Napoleon (or was it Frederick the Great?) once said that an army marches on its stomach. The saying holds true for the army of volunteers, musicians and crew members at the Beale Street Music Festival.

For the past 8 years, providing hot food to the host of hungry roadies has been the job of Winfrey’s Catering out of Somerville, TN.

With a crew of 10 to 12 full time workers, the caterers pull up their truck the week before the festival and start prep work on the 1,400 meals that they’ll serve over three days.

From their large mobile kitchen, the crew delivers the meals to the hospitality tents behind each stage.

“Most of what we do is based around barbeque,” said specialty chef Randy Wright. “Keep in mind that this is a music fest, and a lot of musicians these days are vegetarians.”

Not every band gets specialty treatment, but the top acts can request individualized meals delivered to their trailers, as specified in the artists’ contract riders. Wright said that there weren’t any particularly strange demands this year.

The Steve Miller Band, for example, got a vegetarian soup, brown rice, guacamole and salsa, and some specialty chicken. Band members for 311 asked for fish, so Wright served them catfish. For the vegetarians, Wright made a tamale pie.

“We’re seeing people requesting healthier menus in the riders these days,” Wright said. “There are more vegans and vegetarians, but a lot less weirdness.”

Outside the mobile kitchen a dry erase board displays the amounts and variety of food that is being delivered to the serving lines.

Wright says that most musicians eat from the buffet. Winfrey’s Catering got its start about two decades ago as a competitive barbecue cooking team. After winning some awards, owner Hunter Winfrey decided to cater full time.

So what is the food like backstage? Wright treated us to a taste.

The menu: Pulled pork with a sweet sauce, ribs with a tasty dry rub, green beans, baked beans, potato salad, corn on the cob, dinner roll, and a creamy banana pudding for dessert.

Click here to watch a  video by Jon W. Sparks of what the food prep area looks like. Bon apetit!

–Christopher Blank

–Video by Jon W. Sparks

Heh: Snoop Dogg made sure to keep his Yankees jacket dry with one of those cheap $5 ponchos.

— Lindsey

My usual, predictable complaint about Beale Street Music Festival (and some other festivals) is that it’s usually pretty lean on acts fronted by or featuring women. This year’s fest boasted Katy Perry, Susan Tedeschi, the Reba Russell Band, and Bonnie Raitt. Assuming I haven’t completely overlooked someone (it’s possible, please comment if so), that’s four out of nearly 60 acts. I’m always curious what’s behind that disappointing ratio. Is it an inability to lure female artists onto the bill? Is it a deliberate decision by festival organizers because there’s an assumption that festival tickets don’t get sold if there are too many women on the bill? Et cetera and so on.

Anyway, after a weekend of seeing dudes endlessly strut onto and off of stages like they own the place (they do, clearly), how completely awesome to see Bonnie Raitt take the stage and completely own it, own her guitar(s), and own her crowd. The woman rocks and she knows it. I, for one, would love to see more of that at BSMF.

— Lindsey

So I barged into the Three 6 Mafia trailer smiling widely so they wouldn’t immediately beat me to a pulp. I finally convinced Juicy J I wasn’t the guy from Rendezvous with the barbecue but just a common reporter with a video camera and would he be so kind as to speak to our readers on the occasion of the band’s concert on the Budweiser stage.

He did and here’s the result. NB: His claims about the CA giving away money and drinks cannot be confirmed at this time.

–Jon W. Sparks

Those who have seen George Clinton & P Funk know that the band is more than just a band. It’s a surreal pageant of weirdness. The guy in the underwear. The guy in the wedding dress. The list goes on.

Fronting the band is the unclassifiable George Clinton. Backstage, onlookers played a game of figuring out what Clinton was going for in his couture. To put in another way: from what vault of stoner/cultural iconography has the man assembled his wardrobe?

Note that when Clinton took off his hoodie (pictured), he was wearing a red, military style shirt. Boy Scout or Buffalo Soldier? Is the flourescent hairpiece a homage to a kind of psychedelic rooster, or perhaps the sacred plume of a witch doctor?

The school of study devoted to Clintonian ontology, or “Parliamentary Funkology” as it is listed in the course schedule, meets off-campus, daily, at 4:20, or  whenever. Bring something to munch on, and a hackey sack. Please call Funk University’s enhanced learning program for more information.

–Christopher Blank

Juicy J and his people (who preferred to remain anonymous) were chillin in the trailer about 20 minutes before showtime.

He was wanting to know where his ‘cue was (are you the Rendezvous man? he asked me). I told him I heard that the caterers had been given orders to come up with 11 vegetarian and 2 vegan dishes for Three 6 Mafia.

He looked at me like I was crazy. And showed me a Mrs. Winners takeout box.

Maybe it’s for 311 in the adjacent trailer. Makes you wonder what zany complications might ensue for anyone mixing up the two groups. Hmmm.

Anyway, I’ll post a video shortly of Juicy J talking about the show and what he’s got coming up.

–Jon W. Sparks

ABC24 Eyewitness Weather forecaster Henry Rothenberg gives us the skinny on today’s weather at BSMF. “It’s pretty much going to stay gray with light showers around.”

So with rain coming off and on, it’s a lot like yesterday, maybe with showers not lasting quite as long. Yes, it’ll continue through the evening with temperatures — it’s 68 now — staying at about the 70 degree level.

Tomorrow the front will push through, Rothenberg says, giving us a couple days, anyway, of dry weather.

