Al Bell

The Memphis Music Foundation elected former Stax
Records executive Al Bell as its new chairman this week.
Bell takes over from longtime board chairman Phil Trenary.

“Economic empowerment and economic development,” Bell responds when
asked what his focus will be. “When I say empowerment, I’m talking
about the individual. When I say development, I’m talking about
institutions and businesses. Everything I do will be about that.”

Bell praises the city’s “diverse, authentic music base” and asserts
that one challenge is to get locals to appreciate the city’s cultural
assets as much as people around the country and the world.

Bell’s long music career is best know for his period as an executive
and eventual co-owner of Stax, leading the label during the era marked
by Isaac Hayes’ rise to superstardom.

A veteran of an era when civic interest in the music business was
minimal, Bell seems to have a special appreciation for the helping-hand
role organizations like the Music Foundation can play in what is
generally a business.

“The cornerstone of the foundation is vested in the Memphis Music
Resource Center,” Bell says, referring to the foundation’s free,
career-development workspace.

“It’s a living library and work station with committed staffers,”
Bell says. “As it was being developed and completed, I looked back and
said, my God, I wish we’d had something like this when we were building
Stax and Hi. We had to go out and bump our heads, get knocked down, get
back up, lose money.”

Bell says he wants to “educate and motivate” the people of Memphis
on the benefits of a strong music industry but says his focus needs to
be on the business community.

“We can accelerate the growth and success of our artists and
musicians and as a result of that create economic opportunity,” Bell
says.

The city has a shaky history when it comes to relying on a
high-profile representative of Memphis’ musical glory days to impact
the present, as witnessed by Elvis cohort Jerry Schilling’s rocky
tenure with the Music Commission before the private, not-for-profit
Music Foundation split off from it. But Bell insists he won’t be overly
focused on imparting history lessons.

“The only thing that’s important to me about the past is that an
understanding of it enables me to better fashion my future,” Bell says.
“I think future. I’m current. I’m not yesterday. I’m always today and
tomorrow. What’s important about the past is we have something to build
on. When I was young, I dealt with older people, because I wanted to
learn from them. As I’ve gotten older, I deal more with younger people,
because I want to stay current.”

An Arkansas native, Bell currently resides in North Little Rock.
Following his tenure at Stax, Bell spent some time as president of
Motown. In recent years, he’s shepherded such hit records as Tag Team’s
five-million-selling “Whoomp! There It Is” and Prince’s “The Most
Beautiful Girl in the World.”

Audley/Rabinbach Ready

New Film

Memphis filmmaker Kentucker Audley (of the
IndieMemphis-winning debut Team Picture) and Jump Back
Jake frontman Jake Rabinbach are collaborating on a feature
film — Open Five — scheduled to
begin shooting in early August. The film, which Audley will direct and
which the duo co-wrote and will act in, is rooted in Rabinbach’s
experiences as a New Yorker living in Memphis.

“It’s a fictional film, but we both drew on our own lives,” says
Rabinbach, who has been alternating his time between Memphis and New
York while playing guitar in the New York band Francis & the
Lights. “I’m interested in how people who have lived in New York
function in Memphis, because it’s a really different culture.”

The film, about a weekend double-date between two local artists and
two visiting New York women, “aims to be a new defining portrait of
Memphis … particularly focusing on the living tradition of modern
Memphis musicians and filmmakers,” according to Audley’s director’s
statement. Joe Swanberg is coming in to be the film’s director
of photography. To help raise the film’s $8,000 budget, donations are
being solicited online at openfivefilm.chipin.com/open-five-a-kentucker-audley-film.