A mainstay of Memphis’ live music scene for years, Los Psychosis hadn’t recorded professionally until last year, when the album “Rock and Roll Dreams” was made.

Venues for live performance – the Orpheum, the Levitt Shell, the Landers Center – say audiences are eager for a return to shows.

A nice crowd gathered on a nice evening to open Arlington’s Music on the Square concert series, featuring the Brian Johnson Band.

The 87-year-old musician honed his craft at South Memphis’ Club Paradise, a pivotal venue in “The Birth of Soul Music.”

The Memphis musician’s blend of hip-hop and R&B finds nationwide airplay. ‘I grew up on Memphis music and I just try to compact all of those influences into one thing,’ he says.

The first major, outdoor live-music event in Memphis since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mempho Fest Oct. 1-3 will feature Friday and Saturday headline sets from Georgia’s Widespread Panic, and a closing Sunday night set from North Carolina’s Avett Brothers.

“Shell Yeah!” benefit shows will feature the North Mississippi Allstars on May 6; New Orleans soul band Tank & the Bangas on May 20; Langhorne Slim on June 3; and Lucero on July 15.

Iris founding director Michael Stern says, ‘Welcoming a live audience again, even limited capacity and even outdoors, is incredibly emotional.’

Tickets for Levitt Shell’s first two fundraising concerts sold out within hours, indicating that audiences are chomping at the bit for live music and shared experiences.

Neighborhood leaders thought the tree-lined streets, where almost every home has a veranda, would be ideal for outdoor mini-concerts.

‘Lost in Orion,’ Don Lifted’s somber yet catchy debut single with Fat Possum Records, is ‘the culmination of a really tough, frustrating and death-ridden time,’ the artist says.

The annual “30 Days of Opera” performances, free and outdoors, seem made to order for pandemic times, though the series has been around at Opera Memphis since 2012.

After missing 2020 due to COVID, two popular spring/summer Memphis concert series are returning next month in altered form.

Musicians will perform live at The Grove at GPAC on Thursday nights through April. The concerts are free, and cocktails and snacks will be available to purchase.

The two-day event is a thank-you to supporters of Black Lodge’s Indiegogo campaign, which reached its financial goal before it was set to end. 

The concerts on a stage surrounded by “hundreds of candles,” will be limited capacity and socially distanced, with food trucks and bars available.

The first concert at the 10,000-seat Landers Center is slated March 26 featuring country music artist Parker McCollum.

A mix of Black women music-makers from Memphis, past and present, honors both February’s Black History Month celebration and Women’s History Month in March. 

Rev. Juan Shipp of D-Vine Spirituals introduced King to the head of Bible & Tire Recording Co., and she soon found herself back in front of a studio microphone: ‘It was pure magic, almost like her voice had been frozen in time,’ said the producer.

Viewers of a recent commercial might have found themselves moving to music created by Memphians. 

Graceland, Live at the Garden and Levitt Shell are planning for 2021 concerts after 2020 shut everything down.

Minglewood Plaza owner Richard Roberts also is looking for someone to manage Minglewood Hall concert venue. Other businesses inside Minglewood Plaza continue to operate.

Jordan Dodson, who performs as Jordan Occasionally, wrote the song “Don’t Shoot,” which became an unofficial anthem of the widespread Black Lives Matter protests in Memphis in 2020.

‘Nostalgia drives tourism, but Memphis is making new moves now — it’s time to move on from Elvis,’ says Brady Tackett, who makes music as Night Park.