Your Memphis-flavored song of the day is “Walking in Memphis” by Marc Cohn. This song, released in 1991, was a career maker and a career highlight for Mr. Cohn, hitting #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #12 on the Adult Contemporary chart. It was also nominated for a Grammy for Record of the Year, losing to Natalie Cole’s duet with her late father Nat “King” Cole, “Unforgettable.”
Marc Cohn wrote this somewhat autobiographical tune about a trip he took to Memphis a few years prior to try to overcome a case of writer’s block. He really did go to the Full Gospel Tabernacle Church to listen to the Reverend Al Green preach. And he spent a long Friday night at the Hollywood Café listening to and singing with the local legend, Muriel Davis Wilkins. And it really went down like he wrote it:
And they asked me if I would do a little number
And I sang with all my might
She said, “Tell me are you a Christian child?”
And I said “Ma’am, I am tonight”
Mr. Cohn himself tells the story of that night at the Hollywood, and how it transformed him:
“When I arrived, Muriel, who … was in her 60s, was onstage playing a beat-up old upright piano and singing gospel standards … I felt an immediate connection to her voice, her spirit, her face, and her smile. I was totally transfixed by her music … During her breaks, the two of us would talk. Muriel asked me why I was there, and I told her I was a songwriter trying to find inspiration. I also told her a little bit about my childhood — how when I was two and a half years old, my mom had passed away very unexpectedly, and about ten years later, my dad had passed away and I’d been raised by a stepmother. My mother’s death was a central event in my life, and I’d been writing a lot about it over the years, both in songs and in journals. I think a part of me felt stuck in time, like I’d never quite been able to work through that loss… By midnight, the Hollywood was still packed, and Muriel asked me to join her onstage. We soon realized that there wasn’t a song in the universe that both of us knew in common. A quick thinker, Muriel started feeding me lyrics to gospel songs so that I could catch up in time to sing somewhat in rhythm with her and make up my own version of the melody. Some songs I was vaguely familiar with, and some I didn’t know at all. The very last song we sang together that night was ‘Amazing Grace’. After we finished and people were applauding, Muriel leaned over and whispered in my ear: ‘Child, you can let go now.’ It was an incredibly maternal thing for her to say to me. Just like sitting in Reverend Al Green’s church, I was again transformed. It was almost as if my mother was whispering in my ear. From the time I left Memphis and went back home to New York City, I knew I had a song in me about my experience there.“
Marc Cohn didn’t have any big hits after “Walking in Memphis,” although he garnered a loyal fan base. He’s released just five studio albums, the last in 2010, and a handful of live albums. He’s still out there singing his songs today at the still-young age of 63.
My wife Sherry and I went to see Mr. Cohn in concert about a dozen or so years ago. We didn’t really know what to expect, as we hadn’t been following Mr. Cohn’s career and really only knew his signature song and the album it was on. We were pleasantly surprised to find he had a fairly large and faithful following, and he put on one hell of a show. Naturally, “Walking in Memphis” was a highlight; it’s a great song, sung from the heart. When you hear him sing it live, you really are walking with your feet ten feet off of Beale.
