Beale Street Dynasty
Beale Street Dynasty: Sex, Song, and the Struggle for the Soul of Memphis
Beale Street is where W.C. Handy wrote the blues, where B.B. King got his start, and where the sound of Memphis was made. But behind the music was a political and economic story that has never been fully told — a battle for control of the most important Black commercial district in the American South, waged over decades by musicians, madams, ward bosses, and one extraordinary family.
Beale Street Dynasty traces the Church family — Robert Church Sr., the South's first Black millionaire, and his son Robert Church Jr., who built a Republican political machine that wielded genuine power in a Jim Crow city — alongside the blues composers, vice entrepreneurs, and machine politicians who made Beale Street simultaneously the cultural capital of Black America and one of the most dangerous streets in the country. Lauterbach moves between the brothels and the ballot boxes, between W.C. Handy's sheet music and Boss Crump's ward heelers, recovering a world where race, money, music, and raw power were inseparable.
Winner of the Ray & Pat Browne Award for Best Single Work from the Popular Culture Association.
“…Not even a bullet in the head could stop [Bob] Church, who became the star mega-mogul of Beale Street. Like many of the district’s czars, he was both valiant and corrupt, a charmer and a thug. In a startlingly rebellious move, he opened what Lauterbach — the author of ‘The Chitlin’ Circuit’ — calls ‘sex slavery plantations,’ brothels stocked with white women….’Beale Street Dynasty’ adds a fascinating chapter to civil rights history. But for all the hatred it depicts, this gracefully written book never loses sight of the fun that made [W.C.] Handy exalt that stretch of dirt road.”
Critical Acclaim
“Preston Lauterbach has conjured a fascinating demimonde that’s dead and gone. After reading this, I dreamed all night about street hustlers, hoodoos, and snake oil salesmen on Beale Street, the Main Street of black America. Here Lauterbach gives us Beale in its heyday—the chitlin joints, the rough-and-tumble politics, the fecund music—and deftly paints a portrait of the one improbable millionaire who towered over this vibrant world. Read Beale Street Dynasty and you begin to feel you’re communing with ghosts.”
— Hampton Sides, bestselling author of Hellhound on His Trail
“In his last book, The Chitlin’ Circuit, Lauterbach shone light into obscure, all but unknown rooms of the rock-’n’-roll story. This time he turns to a chapter we thought we knew well—Beale Street, one of the grounds zero of American culture, with Tin Pan Alley and Congo Square and Concord—and the result is every bit as illuminating. Lauterbach has become one of my favorite people to read on 20th-century popular music.”
— John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of Pulphead
“You may know about Beale Street, W. C. Handy, and the Memphis Blues, but chances are you’ve never heard of the Church family and its achievements. Could an African-American political dynasty, against all odds, have managed real power in a Southern city a century ago? Preston Lauterbach tells the tale authoritatively and with flair.”
— Luc Sante, author of Low Life
“Preston Lauterbach takes readers on an uproarious, sometimes shocking jaunt through Memphis history by way of Beale Street, the remarkable thoroughfare that has hosted the likes of W.C. Handy, Ida B. Wells, and Richard Wright. Beale Street Dynasty is a compelling, witty, deeply researched, and always enlightening book.”
— Gary Krist, author of Empire of Sin
“Beale Street’s decadent and uplifting components alike were brought and held together through regional politics of the most brutal sort: vote bundling, poll taxes, stolen ballot boxes, anti-Negro pogroms, lynchings and assassinations by men who could get away with murder. All aspects of this complex, fascinating history are told in ‘Beale Street Dynasty’ with verve and vivid erudition by Preston Lauterbach.”
“So much American history is the story of power, race and money. And that story runs extra deep and vivid in the old Tennessee river city of Memphis. On the Chickasaw Bluffs, above the Mississippi, Memphis moved after the Civil War…from slaves and cotton to sex and song. There was a furious battle for power. For a time, blacks won a notable share. It built Beale Street.”
