Interviewed By: Jonathan Kiersky

Richard Cushing of FreeWorld is, seemingly, known by everyone in this town who regularly goes out to see live music. He’s been an integral part of the Memphis music scene for the past twenty years and through the years has been a part of the remarkable underground music scene we enjoy in Memphis. Through his 18 years of playing with FreeWorld, Richard has witnessed the ebb and flow of the scene as well as the lack of national notoriety bestowed on this city for anyone not named Elvis, Hayes or Timberlake. As we all know, it’s not the music, as Memphis has always been a city where the locals trump the national acts, that has held the musicians back, but the utter neglect the Memphis scene is shown.

Richard Cushing was kind enough to give us some of his feelings and observations about the local scene, the national scene, FreeWorld and a few other notions that may be able to help local musicians.

* When did FreeWorld start?

FreeWorld was born in October of 1987... yep, this November marks the beginning of our 18th year as a band! These days not many bands make it much past 18 months (much less 18 YEARS), so I feel very humbled by the realization of all of the time that has already passed by - not to mention the THOUSANDS of gigs we have played over the years. I also don't see us going away anytime soon either, as we all still love what we do and have a great time doing it -- plus there is still such a strong, creative spark that runs through both our performances and our rehearsals. Along the way, we have also managed to build a rather large fan base that is spread throughout the Southeastern U.S. and across Europe - with a whole bunch of fans both old and new that really seem to love and appreciate what we do, so I guess we'll just "keep on keepin' on"......

* What has the band been doing for these past 18 years?

We have released 4 FreeWorld CDs (distributed nationally by Select-O-Hits); 1994's "FreeWorld", 1996's "You Are Here", 1999's "Diversity", and 2003's "Live from Memphis", and been included on twelve separate compilation CDs over the years - with a new one due out later this year called "Memphis Music Today". The band as a whole (along with MANY of our present and former band members - currently numbering 59, by the way!), have been nominated for &/or won literally dozens of Premier Player Awards presented by the Memphis Chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences. We've toured Europe twice, and been featured on nationally syndicated TV programs and several independent film releases. We are perpetually busy performing live (we play an average of 280 dates per year), and are constantly adding new, original compositions to our performance repertoire through relentless rehearsals. We have held down the weekly Sunday night slot at Blues City Cafe on Beale Street since the early 1990's, and continue to delight our audiences (and sometimes amaze ourselves!) with our unique versions of some of Memphis' most time-honored and classic songs, while simultaneously mixing in our own original compositions with various free-form musical experiments as we go. All this, and we have STILL managed to remain one of Memphis' best kept musical secrets! Go figure...

* Who were your influences (obviously The Dead, but maybe some off-the-beaten-path guys too)?

Musically, we have been variously described as being "the best of Memphis, New Orleans, and San Francisco - all rolled into one fresh & contemporarily exciting, perpetually mutating, live musical experience". Plus, we have also tried to not only focus on our instrumental musical skills over the years, but simultaneously work toward becoming better songwriters along the way as well. It's one of the Memphis Music traditions that we feel directly connected to (and honored to even attempt to be a part of) at the same time.

As you noted, The Grateful Dead was our primary influence in the early days, but our musical and spiritual Guru Herman Green quickly helped us expand that circle to include other diverse influences such as Jazz greats John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, The Newborn Brothers, and Weather Report (among many others). We also stretched out to include other Jam/Rock influences such as The Band, The Meters, The Neville Brothers, The Beatles, Little Feat, Steely Dan, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, The Allman Brothers Band, Santana, and Bob Marley (plus MANY more!). And, of course we absolutely HAVE to send a musical shout-out to all of the Memphis Soul heavies that have influenced us over the years such as Booker T. & the M.G.'s, Isaac Hayes & David Porter, Rufus Thomas, Sam & Dave, Otis Redding, Al Green, The Bar-Kays, The Box Tops, and Big Star, etc., etc., etc...

