Muppet Man, Memphis Soul and Pitmaster Pat Martin – Garden & Gun

We have Kermit the Frog, we have Alabama white sauce, we have a native Texan who holds the Beatles together long enough to lie down Leave it be … bring on this month’s Southern Streaming!

Behind the Muppets

Jim Henson: Idea ManDisney+

Did you know that Muppet master Jim Henson was from Greenville, Mississippi? It’s true! The swamps of nearby Leland even inspired one Kermit the Frog. Before everything else, Henson arrives May 31 with this new documentary from none other than director Ron Howard, featuring, says Disney+, “never-before-seen personal archive home movies, photographs, sketches and Henson’s personal diaries, as well as interviews with those who knew him best. ” Please tell me that goes for Miss Piggy too!

I’ll take you there

STAX: Soulsville USAMax

Stax Records created and defined Southern soul music and nurtured Otis Redding, the dynamite house band Booker T. & the MG’s, Sam & Dave, the Bar-Kays, William Bell, the Staple Singers, among others!!! Don’t force me to continue, because I totally can. Or you can just watch this thought-provoking four-part docuseries on the legendary Memphis label when it releases on May 20.

You bet we’re watching you (Boston).

Life by fireOutdoor Channel (via Hulu Live et al.)

Pat Martin.

It’s no secret that we’re big fans here G&G from Tennessee pitmaster and restaurateur Pat Martin, of Martin’s Bar-B-Que. Starting May 6, Martin will present ten episodes of this look at the ‘old methods’ of barbecuing and those who practice them across the country, including G&G favorites such as Joseph Lenn, Trevor Stockton, Big Bob Gibson’s Chris Lilly, Bryan Furman and Howard Conyers.

Lone Star Serial Killer

Pillowcase murdersBiggest+

MJ Jennings, the daughter of victim Leah Corken.

To put it delicately, people who die in senior living communities typically don’t raise an eyebrow, which may be how Billy Chemirmir got away with murdering probably over two dozen elderly men and women over the course of two years, suffocating them before they started stealing. their belongings. This three-episode docuseries, out May 14, delves into how it all happened and why it took so long for Chemirmir to be discovered and convicted.

…Or a man half empty?

A man in full sizeNetflix

Jeff Daniels as Charlie Croker A man in full size.

For over a year I have had this note on my top secret, highly encrypted “Southern Streaming Ideas” Excel spreadsheet: “A man in full size on Netflix…but when???” Perhaps there’s a reason it’s taken so long for the six-episode adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s 1998 novel about corrupt Georgia real estate mogul Charlie Croker to quietly hit screens: The reviews were less than Hot-lanta’s (sorry, sorry, forgive me, sorry). I’ll probably still see Jeff Daniels squirming as Croker, but maybe our time would be better spent reading Atlanta magazine’s fun 2015 dive into which Buckhead bigwigs may have inspired Wolfe.

The Fall of the House of Von Erich

The Iron ClawMax

Zac Efron (right) as Kevin Von Erich The Iron Claw.

Was the Von Erich wrestling family cursed? Former teen heartthrob Zac Efron and current The bear star Jeremy Allen White strengthened himself and took to the mat The Iron Clawstreamed on May 10, to tell the story of the lives and deaths of the Texas brothers – a story also thoughtfully shared by John Spong in this 2005 issue Texas Monthly story.

The fifth Beatle was…southern???

Leave it beDisney+

In the documentary by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg Leave it be, and at that fateful rooftop concert in May 1970, he certainly was: Billy Preston, the Texas keyboard magician, helped keep the disintegrating Beatles together so they could finish the album. You’ll see it all on May 31, when Disney+ releases the film publicly for the first time in fifty years. In the 2000 book The Beatles Anthology, George Harrison recalled that when Preston showed up, “immediately there was a 100 percent improvement in the atmosphere in the room. Having this fifth person was just enough to cut the ice we had created among each other. That, and the piano guy can actually lay it down.