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Memphis Music Legends Featured in Storytelling DVD
By JONATHAN DEVIN | Special to The Memphis News
LEGENDS AT WORK: Three local music legends – (from top) the late Jim Dickinson, Sid Selvidge and Marguerite Piazza – share their life stories in a new DVD titled “The Music Interviews” to be released in December. -- PHOTOS COURTESY OF JOANN SELF SELVIDGE
The life stories of three local music legends will be featured in the release of a new, locally produced DVD.“The Music Interviews” by True Story Pictures tells the stories of Marguerite Piazza, Sid Selvidge and the late Jim Dickinson in their own words.
The DVD will be made available to the public at a release party Dec. 10 at the Memphis College of Art. The event will run from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
“I’ve always been fascinated by music,” said Joann Self Selvidge, executive director of True Story Pictures and the daughter-in-law of Sid Selvidge.
“I started the organization five years ago and we started doing these life story interviews.
"The mission is to document stories that educate, inspire and connect the community. For the most part we capture life story interviews. We have a few grant-funded projects and a program called the Life Story Studio, which is like an oral history studio for hire,” she said.
True Story Pictures' flagship projects include the film “The WLOK Story,” which is frequently run on WKNO and WYPL, about the work of Memphis’ first African-American radio station.
The group also produced an extensive, 17-part series of more than 100 Memphis artist interviews titled “The Artist Interviews.”
In “The Music Interviews,” Self Selvidge said there was a need to document the lives of Memphis musicians in the style of an oral history.
“In the case of Jim Dickinson, there are a million sound bytes floating around from him, because everyone interviewed him about everyone else,” Self Selvidge said. “He played with the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Lynard Skynard, Aretha Franklin.”
But Self Selvidge hadn’t encountered an interview that captured the essence of Dickinson’s life, so she set out to do it herself.
“I focused very specifically on Jim’s life,” she said. “On personal experiences and the things that were most important, be it as a musician or not.
“In so many of the other interviews of Jim, he’s very philosophical. But so much of what we captured in this interview is just his life. It’s his growing up, his going to college at Baylor, which made a huge impact on his decision to become a musician. We delved into that.”
IF YOU GO
Tickets can be bought online at www.truestorypictures.org or at the door for $20.
Self Selvidge interviewed Dickinson in April, and he passed away in August after a series of heart attacks.
That, said Self Selvidge, makes the whole point of recording these artists more poignant.
“Marguerite has written an autobiography, but nobody has ever done a full-on, in-depth video interview with her,” Self Selvidge said. “She had cancer in her face and had to have reconstructive surgery and so to have a video interview like that would have been hard for some, but for Marguerite, she’s a performer. She’s a born entertainer, and she’s performing her life in front of you.”
Piazza is a celebrated opera soprano and philanthropist whose career began in the 1940s as a member of the New York City Opera. Selvidge made a lengthy career as a Mississippi Delta blues, folk and country musician.
The event includes a wine-tasting and food, a screening of trailers for the three life stories and music videos.