While it’s one of the great music cities in the world, the story of Memphis, TN is generally told as one about Elvis, BB King, Isaac Hayes, and possibly Justin Timberlake - artists from the history books or well on in their careers. Roots music fans might know more contemporary talents like songwriters Amy LaVere and John Paul Keith. Many others simmer along in that city’s bars and clubs, but one has to go there to get up to speed on the talent pool. Southern Avenue is different - a breakout band from Bluff City with national acclaim, a renowned record label, and a musical voice grounded in native soil and native soul. It’s the band today’s Memphis has needed.
In Episode 328 of The String, the band’s lead singer Tierinii Jackson and guitarist Ori Naftaly tell me that the scene there is vibrant and a bit insular, but deeply supportive.
“It's a learning ground,” says Jackson. “It's really over-saturated with good musicians, and a lot of them are comfortable just working the gig circuit there. So when you get a band who's willing to go out for more, everybody's rooting for you, because you go out and you represent. We have a big legacy, and somebody's got to do it.”
“Old Memphis is old Memphis. New Memphis is what you're really like talking about. And that is something that people don't really see,” Naftaly says, following up. “It just feels like everybody's supportive of you making it, and not just making it playing Elvis covers or playing the same oldies. They want to see you write original songs, and they want to see you succeed on your own.”
Perhaps one day Southern Avenue’s story will be part of Old Memphis lore. It certainly has core Memphis values - family, soul, and culture-crossing. It starts with Ori Naftaly growing up in Israel in a home with a music enthusiast dad and early access to the guitar. He honed his craft and started a band, which won a place at the International Blues Challenge in 2013. They didn’t win, but they were finalists and the trip changed Ori’s life. He moved soon thereafter and started living the life that the band depicts in “Long Is The Road,” the opening song of their newest album. “A debt to his heart left him without a dime, So he put it in a song and turned water to wine,” Tierinii sings with her sisters singing the call and response harmony vocals.
Meeting Tierinii was the lynchpin to making his dream viable. Ori heard her singing in town, then recruited her and her sister Tikyra on drums, along with a fleshed out rhythm section. Their shows were acclaimed enough that they got a deal on the historic Stax label, then recently revived under the ownership of Concord Music. Soon, Luther Dickinson got involved as a collaborator and supporter, while Memphis legends like William Bell were calling them “stars of the future.” Their albums made deep impressions on the blues and Americana charts. And Southern Avenue continued to tour internationally.
Along the way, just to make it sweeter, Ori and Tierinii fell in love, married and started a family. Recently, a third Jackson sister, Ava, joined the band bringing her voice to the gospel-trained chorus and her violin for overtones of jazz and the country blues. All this meant that the title and narrative of album number four was a foregone conclusion. Family, recorded by Memphis legend Boo Mitchell at his family’s great Royal Studio, has 14 original songs (counting three short but effective interludes) with a narrative flow.
“We wrote our story - how we met and became a band - chronologically,” Ori says. “We wrote it song by song. This is a concept album where it literally has a chronological history of how we got to this point.”
Tierinii points to her sister’s move to join the band as a game changer. “It felt like it was always meant to be. Now we're a team, and now we understand why we've been through what we've been through. And now we can finally make the music that we were meant to make. If Ava's there, then we can do the three part harmony, and we can take it back to the gospel roots and just be who we are to our core.”
The Jacksons are Memphis natives and some of the most interesting parts of this interview are about the tension between the girls’ deeply religious mother and their need to tour the world in a band, as well as the story of Ori getting to know her and winning her trust. I was lucky to catch them. They’re moving a hundred miles an hour and going way beyond the comfortable confines of Tennessee.
