Why do have so many songs Memphis in their title or song. Blues and Elvis everywhere. It seems that Memphis is being mentioned in the lyrics of more songs than any other city in the world. The number is 899!
Some of my favourites:
- Chuck Berry: Memphis, Tennessee
- Bob Dylan: Stuck inside the mobile with the Memphis Blues again
- Mott the Hoople: All the way from Memphis
- U2: Bloody Sunday
- CCR/ Ike and Tine Turner: Proud Mary
- Rolling Stones: Honky Tonk Women
- Paul Simon: Graceland
- Marc Cohn: Walking in Memphis
- Old Crow Medicine Show: Motel in Memphis
I am not so sure about the answer to the question of Why are there so many songs about Memphis nonetheless I can think about a few arguments such as: the Mississippi river, the cotton fields, the Delta Blues, a Southern city, Sun Studio, an abundance of talent, the Civil Rights Movement and probably many more.
My February 2017 music trip started with an Air France flight to Mexico (first stop!) enjoying Ron Howard's documentary "Eight Days a Week" about.... the very early years of the Beatles and I felt it was a terrific movie. To get into the U.S. mood I watched “Hell or High Water” with the fantastic Jeff Bridges as a grumpy Texas marshall. Another awesome role for Jeff, the movie has a captive and well created score by Nick Cave. The movie and Bridges received both Oscar nominations.
Saturday morning Feb 11 an early morning flight from Miami to Memphis with a stop in Charlotte. The connection on CLT was tight and I barely made it, a small plane got us to Memphis, while I was reading Michael Connely's latest “Trunk Music” and listening to Springsteen' the River, my neighbor in seat 13A goggled 2 Jack Daniels and coke. It was 9:30 AM. Howdie what a great start.
At 10:30 my room was ready at the famous Peabody Hotel, one of the great hotels in the South, it’s a national landmark and pinnacle of Southern hospitality. They call the Grand Lobby the “living room” of the Mid-South. Every day since 1933 , The Peabody ducks have made the lobby marble fountain their home and at 11 AM and 5 PM there is actually a duck parade in the lobby!
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| Museum of Civil Rights |
My first stop was the Museum of Civil Rights. A well designed museum and perfectly well integrated in the famous Loraine Motel. The lay out is well suited to follow the history from slavery till today. The bus in Montgomery with Rosa Parks, a brilliant video about Bloody Sunday where the Alabama state troopers attacked the civil right demonstrators in Selma, Alabama and The strike of the sanitation workers in Memphis are just a few highlights. The museum ends in MLK's room at the Loraine Motel where the assasination took place on April 4 in 1968. Accros the street is an encore dedicated to James Earl Ray with explanations and possible conspiracy theories, incl the CIA's involvement. This was an impressive and moving experience and compared to where we are today, early 2017: is there really much improvement?
Outside main street there are many empty buildings and retail stores in heavy contrast to plenty of restaurants, music gigs, souvenir shops and bbq joints.
It's about a mile from the Peabody to Sun Studio at Sam Philips Ave. What a place, it's so authentic and really this is the place where R+R was born. A great tour guide telling in a very engaging and knowledgeable way about visionary engineer Sam Phillips and the various artists who recorded and set the foundation for R&R and made history such as Elvis, Ike Turner, Howlin Wolf, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash and many more. Elvis first recording microphone is still in pristine condition and even a mark in the floor tells us where he stood when recording with the Million Dollar Quartet. The story goes that Sam needed to sell his deal with Elvis to RCA Nashville for $35,000. A small token now, worth multiples! BMG later bought RCA and when I left the company in 1999, our annual revenue from the Elvis catalog was over $75 MM annually. A recommend read is: Good Rocking Times, Sun Records and the birth of Rock 'N' Roll by Colin Escott with Martin Hawkins. 
Beale Street is a music feast 7 nights a week, I was there Saturday and Sunday night, music everywhere. Sitting in a large bar where the Bluff City Bandits, a local Memphis band, playing blues, Eagles and country rock. Pretty good stuff actually and it drives many couples to the dance floor. Men wearing baseball hats, stetsons, jeans and sneakers. Girls wearing a bit of everything. All happens on the street in a lose and very friendly way, music blasting everywhere.
