By Colleen Gilson
Photos by Russ Rockwood Rojas, Christopher Lee Helton, Maureen Dalton Wolfe, Danny Craig, Chris Jeans, Keenan Neighbors
THE LONG ROAD BACK TO FRAYSER BLVD.
STARDATE:-298448.98107038054 1609 Earth 32.7980994,-96.6992124
Note: As I was preparing to meet my interviewees Chris Craig and Kinley Wolfe at my home in Dallas, the canines alerted me to some visitors, and I opened the door to this:
Just when ya think you know somebody…
It’s been said ‘you can never go back’, and even though Chris Craig and Kinley Wolfe are a long way from their roots in Frayser (aka north Memphis), Tennessee, in both miles and linear chronology, they are utilizing their new drums and bass project Frayser Blvd to mess with the space/time continuum, and to test the theory that sometimes you must revisit the past in order to create the future.
In this extensive hybrid narrative-interview, we talk with Craig and Wolfe about their 45-plus year careers as artists, as a rhythm section, and as friends, past, present, and future.
THE PAST
Memphis is an undeniably historical music town. From early 20th century legends Memphis Minnie, Big Bill Broonzy and Sonny Boy Williamson to the post-WWII sounds of Muddy Waters, Elmore James and Howlin’ Wolf, the blues on Beale Street defined Memphis until Elvis Presley walked into Sun Recording Studios in 1953 to make a single for his beloved mother Gladys’ birthday present and very soon, Elvis was everywhere with this controversial new sound called rock ‘n roll.
As Elvis’ star continued to rise in the 1960s, Sun became the home behind rockabilly and country artists. The Civil Rights movement served as musical inspiration for artists at the home of soul, the star-studded Stax/Volt roster which included Isaac Hayes, Booker T Washington, Johnnie Taylor, and Carla Thomas. Rock vied for its piece of the Memphis musical pie with The Box Tops “The Letter,” Big Star made some influential noise that was not appreciated til after the bands demise, The Bar-kays’ funky “Soul Finger” was a crossover hit, but as far as AM radio rock, Elvis dominated.
The 1970s brought bands like The Amazing Rhythm Aces, but on the local rock scene, the band to see was Target. Fronted by singer Jimi Jamison (who later went on to form Survivor who had a massive hit with “Eye of The Tiger” from Rocky 3), Target put out 2 LPs, gigged regularly and was a sort of blueprint to schoolmates Craig and Wolfe on how to bring music out of the garage, and to the stage and beyond. Music was the goal, music was IT.
And so in the mid-1970s, Savage was born, with Craig on drums, Wolfe on bass, guitarists Shawn Lane and Tate Yawn, with Danny Craig on the mic.
In this first section, Kinley Wolfe and Chris Craig share some key points of the conversation about their beginnings in Memphis.
Colleen: How did you guys meet?
Wolfe: When I was in eighth grade, Chris had a band in the high school where we went. And he was a big shit. He was a star…
Craig: My band was called Fantasy… This was before he even played.
Wolfe: I always knew that I wanted to play with Chris. I would go over there and hang out and watch y’all record and rehearse or whatever. And then y’all let me play one time, and I thought, ‘All right, here’s my chance so I can impress them. But that was a huge motivation thing for me, ‘Oh, I’m going to show those motherfuckers.’ So I went home and went to work in my bedroom. Played to all my Kiss records.
Colleen: Can you talk about local Memphis’ rock band Target?
Wolfe: Yeah they were some of our heroes. If you were in the club and Jimi Jamison was singing, you can’t imagine the impact it had. It was just like, “Man, this guy is world class. He sang just like Paul Rogers of Free and Bad Company, and his voice was so strong he didn’t need a microphone.
Craig: Well, there’s some singers. Jimi’s one, I mean, we’ve been lucky to play with a few, like Jim Dandy and Terry Glaze. They had this presence that when they walk on the stage and they take the mic, they have total control over everything that rolls. Jimi was like that and his voice, you just kind of sit back and he went off, man. Everybody in the band was awesome. It’s really funny because the drummer for that band, I still see him all the time. He plays in a local Memphis band. He played for Hank Williams, Jr. for years and has many Grammys.
