At B. B. King`s 70th Birthday Bash, Memphis Won but the Music Lost.

" The musicians at B. B.`s 70th Birthday Bash were among the best in the business. The music they made was not. "

By Ross Gohlke

Friday night, Oct. 27,there was a music event at the Orpheum Theatre with all the lights, cameras and hoopla that accompany a King.

Saturday night, Oct. 28, only a few blocks away, in a hard-to-find alley bar without a lighted sign, there was another major music event.

For all the differences in appearance, both shows had one important thing in common. They both featured some of the world`s finest musicians. B.B. King`s 70th Birthday Bash at the Orpheum brought together dozens of recording artists, including Willie Nelson, Boz Scaggs, Slash, and Keith Richards (in a video message) to pay tribute to King. Over at Barrister`s on Saturday night, the It Came From Memphis CD Release Party had a performance by the Hi Rhythm Section, the band that helped Al Green and others make countless hit records.

Although the two shows shared top-quality music, they came at it from totally different angles. The Birthday Bash was a well-publicized first-rate production complete with stretch limos, local luminaries and Hollywood searchlights to mark the entrance. Unfortunately, the Barrister`s show didn`t receive the advertising support or publicity of the Bash. That didn`t diminish the performances, though.

The musicians at B. B.`s 70th Birthday Bash were among the best in the business. The music they made was not. In the midst of occasional feedback from the vocal mic, unrehearsed set changes, and (for the most part) a single band to back a dozen performers, it shouldn`t come as a surprise that the music lost out. At an event like the Birthday Bash, efficiency of time gets top priority. The Birthday Bash was incredibly successful in its goal of giving Memphis a crack at participating in a world-class party for one of its world-class sons. And in that capacity it made for a wonderful evening. But it showed how the glitz and bright lights of superstardom, when it does come to Memphis, can eclipse the sounds of great music coming from back-alley dives like Barrister`s.

The Hi Rhythm Section still calls Memphis home.They don`t play here every weekend, but when they do, they make it hard not to dance. Percy Wiggins` vocals and stage presence are no match for Green, but his sweet tenor packed enough heat to sometimes sway the audience, sometimes make it lose control. Guitarist Teenie Hodges, who wrote many of the songs on the group`s new album, was careful never to lose his cool while playing the hot licks.

The performance wandered the range of blues, R&B and soul, alternating new songs with old staples. The Hi Rhythm Section`s show was bookended by local favorites Big Ass Truck, a group of white kids with a healthy appreciation for their black roots. They got the ball rolling with a short set early on and picked the instruments back up after the old guys went home. Their sound combines elements of early soul arrangement with more contemporary techniques like sampling, an approach demonstrated so adeptly in their treatment of Al Green`s hit "I`m a Ram," which, appropriately enough, was co-written by Teenie Hodges. The bar was crammed with people who heard about the show from a friend, or saw a flyer nailed to a telephone pole, or maybe saw a print ad somewhere.

Many of them came costumed from Halloween parties, and they came ready to get down. When the Hi Rhythm Section finished their set around 1 in the morning, the crowd demanded that they come back. On the night before, by the time B. B. King came onstage Friday night to jam with Slash almost four hours after the event had started, the audience`s attention was waning and their applause was hardly enthusiastic.

Monday morning the stars had all gone home, B. B. King was back on the road and Memphis music faded out of the spotlight once again. Luckily for Memphis, the music has never needed the spotlight to survive, though a young B. B. King, playing on a Beale Street corner 50 years ago, did need an audience with pocket change. Few of today`s local musicians even have that.