Journey To Nawlins, Chapter XIV : Mem Shannon (complete discography)

The man from Phunkville

Mem Shannon is a bluesman. But a bluesman from New Orleans, which means that he plays his own local recipe of blues ― I called it Shannon's blue gumbo groove ―, a typical New Orleans mix of swamp rock & blues, R'n'B, soul…, all in a thick funk gravy, with a very attractive jazz underlining, and always a saxophone around. Appealing, exciting, spellbinding !

Born in New Orleans just before Christmas 1959, Shannon started to play guitar in his mid-teens, and got serious about it after seeing B.B. King in concert. King's economical playing style was a major influence for Shannon who always cover a few King's songs during his gigs, a fact largely confirmed through the videos selected below.

After high school he honed his skills by playing in several cover bands performing at parties, weddings, and local bars when possible. The untimely death of his father in 1981 obliged him to find a steady job to support his family as he was the oldest man left in the household. He then put music aside for a decade and drove a taxi in the Big Easy for the next fifteen years.

A taxi crossing Bourbon Street

This brought him a deep knowledge of human nature that he used later in his songwriting. On his first album, A Cab Driver's Blues (1995), his ten songs are interspersed with eight short real piece of chat with customers taped in his taxi, composing a colorful gallery of human specimens. The man has probably hundreds of funny or weird stories to tell from that period. Enough at least to continue feeding his gifted songwriting.

With the musicians
of The Membership version 2

This debut opus was released after he resumed playing music around 1990 and formed a new band, Mem Shannon and the Membership, that found gigs in a few clubs around Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. They also registered for and won a contest which earned them a performing spot at the 1991 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

In 1994, he sent a demo tape to Hannibal Records (a subsidiary of the Japanese company Rykodisc at the time) that contacted the band right away. The result was a contract and this first album, A Cab Driver's Blues, released in the autumn of 1995.
The album was widely and rightly acclaimed as an innovative blues work, and Shannon was saluted as the first major new talent to come out of New Orleans in years. Innovative ? That's the least considering his unique style which incorporates elements of almost any southern musical genre (swamp music, R'n'B, soul, rock, and jazz), most of the times with a hot funk touch.

All the different facets of Shannon's talent were already present in this first album : his cutting jazzy guitar playing, his vocal signature, his storytelling deeply anchored in reality. And his strong taste for funk !
The album opens with “Play The Guitar Son”, a moving homage to the man who offered him his first guitar : his dad. Many of his stories come from his observation of the world around him from his cab driver seat (“Taxicab Driver”, “One Hot Night”, “Got To Go”), or of the ups and downs of domestic life (“My Baby's Been Watching TV”, the definitely jazzy “Me And My Bed”, “The Boogie Man”, “Maxine”), or both (“If It Ain't The Blues”). In his next albums, his social commentaries will occasionally take a more political twist.

Musically, most of the tracks put out a funky laid-back groove, with  the gold medal for “Got To Go” carried by the gripping bass of Shannon's old accomplice Peter Carter. The silver goes to the fine jazzy blues “Me And My Bed” mentioned above. And some of the chats with his taxi users deserve the bronze for their picturesque humorous realism.

A few months later, from the stage of the 1996 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Shannon announced that he was going to park definitely his taxi and devote himself full time to music. And he did, touring clubs and venues in North America, Europe, Australia in the following years, and recording four more studio opuses and one live : 2nd Blues Album (1997, not a very sexy title, I agree), Spend Some Time With Me (1999), Memphis In The Morning (2001), I'm From Phunkville (2005) and the Live... A Night At Tipitina's (2007).

Confirming one's talent with a second opus is not easy, the risk of disappointing is great. With 2nd Blues Album from 1997, still on the Hannibal label, Shannon managed to avoid the danger by subtly introducing new flavors to his repertoire (he wrote the whole 11 titles), in particular gospel (“Old Men”), and Spanish-tinged Americana (the magnificent ballad “One Thin Dime”). He also “returns” to more “classic” blues (“Wrong People In Charge”, “Mirror Mirror”, “Do You 'Yuh' What I Say”).
Fortunately, he still gets funky (“Charity”, “Say That Then (The Parlez-Vous Français Song)”, “My Humble Opinion”, “Mr Blues”), and reserves a couple of spots for jazzy blues (“Down Broke” and to a lesser extent, “The Blues Is Back”).