We were blessed to have Memphis saxophone legend Herman Green musically adopt all of us right from the beginning, and subsequently directly connect us to Memphis' rich musical heritage. It's one of our greatest strengths and proudest accomplishments; to get the opportunity - through Herman and our Beale Street connections - to hang out and perform with such local musical greats as Phineas & Calvin Newborn, The Memphis Horns, Steve Cropper, Teenie Hodges, George Coleman, James Cotton, Mojo Buford, Ace Cannon, Nokie Taylor, Mickey Gregory, Ed Finney, Fat Sonny, Tony Thomas, Jeff Grier, Samurai Celestial, Fred Ford, Bob Talley, Little Jimmy King, Pete Pederson, Shawn Lane, Eric Gales, Alex Chilton, The Bar-Kays, Ann Peebles, Don Bryant, Syl Johnson, & Robert Palmer (the local author/musician, not the British performer :), while simultaneously being afforded the luxury of meeting and performing with such nationally acclaimed artists as Levon Helm, Billy Preston, Richie Havens, The Meters, Merl Saunders, Timothy Leary, Jim Gaines, Ivan Neville, Hot Tuna, Jon Fishman & Page McConnell (Phish), Rob Wasserman, The Radiators, JGB, The Grandmothers (formerly The Mothers of Invention), Stephen Perkins & Tony Franklin (Banyan), Los Lobos, John Blackwell (Prince), John Avila (Oingo Boingo), Eric Garcia (Bob Dylan), Chad Taylor (Live), Artimus Pyle (Lynyrd Skynyrd), Jim "Dandy" Mangrum, George Porter Jr. & His Runnin' Pardners, Widespread Panic, Colonel Bruce Hampton & The Aquarium Rescue Unit, Brian Stoltz, The North Mississippi All-Stars, Galactic, Drivin' & Cryin', Afroman, Big Ass Truck, Deep Banana Blackout, Astral Project, The Rebirth Brass Band, Karl Denson's Tiny Universe, Jimmie Vaughan & Double Trouble, Susan Tedeschi, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Jonny Lang, Sonny Burgess, The Cate Brothers, Todd Snider, Lonnie Shields, Kenny Neal, Devon Allman, Jimmy Pryor, Blind Willie Dineen, Ana Popovic, Inner Circle, and touring members of the Broadway musical productions of "Stomp", "The Phantom of the Opera", "Grease" & "Hair". (WHEW!!)

* What local bands are really impressing you these days?

Personally, I really like The North Mississippi Allstars, The Gamble Brother's Band, The Minivan Blues Band, Voodoo Village, Retrospect, The Billy Gibson Band, and Crippled Nation. Our drummer, David Skypeck is really into the local hip-hop scene, and our trumpet man Steve Dolan just happens to be roommates with Jim Britt - the drummer for Yamagata. Our guitarist Brian Overstreet likes just about everything he hears (as long as it rocks!), and Damian Sanchez (our newest member, on sax & flute) and Herman Green are both heavily into the local jazz scene. Paul Brown (our current, peripheral keyboardist) is Ann Peebles' musical director, and is currently lining up an international tour for her in 2005. So as a band, I would say that we run the gamut (as far as our personal tastes are concerned) in our appreciation of the broad musical diversity within our own local music scene. (Geez -- I'm SURE I left out a local band or two that we all LOVE and respect, but just can't recall at this time... my apologies in advance!)

* What has been, in your opinion, the biggest obstacle facing Memphis bands in getting recognition?

