Smoke & Ruin Records · Memphis, Tennessee · 1990–1999Pit 225°F · Holding
Charcoal Crusted Chicken

Southern rock · Competition barbecue

Charcoal Crusted Chicken

Low and slow. Loud and fast.

A four-piece band playing on a wooden deck built onto a smoker trailer at a riverside barbecue contest at dusk: a bearded singer in a leather apron with a guitar, a woman in a cap on bass, a drummer, and a long-haired lead guitarist, with smoke drifting over a crowd holding paper plates and string lights over the river behind
From the trailer deck, riverside, at dusk. Set two. The smoker is behind the drum kit and running.

Packet item 01

The Team

As written on the butcher paper taped inside the trailer door, with later notes from the archive.

Charcoal Crusted Chicken formed in Memphis in 1990. All four members were competition pitmasters before they were a band. Boone Tackett and Lu Strickland ran rival teams on the Mid-South circuit and parked their smokers side by side at most contests for three years. In the spring of 1990 they combined the two teams into one. Hollis Gray and Reggie Pope came with the trailer.

The band played straight-ahead Southern rock from a plywood deck bolted to the smoker trailer. It played while it cooked. Sets were timed to the fire. A set ran forty-five minutes, which is how long Lu Strickland allowed between checks of the firebox.

The band released four albums on Smoke & Ruin Records between 1992 and 1999. It was disqualified from one barbecue championship. It did not appeal.

“Low and slow. Loud and fast.”

— Hand-painted on the firebox door of the smoker trailer, 1990
The four band members standing on the muddy bank of the Mississippi River at dawn with coffee cups, an old steel truss bridge in the mist behind them
The riverbank at dawn after an overnight cook. Coffee, then the turn-in.

Note 1

Two Smokers

In the late 1980s there were two teams on the Mid-South circuit that parked next to each other by habit. One cooked on a black offset smoker with TACKETT BBQ welded on the lid. The other cooked on a smaller offset with STRICKLAND'S BBQ welded on its own.

Boone Tackett cooked by feel. Lu Strickland cooked by the log. For three seasons they traded wood, borrowed tongs and placed within a few points of each other.

In March 1990 Boone Tackett asked Lu Strickland whether she played anything. She said bass. He said that settled it. The two teams entered that May as one.

Note 2

The Trailer

Reggie Pope owned the trailer. He had built it to haul both smokers at once. Hollis Gray, who had been cooking ribs for the Tackett team since 1987, suggested a deck.

The deck was three sheets of plywood bolted across the trailer bed behind the smokers. It held a drum kit, two amplifiers and four people, provided nobody stood at the back corner.

The band played from it at every contest it entered. The smokers ran the whole time. Sets were forty-five minutes long. At the end of each one Lu Strickland set down her bass, checked the firebox, wrote the temperature in the log and picked the bass back up.

Note 3

The Riverfront, 1995

In May 1995 the band entered the shoulder category at the riverfront championship. It set up on its assigned site, lit the smokers at six in the evening and began to play at seven.

The band played through the night. The pit held at 225 degrees. The shoulder went into the turn-in box at the appointed time and was carried to the judges' tent.

The team was disqualified that afternoon. The ruling held that playing amplified rock music while cooking was unsportsmanlike conduct. The band did not dispute the ruling. It considered it a victory, and has said so in every interview since.

Note 4

Burnt Ends

The band stopped in 1999. Hollis Gray wanted to fix amplifiers rather than carry them. Reggie Pope took a long-haul route. Boone Tackett said he was tired of cooking for judges.

The last album was recorded in Reggie Pope's yard over six weekends in April and May. The smoker was lit for every take.

The last thing the band did together was clean the pit. Lu Strickland made the final entry in the fire log. It reads: "Out. 6:12 a.m."

Packet item 02

Pitmasters

Four credentials, as issued at the gate. Each member cooked. Each member played.

