A special three-hour program focusing on the music and culture of Memphis — featuring an interview with noted author and documentary filmmaker Robert Gordon — took place on the Dec. 5 edition of Greasy Tracks.
Click here to check out an archive of the program, while a playlist is here.
Gordon talked about how he embraced the 25th anniversary of his debut book, It Came From Memphis, publishing a revised and updated version with Third Man Books, the literary imprint of Jack White’s Third Man Records. The just-out tome features more than 80 new photos, updated text with additional interviews and a new layout.
Following in the footsteps of legendary music writers Peter Guralnick and Robert Palmer, Gordon’s latest effort is perhaps the definitive tale of the how music played a key role in Memphis — especially from the 1950s through the 1970s, but even onwards — as the city went through an array of social and cultural changes with a seemingly endless cast of fascinating characters.
Gordon has written six books and produced or directed eight documentaries, including the Emmy-winning Best of Enemies — about the televised 1968 debates between William F. Buckley, Jr. and Gore Vidal — which took honors for Outstanding Historical Documentary in 2017.
He won a Grammy for his essay for the four-CD Big Star collection, Keep an Eye on the Sky and four of his documentaries have earned Grammy nominations, including Johnny Cash’s America; Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story; Muddy Waters Can’t Be Satisfied and “The Road To Memphis” which was an episode of Martin Scorsese’s The Blues.