Wolfe: [About Target’s Buddy Davis]: When you and Shawn were playing with Black Oak, I was hanging around Buddy trying to get something going, but Buddy didn’t want a band– he wanted to record, but he didn’t want to play. And he was the lead guitar player for Target, he’s the one that wrote all the songs. He was actually friends with Jeff Beck, he sold Jeff Beck guitars.
Craig: Actually, that story goes a little farther, which is when Savage was playing. And if you read that website and that history for “Sorry You’re a Horse” (the first track on All The Way From Memphis), we kind of talked about how we were just a little band of brothers, hung out, played every night, practiced and wrote all these original songs. And so at one point we got the opportunity to open up for Target, and this was like ’77, ’78– probably ’78 because right before the band broke up– but we opened up two nights for ’em at a theater down in Memphis, by now we were Savage.
Wolfe: We had done that demo with Shawn at Kingsbury of “Sorry, You’re a Horse.” And I remember they wanted to hear what we were doing, or they said they did. They probably didn’t… We played it at soundcheck, and they acted like they liked it, like, ‘Holy shit, Black Sabbath!’. But it made us feel great. They probably didn’t give a shit. I mean, but they were just being nice.
Craig: Shawn was so good even then that you didn’t get shouldered out too much when he was up there playing because he was fucking blowing all those older guys away. They might’ve had some critiques about it, but you need to have more tastes. But he was still fucking them up.”
Lane left Savage to join Black Oak Arkansas, and soon Craig and Wolfe followed. I asked how they ended up in Dallas.
Wolfe: We didn’t move to Dallas to play with Lightning right away. We were still playing with Jim Dandy and BOA. And we had just gotten Rocky Athas to join the band. We would tour a few weeks, then have a few weeks off . Then one week Chris’s dad asked us if we wanted to make a lot of money working with him in Dallas, so we had down time and we got a Greyhound bus to Dallas to work with his dad. We worked with his dad a few weeks, then toured with BOA a few weeks. We did this for a while until BOA started slowing down. Rocky suggested we could do Lightning in the interim until things got better. At some point, Chris and I got tired of doing it cause it seemed we weren’t getting anywhere. So we started 3D with Jimmy Rusidoff who we knew from Memphis. Then Terry Glaze quit Pantera and came with us to become Traci Lords and eventually, Lord Tracy..
Craig: It was about ’86-’87 when we got Jim Rusidoff moved down to Dallas to start 3-D. I had been with Lightning, then I was not and then I was again. I had moved back to Memphis on the ’85-’86 period after my first stint with Lightning. When I came back (to rejoin Lightning) I had talked Jim into joining us. Kinley had played with Lightning the whole time. In the end Rocky really wanted Walter to resume singing and drums, and that’s what eventually happened. Walter was an essential part of Lightning for so long that made perfect sense. So Kinley and I started 3-D with Jim Rusidoff. Not long after, Terry Glaze joined, and the rest is history.”
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Lord Tracy formed in 1986, played around a few years til they were signed by UNI-MCA and released Deaf Godz of Babylon in 1989. They had two videos in rotation on MTV, the raucous “Out with The Boys” which reached #40 on Billboard mainstream charts, and the ballad “Foolish Love.” The band toured extensively until they broke up in 1991.
Wolfe then joined The Cult, and went on to play in Milk the Cow, The American Fuse, The Javelinas, a Lord Tracy reunion and release, Porn Again, came out in 2006.
Craig went another way.