Shannon's new label, Shanachie, released Spend Some Time With Me in 1999, produced by Dennis Walker, renowned for his work in particular with Robert Cray and B.B. King. Enhanced by the warm soul jazz feel of the horn section (Jason Mingledorff's clarinet & sax, Tracy Griffin's flugelhorn & trumpet, and Mark Mullins' trombone), the album opens with the stirring political funk “Who Are They”, followed by a reflection on his career and the music business, “Paying My Dues”.

Producer Dennis Walker
with Robert Cray

Much more lively and catchy than its predecessor this third opus features an array of his varied blues about the frustrations of life, with some outstanding tracks in addition to the two just mentioned above : muscular and rocking on “Dirty Dishes” about pharisees of all walks, and heavily funky with the laid-back humorous “Don't Talk About My Mama”, “The Last Time I Was Here (Millennium Blues)”, a kind of journey back through the hard times suffered by African-Americans, “Spend Some Time With Me”, and the excellent “No Such Thing” subtitled “My Humble Opinion: 2nd movement”, a sequel of the same title from the previous album.

Dispersed between those, are ballads like the soul “Not My Friend”, the gospel-tinged “Pray For The Children”, the country-flavored “A Certain Shade Of Blue” with pedal steel guitar, Spanish-inspired guitar and Shannon's close-to-crooning vocals, or the moving “Mother's Love”.
There's also “Born In This Time” mixing the throw-back clarinet-lead music composed by famous film score composer Maurice Jarre and Willie Boyd, with lyrics from West Coast bluesman Hi-Tide Harris.
Thirteen fine tracks and not far from being Shannon's best album…

Always on the Shanachie label and still produced by Dennis Walker, Shannon's fourth album, Memphis In The Morning, was released in 2001. For the first time since his debut, Shannon left New Orleans and moved to Memphis to record at the renowned Ardent Studios. Is it the reason why this opus is his more polished one ? Maybe…
For the first time also, contrary to his three previous albums, he didn't write all the songs, but covered B.B. King's “Why I Sing The Blues”, at last officially paying his dues to one of his big influences, and Junior Wells' “I Smell Something”.

The Memphis Horns in studio

In Memphis, tradition wants you to have in the studio the most famous big horn section in the country, The Memphis Horns. They soak the whole album with their warm R'n'B riffs and give it the legendary Memphis sound flavor, while Shannon's guitar playing has gained in “bbkingness”, a smooth and economical but intense style.
This refined opus still keep the inimitable Shannon's touch and features some stand-out tracks : his hard beat version of “Why I Sing The Blues”, revisited as a political charge against Uncle Sam with new verses specially added, or the moving “Tired Arms”, a slow country-tinged sorrowful ballad about a boy grown up by his loving grandpa.
Shannon also indulges in heartfelt soul ballads about the eternal  throes of love like “You Belong to Him”, “I Love the Way You Love”, “Unconditional Love”. And naturally he puts out some of his inimitable funk (he rather pronounces “fonk” by the way) : the rocking horns-driven “Drowning On My Feet”, the humorous but realistic hit song “S.U.V.”, “Invisible Man”, the excellent Wells cover “I Smell Something”, “Shake Up The Floor” and the final “Doing The Best That I Can”.

After two albums on Shanachie, Shannon signed with the young Canadian label NorthernBlues Music from Toronto and produced himself I'm From Phunkville which came out in 2005.
A return to Shannon's original jazzy funk, or rather… phunk ! From Memphis he has brought back a taste for horns sections. The one here plays with the unmistakable New Orleans “second line” style, and features a still young Trombone Shorty on one track, the mellow late night jazzy ballad "Perfect World".

