Mark Edgar Stuart "Mad At Love" official music video

TRIUMPH OUT OF TRAGEDY FOR MARK EDGAR STUART

MADJACK RECORDS TO RELEASE TOP MEMPHIS SONGWRITER’S ‘MAD AT LOVE’ OCT. 12

 

“I CAN’T WAIT TO HEAR HIS LATEST ALBUM, MAD AT LOVE.” – GARDEN & GUN MAGAZINE

 

In a one-year span, top Memphis bassist-cum-songwriter Mark Edgar Stuart was diagnosed with lymphoma and lost his father to a heart attack. The combination shook up his world. While convalescing from chemotherapy, he started fingerpicking and working on his singing, neither ever focuses for Stuart, who was long one of Memphis’ first-call bassists, having played with Cory Branan (including on the Late Show with David Letterman) and Jack Oblivian (on ‘Rat City’), among others. He met Levon Helm on Beale Street while playing and the two talked about their mutual Arkanasas origins; Mark used Levon as an inspiration to beat cancer (the latter was in remission at the time). And Mark did. But his father passed away, he found songwriting as the outlet which his grief took. Madjack Records will release ‘Mad At Love,’ Stuart’s third and most mature album, on October 12, 2018.

‘Mad At Love’ tackles tough subjects, often couples in trouble. Special guests include Amy Lavere, Liz Brasher, and Al Gamble (of St. Paul & The Broken Bones) on the album, which was produced by Stuart and Fat Possum’s Bruce Watson.

 

Stuart’s first two albums each earned reviews as some of the best of Memphis. Memphis Commercial Appeal said, “One of the city’s best songwriters… Subtly and Expertly crafted.” Memphis Flyer wrote, “One of this city's most vital music-makers… Both 2013's Blues for Lou and last year's Trinity My Dear were revelatory.” No Depression called him a “great raconteur.” He appeared on PBS’ national television show Sun Studio Sessions.

 

Befitting the comparisons to Todd Snider and Robbie Fulks, Stuart’s songs take on multiple meanings over time. ‘Mad At Love’ turns out to be about a widow’s grief but her lack of regret; “Missing You Everyday” is about losing a brother in Afghanistan but pivots on a moment when, not long after his death, the brother’s bass fell and shattered of its own accord; and “Barren Love” explores couples staying together for the sake of a child. “Until We Came Unglued” sees the impact of the death of a beloved pet on a relationship. Stuart says, “I wrote ‘I’ll Be Me’ for my father-in-law or anyone who is struggling with addiction. He's pleading with his loved ones (his daughter/ my wife) that he's going to get better and walk a straight path.  He's no longer going to be someone she doesn't know anymore.”

 

Two-thousand-eighteen marks Madjack Records’ 20^th anniversary. The storied label has released albums by Cory Branan, Lucero, Susan Marshall, and many others.

 

Stuart also contributed bass to Alvin Youngblood Hart, John Paul Keith & The 145s, Jim Mize, Jimbo Mathus, and on sessions for GRAMMY-winner Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price, John Prine).

 

Mark Edgar Stuart Tour Dates

 

September 16 – Millington, TN– The Shelby Forrest General Store

September 18 – Oklahoma City, OK – Blue Note Lounge

September 21 – Red River, MN – Red River Folk Festival

September 28 – Little Rock, AR – South On Main

September 30 – Memphis, TN – Railgarten

October 20 – Memphis, TN – Railgarten (Madjack Records 20^th anniversary show)

ROLLING STONE SPOTLIGHTS MEMPHIS’ IMPALA, FEATURING MEMBERS OF THE BO-KEYS AND AFGHAN WHIGS

Memphis’ Impala – and instrumental band that draws from surf, spaghetti western, noir, blues, and soul and features members of the Afghan Whigs and The Bo-Keys – has released ‘In The Late Hours’ on Electraphonic Recordings and it’s earned notice from Rolling Stone, American Songwriter, Memphis Flyer, Elmore, and Glide. Here’s what we’re reading:

“A truly unique sound, one that’s retro without lapsing into mimicry.”
- Robert Crawford, Rolling Stone, August 24, 2018: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/10-best-country-and-americana-songs-of-the-week-eric-church-jillian-jacqueline-715173/

