2023 Issue 6 Nov/Dec Focus - Mid-South Magazine

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music photo by Elcrow Photography The Grit & Grind of Memphis Musician Hope Clayburn by Tricia Dewey 16 Music | Nov+Dec 2023 | focuslgbt.com
Hope with her band Soul Scrimmage photo by Yubu Kazungu Hope Clayburn is writing her own story. She’s talented, creative, versatile, and always remembers to thank those who have supported her. She’s both a nurse and a musician, but music is her passion. And she is having a moment. Her music video for the song “Nobody'' debuted this summer, and her album Y'all So Loud, with her band Soul Scrimmage, comes out in December, with a show at the Green Room at Crosstown on December 16. Like any good Southern child, she says she started singing in church, and then fell in love with the saxophone when playing in her junior high school band in North Carolina. From high school in Richmond, she went on to college at the University of Virginia, and graduated with a degree in neuroscience, while playing in area bands. She says that, lucky for her, the mid-’90s in Charlottesville was a real hotbed of music with Dave Matthews and other great music happening. She played in a jazz band, got connected with local musicians, and played in her first ever rock band, Baaba Seth. People said they would be the next Dave Matthews. She says they weren’t that fortunate but they still do reunion shows and have been together almost 30 years. Clayburn decided to forego medical school to tour with some bands in the Northeast, including a band called Deep Banana Blackout. They signed to a small record label associated with the drummer of the Allman Brothers Band, so they got to tour with the Allman Brothers, and play music all over the world. But the band fizzled out, she says, like bands do, and that's when she realized right around 9/11 that she couldn’t stay in New York. “That reminded me how much I love the South. I'm from the South. I like the space and the pace of the South.” Clayburn’s sister is a physician in Memphis and invited Hope to stay with her while she figured out her next steps. She decided to get her nursing degree from UT Health Science Center nursing program in the early 2000s and then worked at the Med in the Trauma Center for about 13 years until right about when the pandemic hit. She loves medicine and science but her first love is music. Nursing helps her to fund her projects. Although she took a hiatus from nursing during the pandemic, she plans to return in 2024. She played in bands throughout nursing school and jokingly says she didn't sleep for three years. “And that's the whole thing. I'm never not going to play [music].” When she first moved to Memphis, Richard Cushing, founder and leader of FreeWorld, a legendary Memphis band that still plays on Beale Street, reached out and asked her to play with them. “I would play until 3 a.m. on Beale Street and then have to go to nursing school at 7 a.m. to take an exam. That's what you do as Memphis musicians. You gotta do what you gotta do. The grit and grind of the Memphis musician is the true grit and grind of this city.” Through FreeWorld she met other musicians, including Robert Allen Parker Jr., now one of Clayburn’s best friends and one of the best guitarists in town. He approached Clayburn after seeing her play and asked if she wanted to put together her own band. She did, and Soul Scrimmage was formed from the musicians who routinely showed up to play with her at the Nov+Dec 2023 | focuslgbt.com | Music 17
Page 1 and 2: Serving the Mid-South LGBT+ Communi
Page 3 and 4: BROWSE THE STORES IN LAURELWOOD. EX
Page 5 and 6: FEATURED WRITERS IN THIS ISSUE CONT
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Page 40: Be a Trendsetter. Refresh your eyew

2023 Issue 6 Nov/Dec Focus - Mid-South Magazine

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