-Jack Kerouac

Yes, well . . . I looked back and saw Wayne doing what so few people can do and what Wayne does best: making it matter. On my last trip to Memphis, he talked to me about the future of Memphis Music and about the dreams that have led him to resurrect it. Men who talk about their dreams usually strike me as crazy, lewd or dull, and I try to avoid them. But Wayne has good taste as well as dreams, and good taste goes a long way when you stand alone and make the effort to complete yourself. For those of us who walked away, Wayne is a legend who has been chasing a dream for the better part of a decade. And we’re proud of him.

"We’ve always been the underdogs . . . it’s time we got up and made our own rules," Wayne declares. He has spent his life immersed in the strange underground of Memphis Music and he knows that there are a lot of rules that you have to follow. I remember him as a teenager (when I was not so much a teenager), dancing with the local girls in the local bars to the weird vibes of the local acts. Even then Wayne was more than just an observer. His energy was supernova; and he was absorbing all of the good stuff that only a place like Memphis can produce. He is a rightful heir to an incredible musical history. And he is in a position to make right all that ain’t right here. The rules are changing.

Wayne has been the driver of many musical vehicles and has named his most recent vehicle the Memphis Troubadours. The Memphis Troubadours are a lot of things - as Wayne puts it, they are "creating a space reserved for things that happen outside of the box. The Troubadours give a simple entrance into the world of understanding how to be open to the power of experience." In short, it is a revival of the craft of writing songs and performing them with heart. It is a "family of songwriters who want to capture the moment . . . the genuine article." They produce a collaborative show that Wayne plans to eventually put on the road, bringing real Memphis musicians into the spotlight.

It is the night after Christmas and there is an odd glitter to things in Memphis. It’s hard to tell if the effect is due to the recent holidays or to the freezing rain that has been falling all day. No matter . . . there will likely be no freezing rain inside of the Flying Saucer in downtown Memphis and the holidays seem far off. This is Tuesday night in Memphis and the Memphis Troubadours offer it as The Place To Be. While it is often (mistakenly) billed as "open mic," it is anything but. Wayne rules Tuesday nights at the Flying Saucer with a velvet fist. He tends to lend an air of weight to anything that he is connected with, so things seem a bit tense and serious early on. The Flying Saucer is a corporate venture, with something like nine locations nationwide, and suddenly I’m having a tough time buying into Wayne’s vision. And I sense that I’m not alone. Everything is a bit sterile. I’ve always disliked shiny bars and I decide that I may even dislike this one. And why not?

And then it begins: The lights are already dimmed, but they seem to dim just a little more. Wayne looks things over with a big grin, sits down, reassuringly pats the musician to his right and then arches himself over his guitar. He pauses to search himself; tilts his head to one side and opens his eyes and mouth as if to ask a question; sighs audibly into the microphone . . . and then breaks the tension with his first number, pouring everything that he has into four minutes of emotion and musical weightlessness. The air in the bar crackles, the silence is suddenly sound and the gravity gives way and when the four minutes are over . . . man, you could have heard a pin drop in that place. The energy is palpable and it is obvious, at least to me, that Wayne has come very close to accomplishing something very real. Maybe even his goal. He says that he wants this show to be "an event." And I feel like a man watching something really, really important go down. Yeah . . . maybe an event.

And, all night long, it never ends. Each songwriter takes his place in the line-up, playing one song and then turning the spotlight over to the artist on the right. None of them have any resemblance to one another. No resemblance save for the fact that they are all hungry, all talented, all from Memphis and all a part of a musical history the likes of which has never been seen on this earth. The show turns out to be an odd collection of rattles and hums and high, lonesome noise. Alternative Country, Shockabilly, Rural Pop, Psychedelic Folk and everything in between. If it’s an event, it’s a damned gritty event; close to the ground and substantial. And a lot like the good old days.

"It happens now and, with the proper resources, it can happen on a much larger scale," Wayne says, after the Tuesday night music has faded and in response to my question about how this strange monster is going to become the thing in his dreams. Maybe we’re not communicating, because what I’m talking about here is crossing lines that were drawn in the sand a long time ago; creating borders that you may not like, but also lines that you cannot cross. But Wayne disagrees. He is thinking on a larger scale. "We have no lines to cross," he says. "We play music for the sake of music. Everything else is just lost in the wind."

But, make no mistake, Wayne is engaged in making the Memphis Troubadours more than just another rag-tag band of songwriters, tilting at windmills so that they can one day brag in the Memphis bars about how they gave the Musical Establishment the finger. He knows the ins and outs of the business that he’s in and he knows that none of this business goes on without financing. Even starving musicians have to be thrown a bone now and then and the Flying Saucer has a bottom line to maintain, even on Tuesday night. First things first, Wayne takes care of his own. He has no fear when it comes to asking for revisions to the arrangement with the Powers That Be - forever running the numbers past the management in hopes of upping the pay scale and benefits for all of the musicians involved - and in terms of his larger vision, Wayne is currently in cahoots with investors and a creative team that he hopes will move the Memphis Troubadours to the next level: a travelling show with corporate sponsorship. Yeah, that clinched up my gut a little too. But it is an unfortunate fact of life that in order to increase the exposure of any venture, a monetary as well as a spiritual investment is required. And musicians are generally a poor lot. Something, somewhere has to give.

I have to wonder if this doesn’t all get to Wayne. He seems to be everywhere, all of the time. He is The Man in Charge. He must not only write and play; he has to take care of all the pesky details that drive many musicians to distraction. Wayne shrugs the allusion to his duties off and, in way of explanation, says, "There are nights when everything comes together and we all share the magic. Wouldn’t trade that feeling for all the money in the world. But it’s been no easy journey. I’ve taken many losses to make this happen. I lived out of my car for eight months so that I could work on making this happen. I took care of many bar tabs and parking fees and free stuff for the sake of making artists feel like they were special and deserved the extra details. But what I’ve gotten in return is a lifetime of moments; the pure energy of these songs; the poetry of these lives; the gratitude of the hungry who have been fed. This just feels right."

All of the other worries, for the most part, "belong to Caesar," according to Wayne, while his main effort is in remembering to "give to God what is God’s." He is caught up in the Memphis Troubadours and his vision because he loves the sound of it all. He loves exposing Memphis songwriters to the world and he loves exposing the world to his talent and the beauty that he finds here and there. And he knows from experience that if he makes this dream come true, he will have beaten all of the odds.

One of Wayne’s favourite stories with respect to the Memphis Troubadours involves a regular to the Troubadours’ Tuesday night romp, a businessman from Atlanta who makes the shows whenever he’s in town. One night he came to Wayne and told him that he had bought his son a guitar and wanted to expose him to what music can be and how far it can be taken. So the guy flew his teenage son from Atlanta to Memphis so that he could pick up on the show. "The kid - just turned thirteen - sat in the front row and hung on our every word," Wayne laughs. "It was unbelievable. That’s the power of this thing. It goes way beyond the music and gives people some peace and enlightenment. I dunno. Maybe I’m a flake and too heady," he decides.

I dunno either . . . I lean towards the flaky and heady myself. But there is a real sense of the practical in Wayne’s dream. In one sense it’s a long way off. But in another sense, I can almost see it. Wayne has a favourite expression. He says, "Find what you love and do it." Maybe it’s that attitude that causes his dream to become clear for me. Maybe it’s what I heard and saw on a dreary Tuesday night in Memphis what with the dim lights and weightlessness and crackling air and Wayne dancing in the vortex and all. Or maybe it’s something else. A sense of something wrong being made right.