“4 stars out of 5… mighty… compelling.”
- Hal Horowitz, American Songwriter, August 21, 2018

“Intoxicating.”
- Neil Ferguson, Glide Magazine, August 9, 2018

Mark Edgar Stuart artwork

Click for high res

Credit: Johnathan Thomason

Credit: Johnathan Thomason

Credit: Johnathan Thomason

Credit: Johnathan Thomason

MEMPHIS INSTURMENTAL COMBO IMPALA TO RELEASE 1ST ALBUM IN 12 YEARS WITH ‘IN THE LATE HOURS’ (AUGUST 24 / ELECTRAPHONIC RECORDINGS), CELEBRATING BAND’S 25TH ANNIVERSARY

MEMPHIS INSTURMENTAL COMBO IMPALA TO RELEASE 1^ST ALBUM IN 12 YEARS WITH ‘IN THE LATE HOURS’ (AUGUST 24 / ELECTRAPHONIC RECORDINGS), CELEBRATING BAND’S 25^TH ANNIVERSARY

SCOTT BOMAR (THE BO-KEYS, DON BRYANT, HUSTLE & FLOW) AT THE HELM

 

One of Memphis’ stalwarts of the great ‘90s garage scene, instrumental band Impala, will return with ‘In The Late Hours,’ out August 24 on Electraphonic Recordings, drawing on Memphis’ garage, blues, and soul traditional and incorporating surf, spaghetti western, music from spy movies, and music to strip by. It’s the band’s first album since 2006's ‘Night Full of Sirens.’

Embed:

The band has impeccable credentials: its debut was co-produced by Sun Records and Jerry Lee Lewis veteran Roland Janes; they opened shows for Dick Dale and Davie Allen & The Arrows; had music in George Clooney’s film “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.” Scott Bomar, the group’s bassist, began producing and running his own studio, formed the seminal blues-soul combo the Bo-Keys, and began composing, creating scores for films such as Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan and Mississippi Grind. Other Impalas include trumpeter Marc Franklin, who was a member of the bands of Gregg Allman and Bobby "Blue" Bland, and drummer Paul Buchignani, formerly of The Afghan Whigs.

Impala reformed in 2017, and after woodshedding with a series of local gigs, returned to the recording studio to create this brand-new album, aptly titled In the Late Hours. Recorded at Bomar’s Electraphonic Studios in downtown Memphis, In the Late Hours features ten intoxicating guitar- and sax-driven R&B songs, born out of that golden era of Memphis music when rockabilly, rhythm and blues, jazz, garage and soul music collided. These songs channel potent ghosts—namely, Packy Axton, Willie Mitchell and Ike Turner, all pioneers of Memphis’ instrumental scene—but they’re hardly derivative. They bristle with urgency and make your heart beat fast.

Impala photo

Click for high res

Click for high res, credit: Dan Ball

Impala bio

Impala was formed in Memphis, TN in the early 1990s. Their first long

player, El Rancho Reverbo, was co-produced by the legendary Roland
Janes (Jerry Lee Lewis' guitar player and session player at Sun
Records) at Sam Phillips Recording Service. After receiving rave
reviews and gaining exposure playing one-niters across the South East,
Impala was picked up by West Coast label, Estrus Records. The band's
first release on Estrus was Kings of the Strip, recorded at famed
Easley Studio in Memphis. Following the release of this album, Impala
toured relentlessly, appearing at Garage festivals such as Garage
Shock, Sleezefest, Crap Out and Dixie Fried and appearing on shows
with guitar legends Dick Dale and Davie Allen and the Arrows. Over the
past decade numerous films and television shows have featured the
band's music. Most notable is Impala's arrangement of Henry Mancini's
"Experiment in Terror" in the George Clooney's, Chuck Barris biopic,
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.   

