PROFILES

Harlan T. Bobo

His music: An enigmatic drifter who turned up in Memphis in the late 1990s, Harlan T. Bobo quickly fit into the Midtown garage rock scene. He's a capable sideman in groups like Viva L'American Death Ray Music, Love Clowns and Limes, but it was his country-tinged, self-released solo debut, Too Much Love, that really resonated with local audiences. Bobo has been championed by the likes of NPR's "All Things Considered" listeners and the volunteer staff of Memphis' WEVL FM 89.9. I'm Your Man, a gently rollicking, Kinks-esque follow-up, was released in 2007.


In $5 Cover: A spellbinding performance by Bobo, 42, slathered in clown makeup and balancing on painter's stilts, and his band, the Chimps, provides the backdrop for a quarrel between a jilted Amy LaVere and Nick, the Hi-Tone's lead bartender. Featured song: "Too Much Love."


In $5 Cover Amplified: Bobo and his animated roommates, Larry and Boffo, invite fans into the biosphere that is their cluttered Midtown apartment for a dissertation about love.


On Memphis music: "I'd quit playing in bands by the time I moved here, but guys like Jeff Evans, Jack Yarber and Greg Cartwright are creating music that's so good, so alive, that they got me excited about playing music again."


Latest news: The 11-track, full-length I'm Your Man, recorded by indie music mainstay Doug Easley and released on Goner Records.


--Andria Lisle


Harlan T. Bobo on MySpace



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$5 Cover Amplified Summary:

Intimate, thoughtful, always entertaining and often formally daring, the 12 documentaries that comprise the anthology "$5 Cover Amplified" reveal a modern Memphis music scene that is as creative, passionate and vibrant as in the city's commercial heyday, when Elvis, Isaac Hayes and Al Green demonstrated that visionary art and popular culture could be inseparable as the 'A' and 'B' sides of a vinyl record.

Produced as a complement to Craig Brewer's episodic MTV drama series/ new media experiment, "$5 Cover," the "Amplified" series of documentary portraits chronicles the rousing art, uncertain careers and sometimes problematic home lives of a diverse, distinctive and often eccentric group of Memphis music-makers.

Mesmerizing Valerie June croons confessional lyrics from beneath a Medusan tangle of dreadlocks that's as thick as her family ties and her musical roots. The puckish Tommy Chong-meets-Pippi Longstocking "clown prince of rap," Muck Sticky, proves to be as dedicated to the welfare of his mother and sister as to his own pursuit of happiness. Punk rock pioneer Jack Oblivian, who plays to sell-out nightclub crowds in Europe, makes ends meet in Memphis by cleaning houses. "Crunk" hip-hop artist Al Kapone is shown to be a tough but loving father, bringing new urgency to the concept of rapper as "role model." Troubadour of heartbreak Harlan T. Bobo is portrayed impressionistically, through stop-motion animation, allegorical fantasy and other conceits.

Whatever the focus or style, the direction of Alan Spearman, an award-winning photographer/filmmaker with The Commercial Appeal, ensures that each segment is as visually assured as it is musically irresistible. "$5 Cover Amplified" was co-produced by Spearman, Andria Lisle and John Hubbell, and edited by Eileen Meyer; their familiarity with the Memphis "scene" ensures unprecedented authenticity as well as access.

John Beifuss- The Commercial Appeal