“So what did I do after Lord Tracy? I got with Jimmy R Band,” Craig said. “I did that for about three or four years, and then I ended up moving back to Memphis, and I got into this little country rock band. It was called Ricochet Roundup, and it was a really good band. We played for about four years up until 2001 and that ran its course. I did not play for a while after that… full disclosure, I went to recovery and tried to find out who the fuck I was after all those goddamn rock and roll years. Had to quit drinking, had to quit doing dope — which I did a lot of dope and a lot of drinking those 10 years after Lord Tracy– because to be honest with you, I just couldn’t fit into that fucking regular life shit. And my phone was ringing off the wall for gigs. I was trying to do shit, but then I had a family. It’s the same story you hear from many, many musicians that go through that period.”
A 2013 Lord Tracy reunion at Trees in Dallas brought the original line-up back together to the delight of old and new fans, and the chemistry between Craig and Wolfe had not skipped a beat.
THE PRESENT
So this brings us up to the now of Frayser Blvd., All the Way From Memphis. The project is almost exclusively Craig and Wolfe, drums and bass but not in the 2000’s context. To try to describe the songs or the vibe would be a disservice to readers because it is more of an experience to be savored, a listening adventure throwback to the days of gatefold LPs and headphones in a black light postered bedroom, absorbing lyrics and tales, but updated.
The www.Frayserblvd.com website brings it to the tech level, and it is wise to follow along there for the entire trip to be fully absorbed and enjoyed. Craig’s IT job gives him June off, so he began thinking of their old material that could possibly be rerecorded.
The conversation continues.
Colleen: Can you talk about your latest creation, Frayser Blvd?
Craig: We’ve been wanting to play together forever. We’re brothers from another mother. And even when we spend 10 years apart, when we come together, it’s like we were together yesterday. It’s just like, I mean, you have friends or mates or anything that sometimes you get together and it’s like you just got the bond… we had that bond, and we don’t have to talk about it. And when we play, it’s the same way. We don’t have to talk about it. It’s like we know where to go, instinctively… you’re not always right, but even if you’re wrong, they hear what you’re doing and they move with you. Right? That’s what music does when you get to a certain level. It’s pretty retro, pretty self indulgent.
We wrote those lists of songs down, and so in my job every year– I work at Vanderbilt during the day because music don’t pay you shit– but I’ve been doing it for so long that I can come and go pretty much as I like, and I work out of my garage. We knew that when we were doing it– it’d be pretentious otherwise. It ain’t for everybody, but we’re trying to make the story tie in so even if you’re not a fan you’ll still be interested in the soundscape, and the story and the connections because it’s real.
I always take the whole month of June off. So I decided to go to Dallas. So I came down here for a week and we booked some studio time in Jim King’s studio. We hadn’t done any practicing. I think we had Friday, Saturday, Sunday at the studio, and then Kinley had to play a gig Saturday. So we only had part of Saturday, but I came down on a Tuesday, so Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, we got into Kinley’s living room and just started making shit up – what we’re going to go do in the studio and it wasn’t like it was planned. I mean, we had to practice those songs that we knew, like “Radar Love” [the Golden Earring classic is the second track on the project]. I had to go figure out how to fucking do that solo, which was not easy. I had to practice. That’s tough practicing.”
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Their rendition is a faithful cover executed with surprising ferocity, enhanced by The Club Wood Horns– King Jay Hatler on trombone, Joseph ‘the Lip’ Reyes on trumpet and The Judge on sax (and single life, according to liner notes).
The project begins with a reworking of the aforementioned “I’m Sorry You’re a Horse.” I admit it– I make fun of singing drummers all the time because oftentimes with a singing drummer, you can’t be good at two things at once. But there is a theatrical Shakespearean (and rather menacing) quality to Craig’s vocal delivery that is even better than the scariest Alice Cooper in its timbre.
To this point, Craig said, “Alice Cooper was my idol growing up. I know every fucking Alice Cooper song, especially the early stuff, and he’s still one of my favorite artists. I was not wrong about Alice Cooper in 1973 when I was 13, and look at him today, I met him at a meet and greet, and somebody bought me a Cameo– you know that app– for my birthday. My wife and my kid sat me down in front of the TV one day three or four years ago, and there’s Alice! ‘Oh yeah, Chris, man, you played with Black Oak. We probably did some gigs together. Happy Birthday.’ And he sang a song to me, and I’m going, ‘Holy fuck!'”
