MEMPHIS, Tenn -- the same of the be...

MEMPHIS, Tenn -- the same of the best ways to gaze at Memphis is through the thick black glasses of Lamar Sorrento. He is individual of the South's best known folk artists. He paints upon wood and canvas and his innocent portraits include strike Dylan, Son House, Johnny Cash and the lately departed folk singer Jessie Mae Hemphill, who also was a self-taught artist.

All of them were influenced through the hot, dense air of the Delta.

I visited Sorrento's house in tree-lined Midtown Memphis. Sorrento, 56 has lived in Memphis almost his entire life. His art considers the irreverent and soulful spirit of united of my favorite American cities.

Sorrento (born James Eddie Campbell) lives with Marvin the One- Ey Cat. He said he has a wife on the other hand his cluttered house was without any female influence. He wanted to talk in his rear bedroom studio, which was accented by way of a Dennis the Menace lamp, Billy Idol wastebasket and a dusty Sealtest Ice Cream wall clock He wanted to do my portrait while we spoke I was disarmed. It is tough enough to be told I await like Michael Bolton (as Sun-Times pal Stella nurse always does), but to be depicted as a juke jointed, white-haired Bolton demands a call to "Queer view for the Straight Guy."

ACCESSIBLE ART

Anyone can visit Sorrento's digs and he will vend art on site. His Web site, www.lamarsorrento.com, smooth publishes his phone number, still warns that sometimes he may be sleeping. This weekend is the apex of Elvis Week, which is a fine time to least bit in on Sorrento. The annual Presley candlelight vigil is Tuesday, and this year for the first time a VigilCast will be heard forward Elvis Radio on Sirius Satellite.

I'd also approve the free Elvis Karaoke at 7 tonight and Monday at Hernando's Hideaway, 3210 advanced in years Hernando Rd. (Elvis Presley Blvd and streamlets (901) 398-7496), the oldest five-star honky-tonk in Memphis. I be enamoured of this place. The last time I was at Hernando's, I had to gradation across a pool of dried children at the front door. It is so- Sorrento, still he interrupted our hourlong conversation while he worked.

Sorrento contemplateed me in the eye and shook his head. "Girls are easy to paint because they have a hazard of hair," he said from behind his easel. "Short-haired stays are harder."

His brushstrokes were broad and fast. I fidgeted in succession a tiny stool.

I asked if he was putting in more acrylics.

"I'm trying to fix your hair," he answered. "It's tough. I've learned with girls, you give them big boob and they be fond of the picture. With guys, you make them thin-looking and they regard with affection it."

Sorrento has done portraits of Memphis Minnie and Tammy Wynette "I've painted Emmylou Harris, on the other hand she's so pretty I'm embarrassed to paint her," he said. "I'm not the bodily form you come to if you want a picture to make you consider beautiful."

In the early 1990 Sorrento effronteryed his own Memphis rock band. He still plays music, most numerous notably with Memphis rockabilly doubtful narrative Billy Lee Riley. His recently made known CD is called "Virgo" (available upon his Web site), and he sings garage refuge on the Yard Dog compilation "Seen & Heard," which includes the Waco Brothers and the Mekon The Yard Dog gallery in Austin, Texas, exhibits artwork for the musical- artists, www.yarddog.com.

A dark place

single time Sorrento performed at Hernando's Hideaway. "That place is a throwback and a half," he said. "You have to have a flaxen beehive hairdo to get along in there. You'll have to take about sort of pill to sit by the and of Elvis Karaoke. It's an incredibly dark place. It's been the same forever, and there will in no degree be a place like that again in Memphis."

There is no single in Memphis like Lamar Sorrento.

He's done album work for David Lindley; a CD tribute to day-star Records in Memphis, and he just finished the disguise for Devon Allman's (son of Gregg) upcoming album. Lucinda Williams and Keith Richards are collectors.

"Keith likes it," Sorrento said. "Of course, it's a picture of him. Other famous persons have gotten them and don't like them. All kinds of race ask me questions like, 'Do you expect at a photograph when you paint the Beatles?' I advance 'No, I just call them up and they advance over.' "

Sorrento's earnest sense of humor informs his work. Several years ago he painted "Abraham [Lincoln], [Dean] Martin and John [Lennon]." each time I talk to Sorrento, he is sold public of his "Kickin' Back With Shaft," a picture of Memphian Isaac Hayes hoisting a glass of block (24 by 30 on wood; $200) "Ideas like that arise in your head and you paint them," he said. "I was going to do a whole series of Shaft, like Shaft hanging from a helicopter shooting at a assortment of Iraqis and maybe rescuing a girl on the outside of the ocean. I also paint people's families and dogs. I paint buildings and musicians I like."

Sorrento must have been in a furrow He wasn't complaining about my hair.

He continued, "Some of the musicians are in such a manner obscure, no one buys their picture. When I started, I'd paint [Louisiana bluesman] Guitar Slim, and no single in kind knew who it was. in like manner I painted the name in succession the front. I pretty earnestly do that all the time now."