Ain’t that the way it goes sometimes.

–Jon W. Sparks

Internet, I hope you will permit me a moment. A moment for a love letter of sorts.

For some Memphians, Al Green may be old news. Or one of those local cultural staples that, like Elvis or Graceland or barbecue or the Peabody ducks, you just sort of eventually become immune to because of its ubiquity.

But to me? Al Green is still a larger-than-life legend, a mythical beast I’d not yet glimpsed until Saturday night. Someone to get entirely too excited about. Someone to structure an entire evening around.

Allow me to explain.

I was but a glimmer in my parents’ eyes when Al Green was crooning in his heydey. I don’t think my family ever really got into soul music. The Turners were a steadfastly country-music household, so Al Green was a non-entity to me for a long, long time.

And yet.

My sophomore year of high school (1997-98, if you must know), I started dating a senior I’d had a crush on forever (in reality? maybe, like, weeks). We’d ride around town in his brown ‘69 Chevy Nova with a giant boombox in the back seat spinning CDs since his stereo only offered AM radio. And one of the most-spun discs in that boombox? Al Green’s Greatest Hits. (Say what you will about Greatest Hits albums, but this was pretty revolutionary stuff for teenagers from my hometown.) It was the first time in my life I had been exposed to soul music in any real way, and having my young puppy love blossom to a soundtrack of Al Green wailing like a lovesick panther with a shard of glass stuck in his paw, well, it felt sweet and sophisticated and perfect in every possible way.

That was my introduction to the Reverend. And my respect and admiration for him and his voice and his music has just grown since then.

So getting to see him (up close for three songs and then back behind the stage — not backstage but behind the stage where you couldn’t see anything) for the first time tonight was a treat for me. (Bonus: I caught Elvis Costello backstage watching Al Green. Jeez. Too much greatness in one area.) I won’t even feign journalistic indifference or whatever. I was totally excited and then blown away when the man, who is well into his 60s, was struttin’ and dancin’ and hamming it up for his completely enthusiastic audience. And how completely amazing to see a backing band so clearly psyched to be a part of a man’s music. (They were seriously tight. Especially the percussionists.) There were some audio foibles (a finicky mic) early on that clearly frustrated him, but he kept that wide grin on his face the whole time and kept the crowd engaged. I’m a little sore that I didn’t get to snag one of the many red roses he tossed into the audience, but that’s nothing. I’m so happy I got the chance to see him while he’s still full of fire.

Video of Al Green singing “Let’s Get Married” (complete with technical foibles) is here.

— Lindsey

So, I’m trying to upload videos and photos and get a post up on this here blog, and Shinedown is mere yards away from me, hootin’ and hollerin’ and screaming and driving their bass beats so hard that the walls of this trailer are shaking. It’s all giving me a sense of urgency that I’m not terribly accustomed to feeling. Or I could be jittery because I just drank a Coke and ate two snack-size bags of Cheetos and THERE IS NO BLOOD IN ME ANY MORE, JUST SUGAR.

Anyway, there has been a ton of good stuff to see today, and there’s still more to come. (I’m trying to log this entry and then hoof it to see the Reverend.)

I came up to the last song of the Bar-Kays’ set and they were absolutely rocking out. I mean, “rocking out” makes it sound so lame and square, right? They were doing the opposite of whatever is lame and square, complete with complicated guitar choreography. Los Lobos kept a straight face as they unleashed their roots rock on a drenched crowd. Shinedown got the kids bouncing (they’re still out there; have I mentioned how difficult it is to write with them playing right outside?) Robert “Wolfman” Belfour has been out in that Blues Shack off and on all dang day, moaning and wailing in a way that I wish I could take with me and have with me always when life is just a little too tough to handle without bluesy accompaniment.

But so far, topping my list (even though I didn’t get to see their whole set) are The Roots. They strutted onto the stage like the world’s tiniest and most bad-ass marching band. The front row was insatiable and kept chanting for the lead vocals to be upped. But, you know, it’s hard to compete with the amazingness that is a tuba. And listen, I don’t know if I can say this with enough force or clarity, but I demand more tuba in everything from now on. Everything!

Video of The Roots is here.

It’s been a full day. And it’s been great fun watching yesterday’s firm ground get tilled by feet into the viscous sludge that it is now. These pants will never be the same again, sadly.

I’ll do my dangdest to check back in before the night’s over. I’m waiting on a video of The Roots to upload and I’ll plunk it down into this post once it’s done.

— Lindsey

One great thing about Saturday’s music festival was that with the price of admission, you were virtually guaranteed to see Elvis Costello. You didn’t even have to be at his set from 8 to 9:20. You just had to go see other people perform; Elvis Costello would just show up on the stage.

Many of you will go home tonight and look over the crowd photos you took with your cell phones. If you look close enough, you will probably see Elvis Costello in the picture. Not sure what he looks like?

This was from my first Elvis Costello sighting this afternoon in the blues tent, when he jumped up onstage for one tune with the great blues guitarist Hubert Sumlin (on the right). Great tune. Crowd went crazy.

We noticed that Elvis’ right hand was covered in what looked like Sanskrit writing. He reluctantly allowed us to take a photo of the said hand.

“You won’t be able to read it,” he informed us. Then after a few minutes he came back over to add: “I’ve only had to write down the lyrics twice — here, and Live Aid.”

Really, we just wanted to see the bling bling.