Music In the Grass!

The real reason for living in Memphis is the music.  No surprise there.  But a fabulous surprise popped up a few years (I believe three) ago.  One of our cultural touchstones and flashpoints for years was the Overton Park Shell.  The thing has a fabulous history, but it fell into disrepair.  The city didn't have the money to fix it, or wanted to spend the money elsewhere.  The Save Our Shell folk were largely folkies, which means that their heart was in the right place, but they had no wallets.  Then, magically, the Mortimer Levitt Foundation appeared.  Never heard of them?  Me, either.  And I had no great enthusiasm for a non-local not for profit taking over our Shell.  I could only see a brief reprieve before it would be abandoned.  Pyramid II, anyone?
Well, how wrong can I be?  Pretty darned wrong!  The Levitt Foundation is awesome.  We are now entering (I think) our fourth season of free concerts every Thursday through Sunday, from mid-May until early July, and then again in September and October, fifty-plus shows in all! 
The menu always includes every imaginable genre.  Many performers are young and new, but name people are also included.  This spring, Jimbo Mathus will be back.  Todd Snider makes his annual appearance. Steve Forbert is coming, too.  Then, in the fall, this year's benefit will be performed by goddess Emmylou Harris!  To quote Matt Damon, "How 'bout them apples?"  
This is a family experience for us, as most things are.  That is to say, Dancing Baby loves the Shell.  She has named this excursion "Music in the Grass."  When she could barely walk, she was shaking her little booty to any/every beat in Overton Park.  She has been asking for the last three weeks when Music in the Grass is.  Tomorrow night, baby, tomorrow night!  And the first show, Thursday, is The Stooges Brass, a New Orleans band with horns!  That is DB's favorite music.  On Friday, The Cedric Burnside Project will play the blues as only a grandson of RL Burnside can.  Saturday will bring The Wandering, with Luther Dickinson playing and leading the band, and Amy Levere, Shannon McNally, Sharde Thomas and Valerie June doing the singing.  Sunday, it's The Boogers, a group advertised as Barney's nightmare and the antidote for the Wiggles.  They make those familiar kids' songs rock! 
So, if you can make it down this weekend, and if you're within a hundred-mile radius you should be, look for the precious little three year old who's just jammin' out.  That'll be Dancing Baby, in all her glory!  And Grandmommie and Granddaddy won't be too far away.