Songs The Panther Burns Taught Us (Vol. 1 of 4)

You are undoubtedly familiar with the essential series Songs The Cramps Taught Us. (I dare not doubt it, dear reader.)  You may also know that someone did the Lord's work of compiling Songs The Fall Taught Us. But what of the estimable Tav Falco and his Unapproachable Panther Burns? Many are the songs I first encountered on their records, and last year I took it upon myself to track down all the originals.

Since 1979, Signore Gustavo Falco has celebrated the music of Memphis, North Mississippi and all points south of the Mason-Dixon line. You may have seen an excerpt of an early Panther Burns' TV appearance in the Big Star documentary; in the unedited clip, Tav politely and eloquently explains to his hostile hostess that the "real musicians" of Memphis had become "invisible" and that a new kind of music was necessary to bring them back to the eyes and ears of the public.  

I think Tav has accomplished this. He was an early champion of R.L. Burnside, Cordell Jackson, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Charlie Feathers, and others. He was there during the recording of Like Flies On Sherbert, when Alex Chilton reinvented himself by abandoning Anglophilia for the sounds of his native city (which inspired the Beatles, Kinks, and Stones). What I wouldn't give to have been a human fly on the wall when Chilton brought The Cramps to Memphis. Imagine Lux, Ivy, Tav, Alex, and Jim Dickinson spinning their favorite records for each other!