Memphis defined American music. How did it miss out on the money? | The Excerpt

On the Monday, May 25, 2026, episode of The Excerpt podcast: American music is rooted in Memphis. The city helped shape the sound of a nation yet hasn’t fully shared in the wealth it created. A new push aims to revive its modern music scene. USA TODAY National Correspondent Chris Kenning joined The Excerpt to discuss how Memphis is working to turn its musical heritage into a lasting comeback.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Dana Taylor:

You can't tell the story of American music without the blues, which means you can't tell it without Memphis, from Beale Street's blues bars to the Stax Museum of American Soul Music to Graceland. The city's influence on nearly every genre of music is immense, but for a city that helped shape the sound of America, why hasn't it fully shared in the wealth it created? Hello and welcome to USA TODAY's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Friday, May 22nd, 2026.

The story of music in Memphis is still being written today. For more on its rich music history and efforts to revitalize the modern Memphis music scene is USA TODAY National Correspondent Chris Kenning. Chris, it's so good to have you back on the show.

Chris Kenning:

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Dana Taylor:

Chris, what drew you to this story?

Chris Kenning:

I've always been a huge fan of music of all kinds, and I knew that Memphis was a real cradle of musical history, but in recent years, a lot of the headlines I'd seen coming out of the city tended to be on the negative side. There were headlines about crime, headlines about Trump administration deploying the National Guard there, and it seemed to be sort of losing its place a little bit to Nashville, which was booming. And so I really wanted to go and get a sense of where the city's music stood, both its historical sites and what was coming out of the city today.

Dana Taylor:

You traveled to Memphis. I know that you spent time with Pastor Juan Shipp. His story spans decades from the days of legendary recording studio, Stax Records, home to Otis Redding and Isaac Hayes all the way up to today. Tell me about Pastor Shipp.

Chris Kenning:

Pastor Shipp is an amazing character. He's 87 years old, and he really spans the city's history and present in a way that I thought was so powerful. Back in the '60s, he was a clergyman at a local church, but he was also into gospel music, and he had a gospel radio show, and it was a time when Stax Records was really big. Otis Redding, it was really the soul sound coming out of Memphis was incredible. And the records that Pastor Shipp was playing on his show, these gospel bands, where the quality of the recording was not so good. So he set about trying to improve that. He found a studio above a burger joint in downtown Memphis and started recording some of these incredible gospel bands. Some were known and some weren't known at all, and started laying down some incredible stuff. He kind of developed the sound that he became known for.

By '72, he had started his own label, D-Vine Spirituals. But eventually by some point in the '80s, the music industry had changed. He wound up going back to the ministry, and he had all these master recordings that kind of sat in storage for years and years and years.

Decades and decades later, someone approached him about finding the old masters. And so they were dug out, and a producer began to reissue them under a new label, and they really experienced kind of a renaissance, got a lot of attention. And so he's now retired from the ministry, but he's back recording bands again under this kind of newer label, he's back in the studio, and he's got a new radio show where he highlights gospel. So he's just a big proponent of giving what's going on currently in Memphis. It's due along with that, the history that a lot of people know about.

Dana Taylor:

What did Shipp share with you regarding changes in the music scene in Memphis over the past seven decades or so?

Chris Kenning:

Well, the city has gone through a lot of changes and ups and downs, some of them very well known, but the music industry there that was so strong, you had in the '60s, starting in the '60s and earlier and later in that era, you had Sun Records, Elvis, you had Stax and Otis Redding and Sam and Dave and Isaac Hayes.

And then in the '70s, Stax went under, and it was kind of this period of in the years that followed Martin Luther King's assassination there in the city, the downtown kind of started to suffer and some of the recording artists in an industry went to Nashville or Atlanta over the years, but not everybody. And I mean, there were studios that kept going. Royal Studios is a really famous one. They recorded Al Green and others as well.

And then in the '90s, the hip hop sounds of Three 6 Mafia became very influential and remain influential to this day in a lot of modern hip hop. And then people will remind you that GloRilla is one of the world's biggest hip hop stars right now is from Memphis. And there's also a lot of musicians and bands that travel with tours and stuff. There's just talent everywhere you look there.

Dana Taylor:

We have this revered music that's coming out of Memphis. Then we also have the city itself, and I really want to circle back to that. Memphis has seen its share of ups and downs, hasn't it?

Chris Kenning:

It really has. And I think one of the things that really struck me there was there's a feeling that it's kind of an underdog place. A lot of people had actually used that word, that it's a place that really doesn't get its due. A lot of people come to see Beale Street, the blues bars, they come to Graceland to see Elvis's home, and they'll go to the different music museums that they have there, Sun Records. But there's a feeling that there's not a lot of attention on this incredibly vibrant scene that's going on right now, whether it's really cool little music bars that host lesser-known bands or really cool hotels that are music-themed and have DJ scene there. There's just a lot happening there that people sort of feel like doesn't get the attention it deserves.

Dana Taylor:

You wrote that from a music standpoint, many question why Memphis hasn't captured more of the value from its creation. I want to pull on that thread. What's the real story there?

Chris Kenning:

Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I think it gets to that same idea of feeling like they've been watching Nashville, which took up the Music City moniker, really boom, really grow as a city and feeling like Memphis has kind of been left behind. And the city has done a lot to redevelop parts of its downtown, but it hasn't seen the same level of growth. And so I think there's a lot of people wondering why doesn't Memphis have more of the music publishing industry, for example, more recording studios, more artists making it their base when it did contribute so much to the music scene. And so that's kind of a conversation that's been happening a long time in part because I think people feel like the fortunes of Memphis and the fortunes of its music scene are kind of tied together.

Dana Taylor:

Memphis mayor, Paul Young, says his preservation efforts are more than a heritage project. How is he looking to jumpstart the local economy?

Chris Kenning:

I think he sees that the fortunes of the city and its music scene are really tied together in the same way. I mean, he started an office that is kind of designed to create more opportunity for artists, for the recording industry, for the tourism industry, for music tourism, for live music, because really they see it as their kind of largest cultural export. So they're trying to marshal, whether it's government funding or private funding or business investment, wherever it comes from, to create more infrastructure around things like existing programs that already exist. They point to things like a program that helps Memphis artists get their music placed in films and commercials and things like that. There's another group that provides touring grants to up-and-coming bands to help them go on the road and make a name for themselves and kind of be ambassadors for Memphis and sort of build that out as much as they can.

Dana Taylor:

I want to turn now to the hopes of people like Memphis music promoter, Nick Barbian, to grow the music economy there. Is live music seeing a resurgence, or has live music ever fallen off in Memphis?

Chris Kenning:

I got to spend an evening with Nick Barbian as he was opening a new venue that's just a little outside the city, and it's been years in the making, and it's a 4500-seat showcase venue, and it's one of two that's opening this year. So there's a lot of excitement around that because while there are music venues, they were missing some that were in a certain size that a lot of touring bands wanted. One of them is a Live Nation venue, which is important to draw in bands. So that's a really important aspect of that kind of larger picture, I think, financially, but also just for building a scene where up-and-coming Memphis groups can perform and hone their sound.

Dana Taylor:

And then the hopes of music makers like Grammy-winning artists, Dwayne Eric Thomas Jr., better known as MonoNeon, have Memphis-based artists been able to capture value from the music they create?

Chris Kenning:

Yeah, it was interesting speaking with him. He was at the opening night of the Grind City Amp, and he said he lived just right up the street and loves Memphis, but most of what the touring he does is outside the city. And he said that he was a real advocate for trying to create more opportunities for the music scene, for the artists who would like to have music publishing right there and things like that. But he also kind of acknowledged that it's tough. I mean, a lot of artists do have to uproot and go to one of the bigger industry hubs like Nashville or LA or New York or Atlanta.

Dana Taylor:

After everything Memphis has given to American music, did you get the sense while you were there that this is the moment the city finally keeps more of what it creates?

Chris Kenning:

Absolutely. I think there's a real sense of momentum there, and it's a hidden gem that a lot of people don't see, and it's poised for a lot of growth. That was the thing I kept hearing over and over again. People would point to places like Bar DKDC, which is a really tiny music space that has hosted guys from the Black Keys to play there. They point to places like the Memphis Listening Lab, which is a repository of like 60,000 records where people can go in and sit in a leather chair, listen to a catalog of music from the city and beyond and just countless, countless exciting things that are happening there. So I think there's a lot of hope that there's momentum building for that.

Dana Taylor:

Chris Kenning is a national correspondent for USA TODAY. Such rich storytelling here. I really enjoyed this piece. Thank you so much, Chris.

Chris Kenning:

Thanks for having me.

Dana Taylor:

Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. That's today's The Excerpt. We'll be back tomorrow morning with what's next before your day gets going.