Tom Ashbrook, NPR On Point
“Beale Street Dynasty is both good history and a good yarn. … [A] Southern answer to Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York or HBO’s similarly titled Boardwalk Empire.”
“…a masterful job of depicting the ruthless entrepreneurship that yielded a lot of tangled vice and, perhaps not surprisingly, some tangible good as well.”
“Beale Street Dynasty…is an important and impeccably researched social and political history of Memphis that may be one of the best historical narratives of black life in the American South from the end of the Civil War to the 1940s. It’s also a riveting tale that’s hard to put down.” Jackson Clarion-Ledger
“It’s a tale littered with vice kings and philanthropists, graft-driven politicians and progressive activists, human depravity and timeless music….Lauterbach presents the lively history of this period with meticulous research, an engaging plot that resembles a tense political thriller, and the white-hot language of hardboiled crime fiction.” Knoxville News Sentinel
“His skill as a writer is to interweave historical facts with the stories of the characters that populated Beale Street and its surrounds.”
Awards
Ray & Pat Browne Award for Best Single Work from the Popular Culture Association / American Culture Association
Media
Selected Press
National & Regional Press
The New York Times Book Review | "Adds a fascinating chapter to civil rights history. But for all the hatred it depicts, this gracefully written book never loses sight of the fun that made Handy exalt that stretch of dirt road." Read at The New York Times.
The Wall Street Journal | "All aspects of this complex, fascinating history are told in 'Beale Street Dynasty' with verve and vivid erudition." Read at The Wall Street Journal.
The Commercial Appeal | Preston Lauterbach's ‘Beale Street Dynasty’ reveals colorful, forgotten history of Memphis. Read at The Commercial Appeal.
Salon | "A real-life Lucious Lyon: The former slave who built a Beale Street empire and transformed Memphis." Read at Salon.
The Daily Memphian | Featured in The Essential Memphis Library series. Read at The Daily Memphian.
The Bluegrass Situation | "The Main Street of Black America: A fascinating deep dive into the big bang of American popular music." Read at The Bluegrass Situation.
Tennessee Bar Association | "Sex, Song, and the Struggle for the Soul of Memphis: How a powerful family dynasty shaped a historic city." Read at Tennessee Bar Association.
The Dallas Morning News | Comprehensive history review of Beale Street Dynasty: Sex, Song, and the Struggle for the Soul of Memphis.
Radio, Audio & Visual Media
WKNO-TV / PBS | A Conversation with Preston Lauterbach A featured broadcast television interview with host Bard Cole exploring the book's deep dive into W.C. Handy, Boss Crump, and how the "Memphis Blues" shaped local political history. Watch at YouTube.
WKNO FM (NPR for the Mid-South) | "Counterpoint" feature interview tracking the rise of the South's first Black millionaire, Robert Church. Listen at WKNO FM.
WVXU (Cincinnati Public Radio / NPR) | Featured broadcast interview focusing on the vivid history of sex, song, and power in early Memphis. Listen at WVXU.
WTJU 91.1 FM | "Walkin' Blues". Listen at WTJU.
Rhodes College | Preston Lauterbach - "Beale Street Dynasty" A filmed academic keynote and lecture delivered by Lauterbach at the opening of the official Beale Street Symposium, mapping the strip's rise from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement. Watch at YouTube.
One Mic Black History | “How a Black Millionaire Bought White Memphis” A video podcast episode dedicated to the book's primary historical arc, focusing on Robert Church's rise to become the South’s first Black millionaire. Listen at YouTube Music.
International Coverage
The Blues Magazine (UK) | "A gripping and definitive chronicle of the birthplace of the blues." A multi-page British print review detailing how Lauterbach unearths the intersection of vice, music, and the rise of the South's first Black millionaire, Robert Church. Read at The Blues Magazine.
The Times Literary Supplement (TLS) | "Sex, Song, and the Struggle for the Soul of Memphis"
The Wall Street Journal (Global Edition) | "All aspects of this complex, fascinating history are told in 'Beale Street Dynasty' with verve and vivid erudition."