Review by Steve Leggett
Memphis musicians recognized the elasticity of Beatles material early on, with Otis Redding tackling "Day Tripper," for instance, and Booker T. & the MG's deconstructing and reassembling the entire Abbey Road album as an instrumental collage on their impressive McLemore Avenue album, while Memphis bands like Big Star used Beatlesque guitars and vocals to state their own vision. Fried Glass Onions is a noble attempt to let some contemporary Memphis musicians try their hand at interpreting the Beatles, and the result is always interesting, if not always striking. The problem with covering Beatles' songs is always this: The group's original version continually plays in the back of the listener's mind as a template, and few artists have a chance at bettering it. While the music here is impeccably recorded, and the songs are certainly fun to hear in these new settings, only a few of them actually transcend the original versions. The ones that do, though, are gems. Daddy Mack Orr recasts "Get Back" (which is perhaps the Beatles song that sounded most Memphis to begin with) as a slow, burning North Mississippi blues, complete with slide guitars and some smoldering harmonica work from Billy Gibson, and the song somehow emerges as both more ominous and more insistent. "You're Gonna Lose That Girl," sung by veteran soul singer Bertram Brown, uses that smooth, relentless Hi Records groove to create what sounds like a lost Al Green single, and opens up the rhythmic possibilities only hinted at in the Beatles' version. Guitarist Lamar Sorrento, accompanied by his band, the Mod Saints, turns in a slash and burn instrumental take on "A Hard Day's Night" that crackles with sharpness and energy, effectively drawing and expanding on the driving dynamics of the original. In all, Fried Glass Onions has a fun yet reverent feel, and if most of the covers here fail to chase the original Beatles version from your head, well, that probably wouldn't necessarily be a good thing anyway. One can only dream of what might have come out of a planned Beatles recording session at Memphis' famed Stax studios, a session that unfortunately never came to fruition.
CD 1:
01. Bob Simon & Eddie Harrison - Two Of Us
02. Daddy Mack Orr - Get Back
03. Z-Da - Day Tripper
04. Charlie Wood - Happiness Is A Warm Gun
05. Jackie Johnson - Blackbird
06. Bertram Brown - You're Gonna Lose That Girl
07. Matt Tutor - She Came In Through The Bathroom Window
08. Memphis All-Stars - Drive My Car
09. The Beat Generation - Yer Blues
10. John Kilzer - Across The Universe
11. Gusto (Featuring Dexter Haygood) - The One After 909
12. Dani - Old Brown Shoe
13. Lamar Sorrento & The Mod Saints - A Hard Day's Night
14. Kevin Paige - A Long And Winding Road
CD 2:
01. John Kilzer - Glass Onion
02. Charlie Wood - Back In The USSR
03. Garry Jones - I Wanna Be Your Man
04. Eddie Harrison - Lady Madonna
05. The Billy Gibson Band - For You Blue
06. Dani - Oh Darling
07. The Beale Street Syncopaters - Martha My Dear
08. Z-Da - Why Don't We Do It In The Road
09. Charles Ponder - In My Life
10. Memphis All-Stars - Here There And Everywhere
11. John Kilzer - Glass Onion (Reprise)
12. Memphis Meets the Beatles Studio Band - All You Need Is Love
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