In my opinion, the absolute lack of any national music industry infrastructure whatsoever is the #1 obstacle hindering Memphis bands from making a significant dent in today's national music scene. There are no national booking agency offices based out of Memphis, no satellite offices of even one major record label here, no big time music lawyers, no management agencies, no national radio mega-conglomerate offices. In short, no ANYTHING even remotely connected to the "Big Boyz" in New York and Los Angeles. Sadly it still seems to be about the same as it has always been here in Memphis -- if you want to "make it" in the music industry, it's a good idea to start your band in Memphis and pay some dues here (where there's a glut of hyper-talented musicians with a strong drive to DO something with it) - and then GET THE HELL OUT!!! It's unfortunate, but it still seems to be the prevalent road taken. Memphis has a LONG history of incredibly talented musicians with lots of creativity, independent thinking, and up-start gumption, but only a short (however, most impressive!) list of national &/or international superstars that actually made it out of Memphis' Musical Soul Stew to go on to enduring fame and fortune (especially since the mid-70s). It's NOT impossible, it's just incredibly difficult. I believe that the Memphis Musical Community is currently brimming with an amazing amount of talent, and is poised to jump right back into the national arena and make a HUGE splash in several different musical genres at once - but I also believe that we really need some National Music Industry Infrastructure on the ground here in Memphis to help make that happen.

Hopefully, the Memphis & Shelby County Music Commission's 'Strategic Initiatives Plan' will be a big help toward countering some of these innate problems sometime in the not-too-distant future. The plan calls for many of the above-mentioned problems to be directly and appropriately addressed within the next 2-7 years, and hopefully that will solve at least a few of the average Memphis musician's woes and move us as a community closer to the national spotlight.

* What does the local scene hold for Memphis bands in the future (what direction is it going)?

The local scene is so diverse! There are SOOOO MANY different styles of music being performed in this city on a nightly basis, and that's a GREAT thing! Hopefully, like Athens, GA or Seattle, WA, all it might take is one artist to break big, and then the ‘Majors’ will show up here again to "mine" the creative mother lode and propel our music community back into the national spotlight that it so prominently enjoyed from the mid-60s to the mid-70s.

And if not, I suppose that'll have to be just fine as well - because regardless of whether or not the ‘majors’ pay any attention to us or not, Memphis will always be a crossroads of American Music and will perpetually breed a caliber of musician on par with anywhere in the world, and will also continue to be a magnet for anyone the world over who wants to discover for themselves the roots of our Western Musical Culture.

* What avenues are there for musicians in this town to get together and discuss issues concerning them?

Funny you should ask.... I just happen to be the current Chairman of the Musician's Advisory Council to the Memphis & Shelby County Music Commission, and for those who may be unaware of its existence and purpose, the MAC is a unique forum within our music community that is conceived and moderated by musicians, made up of musicians, and addresses the specific needs and issues associated with being a working musician within the Memphis Music Community and beyond - with a specific focus on positive, forward motion and solution-oriented goals.

Please keep in mind, however, that I am not the CEO of the Music Commission, I'm not even on the Music Commission Board itself, and I am certainly not the Mayor of Memphis or Shelby County! I am only a fellow musician attempting to advocate for positive change WITHIN THE CONFINES OF THE CURRENT MEMPHIS MUSIC BUREAUCRACY &/OR HIERARCHY. However, I believe this is one of the strongest avenues within our community for musicians to voice their concerns, hopes, fears, goals, and plans for positive, growth-oriented change. We meet the third Monday of every month at Handy Hall on Beale Street, from 6-8pm - and as I have repeatedly implored my fellow musicians, "Either show up or shut up!"

* What does the future hold for FreeWorld?

We are currently planning to record and release our fifth CD in 2005, and we will, of course, continue to perform live in Memphis and throughout the Southeast. We do what we do for the love of the music and the joy it brings not only to ourselves, but to our fans as well. We feel it is both an honor and a privilege to be able to entertain "The World" when it comes to Memphis to experience Beale Street, and I suppose we're just gonna keep on 'doing our thang' & spreading our unique vision of Memphis' musical past, present, and future for as long as people continue to come to our shows and still seem to enjoy the unique musical gifts that FreeWorld has to offer.

Thanks so much for your time and consideration, and feel free to check out our "new & improved" website at: www.FreeWorldJams.com.