  1. Competitor · All areas

    Boone Tackett, a big man with a gray-flecked beard in a dark shirt and leather apron, arms crossed and burn-marked, standing in front of a black offset smoker lettered TACKETT BBQ with smoke rising
    Boone Tackett at his own smoker. The marks on his forearms are from the firebox door.

    Boone Tackett

    Plays
    Vocals, rhythm guitar
    Cooks
    Head pitmaster
    Years
    1990–1999

    “You don't open the lid to look. You open it when it's time.”

    Now. Still cooks on weekends in a yard in Southaven, Mississippi. Still wears the apron. Has not owned a guitar strap that was not scorched.

  2. Competitor · All areas

    Lu Strickland, a woman with a dark ponytail and a plain blue cap, seated on a wooden crate playing a sunburst bass in front of a stacked woodpile
    Lu Strickland at the woodpile. Hickory, seasoned a year, stacked bark-up.

    Lu Strickland

    Plays
    Bass
    Cooks
    Pitmaster. Keeps the fire log.
    Years
    1990–1999

    “Two-twenty-five. Not two-thirty. Two-twenty-five.”

    Now. Teaches a weekend smoking class at a community college in Memphis. Has kept every fire log from 1990 to 1999 in a footlocker. Every entry is in pencil and every one is legible.

  3. Competitor · All areas

    No portrait on file

    Hollis Gray

    Plays
    Lead guitar
    Cooks
    Ribs
    Years
    1990–1999

    Now. Repairs amplifiers out of a shop in Millington. Will not work on one that smells of smoke, which is most of the ones brought to him.

  4. Competitor · All areas

    No portrait on file

    Reggie Pope

    Plays
    Drums
    Cooks
    Trailer, wood and hauling
    Years
    1990–1999

    Now. Drove a freight route out of Memphis until 2014. Now keeps the trailer. It is parked behind his house in Whitehaven, with the deck still bolted on.

Packet item 03

Cook Log

One sheet per record. Each gives the wood, the pit temperature held and the hours on the fire, as entered at the time. The trace shows pit temperature (flat) and internal temperature (rising) across the session.

Cook logSheet 1 of 4

The Pit

1992 · Smoke & Ruin Records · Garage, South Memphis

Wood
Hickory
Pit
225°F
On the fire
3 days
Ambient smoke
Credited
Tracks
8 · 35:18

Recorded over one long weekend in a cinder-block garage in South Memphis, during which the band also smoked two hundred pounds of brisket in the yard outside. The garage door stayed open. The album notes credit "ambient smoke."

Temperature trace

225°160°72°
Open the sheet →
Cook logSheet 2 of 4

Low and Slow

1994 · Smoke & Ruin Records · Above a feed store

Wood
Post oak, hickory
Pit
225°F
On the fire
11 nights
Ambient smoke
Credited
Tracks
9 · 39:44

The masterpiece. Recorded across eleven nights in a rented room above a feed store, with a shoulder on the smoker in the alley for every session. It smells like oak. The archive has confirmed this with three original pressings.

Temperature trace

225°160°72°
Open the sheet →
Cook logSheet 3 of 4

Disqualified

1996 · Smoke & Ruin Records · Studio, windows shut

Wood
None
Pit
Not lit
On the fire
Indoors
Ambient smoke
Not credited
Tracks
8 · 31:26

Named after the events of May 1995. The judges' letter is reproduced on the inner sleeve in full. The band added no comment.

Temperature trace

225°160°72°
Open the sheet →
Cook logSheet 4 of 4

Burnt Ends

1999 · Smoke & Ruin Records · Reggie Pope's yard

Wood
Hickory
Pit
225°F
On the fire
6 weekends
Ambient smoke
Credited
Tracks
8 · 35:18

The final album. Recorded in the spring of 1999 on the trailer deck, parked in Reggie Pope's yard, with the smoker lit for every take. The last track ends when the fire goes out.