When Impala surfaced on the Memphis garage scene in 1993, local
audiences hardly knew what hit them. The group built a sonic time
machine that, once you paid the cover charge and crawled on board,
might deposit you in 1955, 1967, or 2239. With just one song, they
could turn gritty, dumpy Barristers into West Memphis' time-honored
Plantation Inn, the home of their musical ancestors like the Mar-Keys,
the Packers, and the Royal Spades. Another tune would drop you into
Ennio Morricone's wasteland desertscapes; still another would
transport you to a New Orleans whorehouse, on a magical night when all
the girls were turning tricks for free. Instrumentals exploded from the amplifiers with a rumbling guitar, a honking sax, the type of drumbeat that
liberated strippers from their spangled costumes, and a
steeped-in-Memphis tradition bass line. The kind of nervous energy
that could propel a sensible Catholic schoolgirl into the arms of a
dangerous man, make a sailor catapult off the mast into a stormy sea,
or cause a veteran gunslinger to fire madly into the air before
plunging over a rocky cliff. The 'party now, because we're gonna pay
later' attitude that pervades the Southern consciousness, from
Tennessee Williams' plays to Jerry Lawler's ringside antics.

Estrus Records released Kings of the Strip (recorded at Easley-McCain
Recording Studio) and Square Jungle (cut at Sam Phillips) soon
followed. Impala proved perfect for then-nascent filmmaker John Michael
McCarthy, who needed a score for his movie Teenage Tupelo. Several
years later, George Clooney tapped Impala's back catalog for a medley
of Henry Mancini's "Experiment in Terror" and Duane Eddy's "Stalkin'"
which ended up in the Chuck Barris bio pic Confessions of a Dangerous
Mind. Another song, "Incident on the Tenth Floor" was used in the
trailer for the indie flick Way of the Gun.

The time spent offstage was never dull, the men of Impala amused
themselves with genuine Italian switchblades (purchased, naturally, at
an Arizona truck stop), intra-vehicular fireworks (Missouri's Boom
Land was a favored stop), and detours to shake joints, BBQ stands, and
Norman Petty's recording studio (where Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, and
the Fireballs laid down infamous tracks) in Clovis, New Mexico.

A mythology, hammered home with songs like "Ronnie and the Renegades"
and "Last Tango in Turrell," was carefully built, then carelessly laid
to waste by beer-fueled gigs and burnt roadmaps, even as Impala wrote
tunes like "Wild Night at the Bloody Bucket," an homage to onetime
Carl Perkins' pianist Bill Grantham, who worked alongside Bomar at
Select-O-Hits, and "King Louie Stomp," a salute to fellow musician
King Louie Bankston of New Orleans' Royal Pendletons. "Choctaw" turned
Jorgen Ingmann's momentous "Apache" inside out and regionalized it,
while "Cozy Corner" acknowledged the Bluff City's best pork ribs. The
never-before-released "Amarillo," meanwhile, proved to be the final
nail in the coffin – cut at the end of the session for Impala Play R&B
Favorites, released on Estrus in '99, it languished in the vaults for
years as the last number Impala ever recorded. Combust or be combusted, these songs instructed. Destroy yourself before the music destroys you. Praise the drumbeat, and pass a bottle of booze to the stage. One final album, an anthology called Night Full of Sirens, was released on Bomar’s label, Electraphonic, in 2006.

Then Impala disappeared. The band was put on ice. Members of the group found other ways to make a living: Bomar, the group’s bassist, began producing and running his own studio, formed the seminal blues-soul combo the Bo-Keys, and began composing, creating scores for films such as Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan and Mississippi Grind. Other members turned to bail bonding in Memphis, doing private detective work, and freelancing for various combos at honkytonks and “adult-themed” nightclubs across the U.S.

Yet their muse pursued them like a siren’s call. Unable to resist, Impala reformed in 2017, and after woodshedding with a series of local gigs, returned to the recording studio to create this brand-new album, aptly titled In the Late Hours. Recorded at Bomar’s Electraphonic Studios in downtown Memphis, In the Late Hours features ten intoxicating guitar- and sax-driven R&B songs, born out of that golden era of Memphis music when rockabilly, rhythm and blues, jazz, garage and soul music collided. These songs channel potent ghosts—namely, Packy Axton, Willie Mitchell and Ike Turner, all pioneers of Memphis’ instrumental scene—but they’re hardly derivative. They bristle with urgency and make your heart beat fast. They’ll make you wish for a time long past—when men wore hats in the street and women wore silk stockings fastened with a sexy garter belt. It’s music that is a remedy for hard times. Put it on, and let your mind wander. Take refuge in those darker places. Pour yourself another drink. And make sure the door’s locked—it’s later than you think.

-Andria Lisle, Memphis, TN

-->