Robert Dabon

The band is built around a nucleus featuring veteran organist Robert Dabon (ex Chocolate Milk, Albert King, Etta James), saxophone & clarinet player Jason Mingledorff (ex Galactic, Dr. John), and drummer Doug Belote (ex Anders Osborne, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux) who leaves his seat to Josh "The Little Kid" Milligan on about half the tracks.

Doug Belote

The album features only one cover, but a surprising and appealing one : Lennon-McCartney's “Eleanor Rigby” going back to 1966. Shannon takes full possession of the song in a dark pounding mood so that if it wouldn't be for the lyrics you'd think he wrote the tune.
He introduces a Latin mood in the nice “The Lights of Caracas (I Didn't Know)” while the appealing jumping blues “Sweet Potato” has a clear jazz feel (with fine piano from Robert Dabon). The pounding “No Religion” looks more at the “R” of R'n'B than to the “B”, and the soul “Forget About Me” features a good guitar part from Shannon, while guest guitarist A.C. Gayden, Jr. takes his turn on "Battle Ground".
In the funk range, Shannon's talent for coming out with catchy tracks is intact. Demonstration with top meaningful tracks like the horn-fueled “The Reason”; the second-liner “Swing Tiger Swing” dedicated to golf champ Tiger Woods; a couple of funky R'n'Bs : the humorous “I'll Kiss a Pitbull”, and “Ignant Stick”, a bitter political commentary; or the album's blues closer “We Going”, filled with horn riffs, Mingledorff's sax, Dabon's organ, and Shannon's seducing guitar and vocals.
The main dish is the outstanding 10-minute “Phunkville”, a real gem of hypnotic jazzy mid-tempo funk rolling down with clockwork tightness : delicate blues guitar phrasing of the intro, galvanic bass and drums but full of roundness, and an organ worth Allen Toussaint !
An exciting opus, one of his very best if not the best one.

After five acclaimed studio albums, it was logical that Shannon immortalized on disc his energetic live performances and shared them with the blues world.
Mem Shannon Live : A Night At Tipitina's was issued in 2007 by NorthernBlues Music.
Ten live tracks were selected : seven from his previous albums, the great new original “All I Have”, a cover of “I Won't Back Down” from Tom Petty & Jeff Lynne, and a version of his fellow New Orleanian band The Neville Brothers, “Voodoo” (written by Cyril Neville with Daryl Johnson & Brian Stoltz).

Let me just confess that it was the first full Shannon work I ever heard and I was so thrilled that I started right away to look for his other albums. A Night At Tipitina's is actually one of the hottest live work I have come across in a long time, a real treat.

Michael Angelo
Nocentelli

Shannon is at his top in every compartment of his repertoire, highly expressive vocally and on guitar. Lining up regular “Members” Robert Dabon on keyboards, Jason Mingledorff on sax and the excellent Josh "The Little Kid" Milligan on drums, the band also features two more sax players, Joe Cabral and Tim Green, and on bass nobody else than ex-Meters Leo Nocentelli's brother Michael Angelo.
The band is tight as can be, running like a clockwork tuned engine, and without loosing the hot tempo, the songs stretch out hypnotically (most of them at least over 5 minutes, among which two run around 12 mn), leaving space for the musicians to express their respective talented skills, including of course Shannon's impressive rhythm guitar groove and stirring solo licks.

Jason Mingledorff

The whole bunch delivers a volcanic collection of funk : “Payin' My Dues”, “Smell Something”, “No Religion”, a riveting version of “Who Are They”, “No Such Thing”.
Shannon's new original, the deeply moving slow ballad “All I Have” is an over-7-minute poignant evocation of the loss felt after the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, enlightened by Mingledorff's nostalgic sax. A beautiful song. It is symbolically followed by the cover of Petty's hybrid rock “I Won't Back Down” allowing Shannon to put out a stellar guitar part.
After the soul “Forget About Me” comes the magnetic 12-minute eerie swamp atmosphere of “Voodoo” spiced with a kind of psychedelic touch. The album closes with a version extended to 13 minute of Shannon's iconic “Phunkville” and its gripping rhythmic breaks.
On either of these last two numbers, Shannon is particularly impressive on guitar, and with his musicians he takes you along for a journey in a far away musical land existing only in imagination except for your feet beating up the floor frenetically for real.
A superb live recording. I'd dare say exceptional !

