Shore Music Theatre last night to see the new musical "Memphis." Waiting breathlessly for them were at least five of their biggest fans - all part of the Backstage With Jon Bon Jovi club.

"Best live band in the world," said Arlington resident Sarah Purcell, 22. "I did 16 (shows) this year."

Bon Jovi keyboardist David Bryan, who co-wrote the music for "Memphis," stepped onto the scene at about 7:30 p.m., dressed in a dark double-breasted jacket and shiny blue tie.

"He looks awesome!" said 40-year-old Cheryl Quattrini of Tyngsborough, as a growing crowd surrounded Bryan.

Do you like Massachusetts? someone asked.

"I've seen the inside of this building ... " said Bryan, 41, indicating the theater.

"David, you're hard to get pictures of (at concerts)," said Maureen Robidoux, 38, of Pelham, N.H.

"Tell that man in the middle to move," Bryan replied. "Those lead singers ... "

Bon Jovi himself appeared at 8 sharp, wearing a red leather jacket and blue corduroys, and the fans nearly smothered him. Almost mechanically, he began signing autographs.

"I've got a blank check, Jon," a man yelled. "Can you sign that, please?"

As Bon Jovi waded toward the theater's front doors, the mob flowed with him - but it dispersed once he reached the lobby. Instead of finding his seat, he headed for the men's room.

Two guards were posted at the door, just in case.

The show's after-party took place at Finz restaurant in Salem, where close to 20 yards' worth of red carpet awaited the stars. But at about 11 p.m., theater officials got word that Bon Jovi would not attend.

He told them his wife was sick, and he was taking her home.

"Which was admirable," said a clearly crestfallen Julie Arvedon, spokeswoman for the theater.

Bryan drew hearty cheers when he finally showed up at almost 11:30. He ambled down the red carpet, pumping his fist once, and disappeared inside the restaurant.

Minutes later, members of the Backstage With Jon Bon Jovi fan club were still outside, searching for ways to crash the party.

Their adoration was not wasted on Bryan.

"It's great," he said. "You're nothing without your fans. You really are nothing. You're home alone."


http://www.ecnnews.com/cgi-bin/s/the...?slug-rockstar

becky you talking to yourself? i thought that was just me :P


thanks for all the info, it all makes a nice read