This explains Frayser Blvd’s reworking of “Is It My Body,” which features Wolfe’s The American Fuse guitarist Nate Fowler and Craig’s current band mate, Jes Vicknair of Seein’ Red. There is a different take on the original, which initially sounds foreign.
Wolfe: Chris totally rearranged that song… when we were recording in the studio, he’s going, ‘No, not that part here. We’re going to bring it down here.’ The real song is not like that. So I was like, ‘Fuck, I only know the way it is on the record.’ The way he arranged it and he wanted to make it was a sultry thing, not like a swagger thing like what Alice did.
Craig: “I had a vision for that song for many years, and I didn’t think I’d ever get to do it. As matter of fact, he sang it. He did it.
Wolfe: Yeah. There’s a version of me doing it. I didn’t know if Jes was going to do it. Oh, really? So I just did it, like Alice did it.”
Craig: That song, at least the way we were raised with it, and the way I had it in my mind, it had to have somebody singing it. And because I’ve been playing with her for a while, I knew she could do it. The whole thing to me was, ‘Can you get it out? Can you bring it out?’ I knew she could do it, but how do you bring that out to the person? We had one night, we flew the tracks into Memphis and we went down to South Memphis Horn Lake in Mississippi to a guy’s studio, and we did that one night. We gave her a bottle of Fireball – ‘Here, take that,’ and gave him some whiskey… you have to get loose. It takes a while to get loose.
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Vicknair’s vocals range from a sexy “come hither” to absolutely wailing. And Fowler’s guitar work is faithful to the original yet creative.
Things get back to straight ahead rock with “Windemere,” a deceptive musical guise for a tragedy that occurred when both Craig and Wolfe were still in high school. Lake Windemere was where the kids would go drink, smoke, cut loose… and then one day, one of them got tangled in something below surface, and drowned. Even though they would not name their friend, they fondly remembered him.
Craig: When you’re in school and and you just go do shit, you do things that are crazy… you’re indestructible.
Wolfe: The guy that happened to happened to be like ‘that guy’… everybody loved him. He was athletic…
Craig: I try to keep it in a generalized term, but the ones who know, know… somebody’s already asking was that about, yeah, fair enough. The thing was, we weren’t there when it happened. And you talk about how it affects you. So that song was originally another song from the Savage days, same time. I was riding back to Memphis from that very first session when we started this project and had my phone on voice memo. And that’s when I wrote that song. Every few miles I would do another line. And that’s what I wanted it to be about. I kept thinking about that Windemere was the name of the lake, right? Still there. And I never mentioned the guy’s name in there. It actually turned into more like a haunted lake thing because it was a little more accessible like that.
Colleen: The visual of kids partying and then suddenly tragedy striking is easy for the mind, the story’s obvious.
Wolfe: He has a story for every song. I mean, because we can’t just have a song. He’s like, ‘Well, what’s the story?’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t know…’
Craig: I think that if you can weave a tale for somebody, then they’re going to be engaged a lot more in what you trying to do.
Wolfe: It makes it honest, and keeps it honest.
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“Flogging a Bass (The Wank Continues),” a three part feature of Wolfe’s amazing bass wizardry defies written explanation, but historically, his bass playing is a magical combination of technique, gear, and rule breaking. Lord Tracy’s Deaf Gods of Babylon introduced the world to his frenetic styling aka “The Wank.”
Wolfe’s youtube channel is a journey of various wanks throughout the years: https://www.youtube.com/user/wolfekdub77
Wolfe’s style is a combo of various stringed influencers such as Stanley Clarke, Eddie Van Halen, come to life with a dizzying array of gear including Buddy Blaze Kinley 1 bass w/ Kahler tremolo, Buddy Blaze Kinley 2 bass w/ Kahler fixed bridge, Kahler Tremolos, Fender P-basses, Fender Jazz fretless bass, Squire Jazz 5 string, Ernie Ball strings, Seymour Duncan pickups, Hipshot tuners and parts, All Parts Musical parts, Tech21 Sansamp Bass Fly Rig v. II, Digitech Whammy pedal, Ibanez Tube Screamer, Boss Bass Synth pedal, B-3 pedal, Jim Dunlop Jazz III XL picks, Ampeg amps, GK amps and Dark Glass MicroTubes.