The last Shannon's recording I got hold of, Live at Tallahassee's Bradfordville Blues Club, is more recent, it was taped in 2016, and is a puzzling outing. First, though I couldn't get any confirmation, I'm pretty sure it's a bootleg (judging in particular by the cheap front cover) and not a self-produced work as the mention (“www.memshannon.com”) printed on the CD disc might let you think.

Paul McCartney & John Lennon

Secondly, except his revisit of Lennon-McCartney's “Eleanor Rigby” (already on I'm From Phunkville), Shannon's repertoire doesn't feature any song of one or the other of his previous albums. Instead, he covers blues classics, in particular from B.B. King (“The Thrill is Gone”, “Ain't Nobody's Business”, “The First Time I Met The Blues”, “Black Cat Bone”, “Three O'Clock Blues”), and even delivers an unexpected 13-minute version of “Chameleon”, Herbie Hancock's iconic electro-funk piece from 1973.

This bootleg, most likely made against his full approval, set apart, Shannon didn't officially release anything since A Night At Tipitina's. 16 years away from the studios despite his evident talent, why ? Mystery… at least for me. Excess of humility  which prevented him from putting himself forward ? Refusal to submit to the dictates of a recording industry which only thinks in financial terms while others talk about music and art ? Or just dried inspiration ?
Still, Shannon remains active on the touring circuit. That's what the videos below show : in 2023 for example, he played at the Bradfordville Blues Club in Tallahassee again, and at the new Ground Zero Blues Club in Biloxi... ■


Audio Discography
► 1995, A Cab Driver's Blues : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_n_NaY1izrLgSVNNyz6FFTLJHrSTeL0dKc
► 1997, 2nd Blues Album : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nj3K-HiyLRs1Fp58RB3mufveQ_VwMNE-I
► 1999, Spend Some Time With Me : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_m8ZWmDn_I_4_YkeTvq5Z_H05WH3qIsTG0
► 2001, Memphis In The Morning : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nJpS3OLhKM7Zx1OJ4Bs8rl-XqncFt_jXA
► 2005, I'm From Phunkville (incomplete home-made audio playlist) :
→ 01 The Reason : https://youtu.be/OBgTAAMeZpw
→ 02 Swing Tiger Swing : https://youtu.be/q-qiVv0Jzuo
→ 03 Perfect World : https://youtu.be/p4E22M8uTmw
→ 04 Phunkville : https://youtu.be/CVWaKjr9LDw
→ 05 I'll Kiss a Pitbull : https://youtu.be/yLrvKtetR3c
→ 06 Battle Ground : https://youtu.be/ZCjpf6y8guk
→ 07 The Lights of Caracas (I Didn't Know) : https://youtu.be/2ygFJSMtmy8
→ 08 Sweet Potato : missing
→ 09 No Religion : https://youtu.be/rlKpmTbkF8c
→ 10 Forget About Me : missing
→ 11 Eleanor Rigby (Lennon-McCartney) : https://youtu.be/c1NEQIpNULI
→ 12 Ignant Stick : https://youtu.be/82aBwT59WsQ
→ 13 We Going : missing
► 2007, Live... A Night At Tipitina's : https://youtu.be/4kA_oUZbGUE
► 2016, Live at Tallahassee's Bradfordville Blues Club : missing

Videos

► “I Smell Something”, 2006 :
→ Rivershack Tavern, Jefferson, LA : https://youtu.be/gikXFpWbNBU
→ Teddy's Juke Joint, Zachary, LA : https://youtu.be/poda3THRkKg
► “No Religion”, Tipitina's, New Orleans, 2006 : https://youtu.be/-lSFO9HRwcA
► Why I Sing The Blues”, Cafe Boogaloo, Hermosa Beach, CA, 2007 : https://youtu.be/jXPnXzk0oBM

