Pillar is missing from soul 'Temple'

By Tom Walter
November 29, 2003

All right. The show is called "Temples of Rock." So it's mandatory that Sun Studio is prominently featured. And it is, right off the bat.

But host Ray Manzarek (the Doors' keyboard player) says in his introduction that we will be visiting the temples of rock and soul.

We get a nice segment on Motown.

And we get nothing on Stax.

A deliberate sign of disrespect? Not according to the producer.

What: "Temples of Rock"   When: 8 p.m. Sunday   Where: Travel Channel

"The idea had always been to expand the idea and do more programs if this one performs in the ratings, and if we did, Stax certainly would fit in at that time. Unfortunately, we just could not cover all the great stories in the time we had," said Mike Finkelpearl, Travel Channel executive producer of the program.

And while the show has been in development since 2001, it didn't get an interview with Sam Phillips, nor use any archival interviews.

But the Sun piece is strong, even if it pushes too hard on the idea that musical spirits roam the studio and continue to inspire musicians.

Then again, musicians can be a suspicious lot. Graham Nash still has an acoustical ceiling tile he got from the studio in the late 1970s, before the studio re-opened for tours.

Speaking of which, we do tend to spend a lot of time with studio guide Johnny Sun, who moved to Memphis from Philadelphia just to work at Sun. The payoff comes at the end of the segment, as he and his band play in the Sun studio.

Other temples are The Cavern Club in Liverpool, the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles, The Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, the Fillmore East in New York and CBGB in New York.

The music covers the waterfront from rock's beginnings through the Mersey Beat to psychedelic to punk to soul.

Along the way, we pick up some nifty nuggets of information.

Such as the night The Who's Keith Moon decided to go naked on stage at the Whisky a Go Go.

Such as the night the Doors got fired from the same venue when Jim Morrison went all Oedipus while singing (and apparently winging) "The End."

Such as the night at The Cavern Club when George Harrison got punched in the face by a fan angry that the Beatles dropped drummer Pete Best.

Many of these stories will be well-known to die-hard fans, but the casual listener will find them fascinating.

The special connects the music that was being played to the tenor of the times, mostly successfully. But some of the broad, sweeping statements - such as the Fillmore "nurturing the spirit of a generation" - go a little overboard.

Some of these temples still exist (Sun), some exist in altered form (The Cavern), some exist only as museums (Motown's Hitsville, U.S.A.) and some no longer exist.

The documentary fails to point out the irony that the Fillmore East is now a bank branch. Money changed music, a topic perhaps beyond the purview of this piece.

Instead of imagining coins jingling, if you visit the site of the Fillmore East, you will feel something else.

"If you stand there and listen, perhaps you'll be able to feel the vibes of the grandest rock temple of them all," Manzarek says, grandly.

Copyright 2003, commercialappeal.com - Memphis, TN. All Rights Reserved.

(thanks, Beverly)

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