Savor the Sweet Sounds of the Memphis Sheiks

" They [the lyrics] just come to me. If I don`t like `em, I don`t play `em. But if I don`t get them out of me, I`ll go crazy. "

By Heather Flood

The Memphis Sheiks' Diamond in the Bluff CD coveris worth more than a thousand words because it captures everything about the dynamic duo that is the Sheiks. Their musical styles, personalities and heritage - it's all there in the picture, just take a close look.

The Memphis Sheiks are Delta Joe Sanders and Robert Nighthawk II. They've been playing together since 1991 and last year released their first CD, Slow-Cooked Pig Meat.

Backed by a favorable rush of reviews from music critics, the two released their second CD this month, Diamond in the Bluff. Sanders and Nighthawk appear on the Diamond cover in a metal rowboat. The Memphis skyline sits in the background, atop the mighty Mississippi.

Nighthawk - armed with a pair of shades, a cigar secured by his teeth, and an oar - casually rows the boat. In a light-colored suit, striped tie and gentlemen's hat, Sanders sits in the back and picks a guitar tune.

They're heading back to their musical roots - the Mississippi Delta - in true Sheik fashion.

Sanders was raised on the Glover cotton plantation near Walls, Miss. The farm, as Sanders refers to it, was owned by his father and uncle and now he said is "just a few tar-paper shacks."

Sanders grew up around the blues. It became a part of him, and he a part of it.

His father played the guitar and his brother played the piano. And naturally, he "picked up the music from the area."

One afternoon, the young Sanders was digging for arrow heads near a church built above an Indian Mound. While searching for old Indian artifacts, he heard gospel music floating toward him from the nearby church.

"I heard the music and saw cypress trees around me. It was like a William Faulkner experience," he said.

Sanders said he learned more about the great Mississippi author and "got turned on to literature" while attending Memphis University School in Memphis.

Despite being the only student to "wear overalls and a John Deere jacket on the first day of school," he excelled at MUS. In fact, he earned a letterman's jacket for playing defensive back on the school's football team. He received an ornamental horticulture degree from Mississippi State University and has been a landscape designer in the Memphis area.

MUS also was the adolescent stomping grounds for Nighthawk, who lived down the street from Sanders and his family. But the two didn't meet until years later, in 1991, when Sanders had a solo gig at Murphy's, a Midtown club.

"He magnanimously allowed me to sit in with him on a few songs and a partnership was struck based on mutual love and reverence for the old-time Delta blues," Nighthawk wrote in the liner notes to Slow-Cooked Pig Meat.

The partnership clicked because of their personalities and musical talents. Sanders is quiet. And as songwriter and vocalist for the Sheiks, not quite sure why people think his lyrics are so innovative.

"They (the lyrics) just come to me. If I don't like 'em, I don't play 'em. But if I don't get them out of me, I'll go crazy," Sanders said. Needless to say, he added, lyrics come to him almost anytime and anywhere. "I come home with many crumpled bar napkins," he said.

Eddie Dattel, owner of Inside Sounds recording studio (where the Sheiks record), offers another explanation for Sanders's unique talent.

"He's so immersed in the culture that he can't step away and look at it objectively. He's just so connected with the culture...I'm overwhelmed with the way he's able to capture the (blues) culture."

Dattel added, "There are alot of white guys who play the blues because they want to, but with the him, it's a part of him... it's as genuine as his Southern drawl."

Sanders quietly agreed. "Most people started with the Beatles. I started with Howlin' Wolf."

Although Sanders's voice isn't as raw and raspy as the Wolf's, his vocals and acoustics have the same primitive touch. On Slow-Cooked Pig Meat, Sanders sings about the traditional stuff of blues: meeting a woman on Sunday, falling in love with her on Monday, marrying her on Wednesday, then calling it quits by Friday.

He talks about gettin' the blues under your skin on Diamond in the Bluff:

"I'll be down the road somewhere. 'Cause, I got the blues, blues. Low down blues, From my head right down to my shoes."

But he also writes about what he knows - 20th century blues. And that is the ingredient that separates the Sheiks from some of today's bluesmen, said Dattel.

"There's a lot of tired blues out there," he said. "But they're stuff is funny without being corny or trite. It's genuine."

Sanders sings about 21st century blues and "cars streaming by, heading for that rat race (in Memphis)" on the Diamond CD.

He's backed by Nighthawk on harmonica, piano and organ. Nighthawk took his name after the Helena bluesman Robert Nighthawk, whom he considers one of the "most unheralded heroes of bluesdom."

His harp style is patterned after Little Walter Jacobs. In Slow-Cooked Pig Meat liner notes again, Nighthawk said he "blows 'Chicago-style' with a crystal mike and tube amplifiers, using no amplifier that is not at least as old as me."

Preferring a more authentic harp sound makes for a lively blend with Sanders's pure vocals.

Dattel refers to Nighthawk as "a stream of consciousness." (Or rather, said Sanders, unconsciousness.)

His wit and candor are always obvious, whether he's joking with a local DJ about suiting up for a wrestling match or dispensing advice about road food. (In a note to fellow travelers in the Diamond liner notes he says it's best to avoid in quantity such Southern road delicacies as Jitney Junior heatlamp-warmed tater logs, smoked sausages and Roadrunner chicken gizzards.)

Nighthawk is a veteran of the Memphis music scene. He fronts Robert Nighthawk and The Wampus Cats and plays keyboards for Reba Russell.

Nighthawk and Sanders stay true to their music roots. They plan to record their third CD with Dattel - in Memphis, Nighthawk emphasizes.

They hope that their growing legion of fans also capture "the majesty and beauty of this place (the Mid-South)" and feel their music deep in the soul.

Because as the Memphis Sheiks would probably say, "That's where the blues is felt."