Graceland
On the morning of our second day in Memphis, after a mandatory visit to the Krispy Kreme on Elvis Presley Boulevard,  we stopped at Graceland. Graceland, the former home of Elvis Presley. One of those iconic American places that is on most people’s Things To See Before I Die list, along with the Grand Canyon, Mt. Rushmore, and the ruins of Abe Vigoda’s Vomitorium. What most people expect when they tour Graceland is the tackiness: the carpeted ceilings, the laminated wood tables in the Jungle Room, the weird, saucer-eyed, ceramic monkeys in the TV room. And, let there be no doubt, there is plenty of tackiness on display. But despite the obvious dated decor and the questionable taste of Elvis, Graceland for me is  endearing, not only for its modesty–the house is basically a suburban rancher on sprawling farmland–but also because it reflects a time when celebrities weren’t so far removed from the rest of us.

Afterward, I reluctantly fulfilled my promise to Elaine that we would stop for some local BBQ. Using our handy Kreature Comforts Rock-n-Roll Travel Guide to Memphis, we located A&R BBQ along a pretty beat-up stretch of Elvis Presley Blvd. The place was hopping, with a long lunch line and legendary slow service at its most molasses-like. Besides a fine selection of BBQ, the menu also offered up a comprehensive offerings of fried delights, including fried pickles, which seem to be on almost every menu in Memphis. Elaine went for the BBQ and I ordered a fried catfish sandwich. It came crackling hot and slammed between two slices of white bread and was hands do the best meal I had in Memphis.

National Civil Rights Museum
The National Civil Rights Museum is located in the South Main Arts district of Memphis, housed in the former Lorraine Motel, the place where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. We spent a good two hours exploring the exhibits of this engrossing  museum, which followed the Civil Rights Movement from its nascent beginnings during the height of slavery in the US to the post-MLK days after the passage of the Civil Rights Act when the movement fragmented. The new annex across the plaza is in the boarding house where James Earl Ray stayed and from where he shot Dr. King. This part of the museum addresses the many conspiracy theories surrounding MLK’s assassination and suggests, with no real concrete evidence, that others were possibly involved. The conclusion seems to be that the assassination was a contract hit.

Memphis Rock-n-Roll Tour
If you’re in Memphis and you want to get a real up-close-and-personal tour of the Memphis music scene, call Preston of The Ultmate Memphi Rock’n Roll Tours. He ain’t cheap, but he’s definitely worth the spendage. Besides getting some early history of the Memphis blues scene, we also saw where Isaac Hayes went to high school, the former site of American studios, Poplar Tunes, the subsidized public housing where the Presley’s lived when they first moved to Memphis (you can rent their old apartment for the night!), Argent Studios, Hi Records, so forth and so on.

Sun Records/Phillips Studios
Sun Records, formerly known as Memphis Recording Service, is a straight shot east down Union Sun Recordsand easy to miss because it’s so small. The tour is unremarkable–a local hipster takes you past a few cases of rock memorabilia, mostly centered around Elvis. Then you head back downstairs to stand in the small studio, which is still in use. It’s hard to describe the feeling of just being in the place where so much life-changing music happened: Elvis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis. You can walk a few blocks and see the second studio opened by Sam Phillips, Phillips Recording.

Memphis food
Fried.

For more pictures of the trip, check out my Flickr Memphis photoset:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/richardsebastian/sets/72157605587287894/