Temperature trace

225°160°72°
Open the sheet →
A sliced smoked brisket with a dark bark and a pink smoke ring on a worn wooden cutting board, a tortoiseshell guitar pick lying beside it
Brisket, sliced against the grain. Smoke ring a quarter-inch. The pick was not part of the entry.

Packet item 04

Fire Log

The night of the riverfront championship, May 1995. Shoulder category. Copied from Lu Strickland's notebook without correction. Times are as written.

Fire log, riverfront championship, May 1995
TimePit °FMeat °FWoodNote
7:00 p225412 hickoryMeat on. Set one.
8:00 p225681Set two.
9:00 p226941
10:00 p2251211Judges walked by. Waved.
11:00 p2241421
12:00 a2251551Spritz.
1:00 a2251591Stall.
2:00 a2251601Stall. Not wrapping.
3:00 a2251601Stall. Band played on.
4:00 a2251611Moving.
6:00 a2251762Bark set. Good ring.
9:00 a2251931Probe tender.
10:00 a—195—Off. Rest in cooler.
11:58 a———Turned in. Box 041.

L.S.

At night, Lu Strickland in a cap shines a flashlight into the open firebox of an offset smoker lettered STRICKLAND'S BBQ while Boone Tackett sleeps in a lawn chair with an acoustic guitar across his lap
3:00 a.m. The fire check. Lu Strickland on the firebox. Boone Tackett on his break.

Standing practice

  • The Fire Log. Lu Strickland logged the pit temperature every hour of every cook from 1990 to 1999, in pencil, in a spiral notebook kept in a bread bag. She also logged each split of wood added. The logs fill eleven notebooks. They have never been lost and have never been lent.
  • The Wood. Hickory for shoulder and ribs. Post oak for brisket. Split to forearm length, seasoned a year, stacked bark-up under a tarp in Lu Strickland's yard. The band did not cook with green wood and did not cook over gas at any contest.
  • The Deck. Three sheets of three-quarter-inch plywood, bolted across the trailer bed behind the smokers. Rated by Reggie Pope for four people and a drum kit. The back left corner was not rated for anything.
  • The Forty-Five. Every set ran forty-five minutes, because that was the interval between fire checks. No set ever ran forty-six. When the firebox needed attention early, the song in progress ended early.

Packet item 05

Judges' Sheet

The ruling of May 1995, reproduced from the copy framed inside the trailer. The box was judged blind before the ruling was made. The scores were not released.

Official score sheet

Contest
The riverfront championship in May
Category
Shoulder
Entry
041
Year
1995
Blind judging scores, not released
BlindAppearanceTendernessFlavorOverall
Judge 1
Judge 2
Judge 3
Judge 4
Judge 5
Judge 6
Box received
11:58 a.m.
Box condition
Conforms
Ruling
Disqualified
Grounds
Unsportsmanlike conduct
Particulars
Amplified rock music performed by the team during the cooking period
Appeal
Not filed
Head judgeThe team's view: a victory.
Boone Tackett in a leather apron, pen in hand, speaking with a laughing contest judge in a white shirt and cap holding a clipboard, while Hollis Gray and Reggie Pope stand by a stack of speaker cabinets beside the smoker
The riverfront, May 1995. Boone Tackett receives the ruling. The judge's clipboard is the score sheet. The amplifiers are the grounds.

Clipped and kept

Mid-South Pit Report · June 1995

Memphis Team Disqualified Over Amplified Music

Charcoal Crusted Chicken out of the shoulder category; head pitmaster calls it "the best result we've had"

The shoulder category at last month's riverfront championship was decided without one of its louder entrants.

Charcoal Crusted Chicken, a Memphis team whose four members also perform as a rock band, was disqualified on the final afternoon. Judges ruled that the team's practice of playing amplified rock music throughout the overnight cook amounted to unsportsmanlike conduct.