► Teddy's Juke Joint, Zachary, LA, 2007 :
→ “Let's Go Get Stoned” : https://youtu.be/9EDmzLdjxtE
→ “Don't Talk About My Mama” : https://youtu.be/WRsRpbnnl0k
► From the Tipitina's 2007 concert :
→ “Who Are They?” : https://youtu.be/i-hAdwMULzA
→ “All I Have” : https://youtu.be/VmvxP6yIW94
→ “I Won't Back Down” (Tom Petty) : https://youtu.be/jpGI7PtgtHY
→ “Forget About Me” : https://youtu.be/AZHSb2U-YW8
→ "No Religion" : https://youtu.be/YXjkHiRiC9E
► Louisiana Music Factory, New Orleans, 2007 : https://youtu.be/pZqOAtbcdUQ
► “Eleanor Rigby” (Lennon-McCartney), Ensisheim, France, 2008 : https://youtu.be/xyP_IVxhpqE
► BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups, St. Louis, MO, 2009 :
→ Color : https://youtu.be/DoZ2W8BtyUo
→ B&W : https://youtu.be/bcBPFqp6QBQ

► New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, 2011 : https://youtu.be/gbhfssx7XYs
► Chickie Wah Wah, New Orleans, 2011 :
→ “The Thrill is Gone" (B.B. King) : https://youtu.be/5cX6MBCwhlE
→ “Voodoo” (with Lance Ellison on sax) : https://youtu.be/CEFL6EQHuA8
→ “We Going” : https://youtu.be/YTm9ShS4byI
→ “Every Day I Have the Blues” : https://youtu.be/6GTiz9uaFeo
► The Hwy 99 Club, Seattle, WA, 2013 : https://youtu.be/DZVHN-4IAps?t=145
► Bamboula's, Frenchman Street, New Orleans, 2014 : https://youtu.be/maxPTPv8tjs
► "The Thrill Is Gone", Teddy's Juke Joint, Zachary, LA, 2015 : https://youtu.be/toFn3kD8zDI
→ “Say That Then”, Creole Tomato Festival, 2016 : https://youtu.be/6WENXZA3-kA
► "Sweet Little Angel" (B.B. King), Club 30/90, New Orleans, 2017 : https://youtu.be/QI2iQrwzlVg
► "The Thrill Is Gone", with Ed Wills, Bywater Tracks, New Orleans, 2018 : https://youtu.be/Jnjc_ADq1GQ
► Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival, New Orleans, 2018 : https://youtu.be/CqwdFNFU35w
► With the DeRangers, Range Cafe, Bernalillo, NM, 2018 : https://youtu.be/I2T1CbOaVBE
► Bamboula's, Frenchman Street, New Orleans, 2019 : https://youtu.be/MuG23wfKxpE
► The Funky Uncle, New Orleans, 2020 :
https://youtu.be/0rFEFhw2dj4?t=617
► “Phunkville”, with Jason Ricci and the Bad Kind, Chickie Wah Wah, New Orleans, 2020 : https://youtu.be/K_-65jwROuM
► All-Star Jazz Ensemble, featuring Mem Shannon on guitar, Alabama Slim on guitar, Will Barnett on drums, and Michael Angelo Nocentelli on bass, The New Orleans Jazz Museum, 2021 : https://youtu.be/3lCqa75QSzw
► Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival, New Orleans, 2022 : https://youtu.be/bgPvxPy_Vb4
► “The Thrill Is Gone”, with DK Harrell & Sam Joyner, Teddy's Juke Joint,  Zachary, LA, 2022 : https://youtu.be/yx3PG3LEZqc
► Live at Bradfordville Blues Club, Tallahassee, FL, 2023 : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzC1Yxuw0r4FZnkjqHbI4iEyqGCDROIcg
► “Ain't No Sunshine”, Ground Zero Blues Club, Biloxi, MS, 2023 : https://youtu.be/emBPNLohRLI