Kool & the Gang, War to play new festival at Tiger Lane

John Beifuss, Memphis Commercial Appeal
·2 min read

The veteran soul/funk combos War and Kool & the Gang will perform June 24 in Tiger Lane to inaugurate "The Great Life Festival," the latest addition to Memphis' busy spring-summer music scene.

The opening act for the festival will be The Family Stone, a band led by saxophone-playing Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Jerry Martini, an original member of Sly & the Family Stone, and vocalist Phunne Stone, the daughter of Sly Stone and the late Cynthia Robinson, a trumpeter and vocalist in the earlier band.

Gates open at 3 p.m., with the Family Stone set to perform at 4 p.m., followed by War at 5:30 p.m. and Kool & the Gang at 7:30.

In 2022, founding member Robert "Kool" Bell (left) performed with Kool & the Gang at Britain's Boomtown Fair Fest.
In 2022, founding member Robert "Kool" Bell (left) performed with Kool & the Gang at Britain's Boomtown Fair Fest.

Seating will be set up in Tiger Lane for the show, with general-admission lawn tickets also available. Tickets range from $50 to $100.

Presented by the national concert organizers R Entertainment and OVG360, the event will include offerings of gourmet food, craft beer, wine, bourbon and shopping opportunities from fashion, tech and "lifestyle" vendors.

Also at Tiger Lane in Liberty Park (the old "Fairgrounds" area) during the festival will be a "Complete Circle of Care Pavilion," which a press release describes as "an interactive showcase of stunning displays intersecting health with technology to deliver the world’s hottest modalities to live a #Greatlife."

The festival is modeled on a similar but more rock-and-roll-oriented event that has been held for the past dozen years in Phoenix.

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Arriving almost two months after the Memphis in May Beale Street Music Festival in Tom Lee Park and about three months before the Mempho Music Festival at the Botanic Garden, the Great Life Festival brings together incarnations of three of the most innovative and popular funk/soul bands of the 1960s-through-1980s era.

Organized in 1964 but not finding chart success until 1973, Kool & the Gang is known for such celebratory dance-funk party-starters as "Jungle Boogie," "Ladies Night" and the ubiquitous "Celebration." Introducing elements of jazz and Latin funk to pop radio, War scored such hits as "The Cisco Kid," "Low Rider" and "The World is a Ghetto." Similarly injecting political messages into such danceable hits as "Everyday People," Sly & the Family Stone was a successor to the James Brown revue and a predecessor to Prince & the Revolution; The Family Stone carries on the tradition by performing Sly Stone compositions and similar material.

For more information, visit TheGreatLifeFest.com.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Kool & the Gang, War to play The Great Life Festival in Memphis