The team did not appeal. Head pitmaster Boone Tackett said the band "took it as a compliment." Asked whether the music affected the meat, pitmaster Lu Strickland produced the team's fire log, which records a pit temperature of 225 degrees at every hourly check from seven in the evening to the turn-in.

The team says it will enter again next year. It says it will bring the amplifiers.

Entered in the record

  1. 1992

    Two Hundred Pounds

    A garage off Lamar Avenue, South Memphis

    The band booked a garage and a four-track for one weekend. It also had a catering order for two hundred pounds of brisket due Monday. It did both. The smokers ran in the yard with the garage door open, and the smoke drifted across the microphones for three days. The engineer asked who to credit for it. Boone Tackett said: ambient smoke.

  2. 1995

    Unsportsmanlike Conduct

    The riverfront championship, Memphis

    The ruling was delivered on a single typed sheet, signed by the contest's head judge. It cited unsportsmanlike conduct and gave as the reason "amplified rock music performed by the team during the cooking period." The shoulder had already been judged blind. The scores were not released. The band framed the letter and hung it in the trailer.

  3. 1997

    The Stall

    County fairgrounds, Jackson, Mississippi

    Every large cut stalls. This one stalled for five hours. Lu Strickland would not wrap it and would not raise the pit. The band played without a break from eleven at night until the probe read 161, at a quarter past four. The set list for that night has thirty-one songs on it. Several were played twice.

Packet item 06

Circuit

The poster for the Competition Circuit Tour, 1997, printed in two colors from wood type and stapled to telephone poles from Tupelo to Owensboro.

Smoke & Ruin Records presents

Charcoal Crusted Chicken

Live from the smoker trailer

Competition Circuit Tour · 1997

  1. Memphis, TNOpeningOpening night. Played from the trailer in a church parking lot.
  2. Tupelo, MSFairgrounds. Ribs category. Third place.
  3. Jackson, MSCounty fairgrounds. The stall. Thirty-one songs.
  4. Little Rock, ARRiverside park. Shoulder category.
  5. Hot Springs, ARTwo nights. The pit held both.
  6. Huntsville, ALRain. The deck held.
  7. Owensboro, KYMutton weekend. The band cooked shoulder anyway.
  8. Memphis, TNClosingClosing night. Riverbank, outside the fence.

Bring a chair. Bring a plate. The pit opens at dusk.

All shows outdoors. The band plays while it cooks. Sets end when the fire needs checking.

The four band members eating barbecue off paper plates on the tailgate of an old pickup truck at sunset, string lights overhead, a smoker and their guitars and bass leaning beside them
Supper on the tailgate between sets. The band ate after the turn-in, never before.

Packet item 07

Comment Cards

Comments received by the archive, entered like a blind judge's card: by number, without correction.

Card 001

I judged blind for nine years. I never knew whose box I was holding. I always knew when Charcoal Crusted Chicken was on the grounds.

— C. Odom, certified judge, Germantown, TN
Card 002

Low and Slow is the best record ever made about holding a temperature. My copy smells like oak. My wife asked me to keep it in the garage. I keep it in the garage.

— D. Whitlow, Olive Branch, MS
Card 003

Stood in front of that trailer from midnight to four in Jackson. The brisket would not move and neither would the band. Took a star off because I never got a plate.

— T. Harlan, Pearl, MS
At a blue folding table under a canopy, Lu Strickland and Boone Tackett, in his leather apron, lay slices of smoked brisket with a deep smoke ring onto lettuce in a white foam judging box, a sheet pan of tongs and a towel beside it and a black smoker trailer in the haze behind
Box 041 going in. Brisket on green leaf, as the rules require. The box was sealed and walked to the judges' tent unmarked.

Packet item 08

Turn-In

Shirts, prints and printed matter from Charcoal Crusted Chicken are turned in at the Sideband Label store. Each item is made to order and boxed on the day.

Go to the store

The fire list

Leave a name at the store to hear when a new shirt comes off the press. Notices are sent rarely, and only when something is ready.

Sign the list at the store →