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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 and 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/

Elaine and I are spending a long weekend in Memphis, Tennessee to celebrate the beginning of our new, post-dissertation life together. I was in Memphis about 10 years ago during a cross-country trip. Back then my visit was just a quick visit to Graceland and a stroll down Beale Street on the way to Nashville. That’s about it. This time, we have more time in the city and a more ambitious agenda. Here is what we’ve done so far.

We got into town early, and rented a car-a necessity in this town since there is little public transportation and many of the must-see sites are pretty far from the downtown center. We did have some trouble at Hertz as we had no *proof* that we were married since (gulp) we both have different last names. It was going to cost us $10 a day until the manager got involved. We drove into town and checked in to our hotel. The Peabody is truly a grand hotel, with an ornate lobby, luxurious rooms, and polished, professional service. Unfortunately, we’re staying across the street at the Holiday Inn Select. They have free coffee and a nice view of the Peabody.

We drove to the Cooper-Young neighborhood, a funky arsty district with lots of yoga studios, organic restaurants, and co-op galleries. We ate at the Young Ave. deli, the first of many businesses in Memphis named after things they aren’t. There is the Young Ave. Deli-not a deli but a club that sells food. Then there’s the Beauty Shop-a restaurant. Earnestine & Hazel’s Sundries–a bar. The Lorraine Hotel, site of MLK’s assassination, now a museum. Things here are adapted and retrofitted rather than rebuilt, and often the old names remain.

After lunch, we stopped at Goner Records where Elaine bought some 45s and we got directions to Stax.

The Stax Museum of American Soul Music

While I had known about Isaac Hayes, Booker T. & the MGs, Rufus Thomas, and Otis Redding, I didn’t know about Stax until I met Elaine, who owned several colorful cardboard boxes full of soul 45s, most of them of Stax artists. The museum is a recreation of the old studio, which was housed in an old theater in the middle of a neighborhood that was at the time transitioning from white to black. Living in the neighborhood were Memphis Slim, Aretha Franklin, Booker T. Jones, and jazz greats Calvin and Phineas Newborn, among others, who provided the natural homegrown talent that defined the Memphis soul sound.

The Stax story, like the story of Memphis itself, is both glorious and sad. The original studio is gone, having been abandoned after the label went bankrupt in the mid-70’s due to a perfect storm of problems–bad business deals, the assassination of MLK, the loss of the rights to their recorded masters, the death of Otis Redding–one thing after another that made it impossible for the label to survive. The building fell into disrepair and was eventually torn down. The current museum, a recreation of the original, is well worth a visit, though the exhibits were a bit text heavy. Some highlights include a replica of a “shotgun shack” church inside and, of course, Isaac Hayes’s gold and turquoise Cadillac. What is most amazing about the Stax story is the DIY ethic that made Stax happen. They tapped the raw local talent foud in the neighborhood and the region and didn’t care that they weren’t professionals. During the short few years they were recording music, the folks at Stax created a lasting sound that defines American soul music. Next door to the museum is a music academy as well as a charter school. The neighborhood surrounding Stax has been hit hard over the last few decades, and the extreme poverty of the area is evident: foreclosed homes, liquor stores, abandoned businesses are common.

After Stax, we headed to the South Main Arts District, the area of town where much of the movie Mystery Train was shot, including a scene shot inside of South Main’s Arcade Restaurant, “Memphis’s Oldest Diner.” It’s an odd part of town, with new, trendy bistros and coffee shops sprouting up alongside gutted, windowless buildings, including the behemoth, abandoned Hotel Chisca, home of Dewey Phillip’s insanely chattering radio broadcasts.

After a relatively disappointing “wood-oven” pizza at Spindini’s, one of the trendy South Main restaurants, we headed to the Bigfoot Lodge for after dinner drinks and dessert. We didn’t fully grasp the Bigfoot theme until we ordered: everything is bigger than life. I received what was a human-head sized glass of wine and an entire peach cobbler. Elaine was able to climb into her cocktail glass and drink it from the inside. And lest you think that bigger is better, it’s not.

Day 1 in the bag, we headed back to “The Select” and hit the hay, excited about the next day’s visit to Graceland and our afternoon appointment with Preston for the Memphis Rock-n-Roll Tour.

(to be cont’d)