“Mountainside” features Craig’s expertise as a drummer and percussionist, setting a mellowly beautiful and spacey mood in the first part, “Ascent,” and “Enlightenment” is where the lyrics come in describing a spiritual awakening.
Craig plays Pearl drums, Paiste cymbals, Tama pedals, Vater Fatback 3A drumsticks, Remo and Evans drum heads (whatever sounded the best at that moment), Rocket toms, Roto-Toms, Djembe, bongos, snake shakers, triangles, chimes and a broken tambourine (“It sounded the best – thanks Jim” the liner notes read, referring to Jim King.)
The song “All Roads” comes at you hard and heavy, dissonant, weird siren-esque bass riffs repeating then screaming… and ends with the “The Star Spangled Banner” just like back in the day when there were three television channels and they’d sign off for the night. (Distress warning? Political statement?Lesson in not paying attention to history making it doomed to repeat itself?)
The project ends with “Only Then,” more of a chant than a song in its brevity, backed with nature’s night noises and scant select riffs.
Interspersed between the songs are interludes that are Craig and Wolfe’s history, and when you follow along on their website (or the booklet in the CD, every story is laid out to help you along their journey.
This project began in June 2022, and wrapped (at least studio-wise) in January 2024. Not daily– but it takes a special relationship with your recording engineer to go that span and still maintain the gist of a project.
The topic of working in Sonic Dropper Studio with Jim King arose.
Wolfe: I had worked with him a lot because Nate, our guest on that, he was recording a solo record there, and then Terry, when he would come in town, he would record over there, too. All the gear and everything’s like first class and everything. Jim’s real easy to work with.
Craig: Plus, he’s a drummer.
Wolfe: I knew that we could do anything because some studios you go into, they just, especially us being drummer and bass player, we’re fucking stupid to most studio people because of the instruments we play. So if you tell ‘I’m going to do this,’ and they’re like, ‘You can’t do that on a bass,’ you’re not going to be able to have a creative situation.”
Craig: I didn’t know Jim when I walked in the studio. I walked into the studio– Kinley was at work– I walked in, met Jim and we just hit it off. He’s a drummer and he didn’t know what we were going to do. Hell, we didn’t know what we were going to do. We set the drums up and the first thing for a drummer is you start tuning new drums. How do they sound? How does he think they sound? And you usually know right then, is this going to fucking work out? Well, me and Jim were on the same page. It was just right there from the moment, we got along and we’re on the same page. Jim is so smart, he’s way smarter than me.
Jim King used Nuendo DAW, API, Neve and Crane Song for the analog side, then Pulsar modular, UAD, Fab Filter and many other digital plug ins…Naylor Amps and neural DSP amp sims. Millions of tiny transistors, too.
THE FUTURE
Just because the tracks are numbered does not mean this particular project is done. During the interview, Wolfe and Craig came up with another cover they’d love to record, and since the website is a living website, more tracks can be added as they are completed.
Craig: I truly believe that this is not something that goes viral. This is something that grows in months. And so it’s like, let’s see where we are in December. Where are we at as far as playing live? As soon as we can, as soon as we feel confident. And we can do that in Memphis. We can do that in Dallas. And those are the only two places that matter to us right now, because that’s where our people are.
Wolfe: I’m trying to build my arsenal to get it right for live. I have all the stuff I used in the studio, but I need to configure it for doing live. I believe this can and will be accomplished, and exceed expectations.
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All The Way From Memphis is something to be savored– put on your headphones or earbuds in, get your head space right, lie back in a darkened room with your eyes closed, and take a ride with Frayser Blvd.
It’s well worth the trip.
Find more info about Chris and Kinley below:
