Sunday Night at Huey's

If you know Memphis, and I have no idea how you found my little dog and pony show here if you don't, you know about Huey's. For 873 consecutive years now, Huey's has been voted Best Burger in the Flyer's Best of Memphis annual polling. (Sadly, we lost the founder and owner of Huey's, Thomas Boggs, this year. Tom was one of our best corporate citizens, the kind every businessperson should be.)
On various Sunday nights, mostly at Huey's Downtown (Third at Union), but occasionally at Huey's Midtown (Madison at Tucker), DiAnne Price and Her Boyfriends hold court. Yes, I've written about DiAnne and her band before. You need to hear it again. Trust me.
(Disclaimer: DiAnne has been my friend for 17 years. We worked together for seven of those years. That friendship influences my opinion of her performing not one iota. This is Music, people! Friendship with Your Humble Blogger gets you nothing!)
DiAnne Price (vocals and piano), Tim Goodwin (electric and upright bass), Tom Lonardo (drums and percussion) and Jim Spake (soprano and tenor saxophone) are, plain and simple, the most accomplished musicians in Memphis. Don't trust me? How about some credentials: Goodwin and Lonardo are both professors in the University of Memphis music department; Spake's discography is utterly mindboggling-check it out at jimspake.com; and DiAnne won Memphis Magazine's Best Female Vocalist award in their music poll for so many consecutive years that they retired the category! They are the best.
And they are the best at everything. Blues, Jazz, Standards, they've got it. Covers and originals. Live and on any of their five cds. The only problem with the recordings: no cd can capture what they deliver live.
One of the mysteries of Life in River City: why are people like these playing in a hamburger restaurant? For the same reason, I guess, that Rufus Thomas was sort of a joke here in town, but has a civic park named in his honor in a city in Italy. For the same reason that B.B. King always plays at his local club to a number of empty seats.
I don't know what that reason is, by the way. I've heard several reflections on the matter. Memphians have so great a musical heritage that we've become jaded. Too many terrific active musicians. Downtown's dangerous. Too far to drive. And downhill from there.
I tend to think that it's a problem with priorities. Music's intrinsic value to life cannot be overstated. Meanwhile, we've done everything possible to devalue music: removed it from school curricula, stopped learning to play instruments since everyone can operate a cd player, even making a mess of recording now with all levels being pinned to the maximum possible volume.
Most people at this point have never heard the gentle fade into night of Mahler's Ninth Symphony, most of the fun that the Beatles and George Martin had with the endings of any numbers of their songs, the plaintive sigh of Robert Johnson in Hellhound on My Trail, the glorious work of John Pizzarelli's hands on a guitar. But I digress.
Unless you are such a vegan that you cannot be in a place where meat is being served (and my niece is one, and still loved the show!), then you really should make time to check the Huey's website (hueyburger.com, follow the Live Music link), find when DiAnne is scheduled, and show up. I unreservedly guarantee that you will be glad you did!