The folks here are relaxed, friendly with most visitors
from surrounding states and cities, I overheard conversations from people out of Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri and of course Tennessee. This is the South! Even in the city center lots of pick up trucks and "old" Lincoln Towncars. Folks with names like Clay, Tammy, Wayne..... Also numerous less fortunate afro-Americans to be spotted and anxious to get a dollar for food. Strange to realise that probably inside 1 out 2 cars a gun can be found. Some retail stores or bars have a no gun sign sticker. This is a different world out here, as Dutchman/New Yorker we will never accept this even I do understand it's reasoning.
from surrounding states and cities, I overheard conversations from people out of Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri and of course Tennessee. This is the South! Even in the city center lots of pick up trucks and "old" Lincoln Towncars. Folks with names like Clay, Tammy, Wayne..... Also numerous less fortunate afro-Americans to be spotted and anxious to get a dollar for food. Strange to realise that probably inside 1 out 2 cars a gun can be found. Some retail stores or bars have a no gun sign sticker. This is a different world out here, as Dutchman/New Yorker we will never accept this even I do understand it's reasoning.
Sunday morning destination Graceland, a 10 minute Uber ride from the Peabody to Elvis Presley Boulevard. Not really sure how to describe this place, is it a shrine, is it Disneyland or simply a place where Elvis and his Family lived. Its an overwhelming place where the artefacts still seem in pristine condition. Even the smell in the Mansion reminded me of the many houses we visited in the New York suburbs in the late 80ies. Having done my homework and even more after visiting the Sun Studio one realises the enormous impact Elvis had on music from the fifties till today. He changed music. Graceland provides various type of tours, mine was the Plantinum which meant guided by a well equipped iPad and with access to basically everything such as his automobile museum, the airplanes, archives, costumes etc. Elvis was born in Tupelo Mississippi in 1935 and changed from an incredible shy person into a huge personality with no limits for extravaganza. His voice, guitar playing, stage presence and choice for repertoire are different than anyone before. Which is exactly what Sam Phillips was looking for in his artists! For lunch i enjoyed a burger in Elvis' favourite Rockabilly's Dinner. For the King it was TCB.
The afternoon for something completely different: The STAX Museum of American Soul Music. The neighbourhood studio with artists such as Isaac Hayes, Booker T and the MG's, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Rufus & Carla Thomas, the Staple Singers and many more. Certainly a must visit when in Memphis, another important part of Memphis legacy. STAX music is nowadays distributed by Universal.
After STAX next Uber stop was the Blues Hall of Fame. A relatively new venue, not many visitors but a place to enjoy the blues with an extremely rich digital library on all sorts of Blues, its origins, defining artists and what Blues is today. All the way from the cotton fields to the clubs in the major cities with rich info on some of my preferred Bluesman such as: Lightnin' Hopkins (Tom Moore Blues), Fred McDowell (Mississippi Delta Blues), Blind Lemon Jefferson, Leadbelly, Freddie King, Charley Patton (High water). On my way out the manager handed me a Close Encounters, a CD by the Steampunk Revolution Band and its actually quite good stuff!
Sunday night I walked into the Blues City Cafe, with The Brandon Cunning band (stand up bass, 2 guitars) playing nice songs from the 50ies, Little Richard, Fats, Chuck Berry's Maybeline and some Elvis. At the same time dinner at high tables with a "mature" audience. During a break I had a chat with Brandon the singer, a nice guy. He said the band is incomplete as the drummer is still in jail. He was impressed I was all the way from Holland! The ambience in the bar was great, I connected with bar tender Keith (kool guy with the looks of a character straight from the Onedin line) the band leader knew me by now and made instant references to me such as e.g. Colonel Parker had Dutch roots and Sun Music, as i'm wearing a T-Shirt. Dutch visitors are rare in this Blues joint. Also for the first time in my life I've heard: No Arkansas jokes please!A trip is incomplete without some food remarks: at BBQ Central I've enjoyed an awesome bbqued pulled pork sandwich (#1 voted in Memphis) really yummy and to stay local for dinner I went to Flying Fish and ordered a catfish salad nicely seasoned with cajun spices.
Intersting to know that some John Grisham books were inspired by Memphis, such as the Firm and The Client and I also believe the latter was shot here. Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris took also place in the southern city. Didn't want to visit that site!
Monday morning a 7AM American Airlines flight and at 6AM I was cruising with another Uber ride along the Mississippi river to the airport, next stop Miami and than home. This was a music journey where every minute was well spend.
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| The Million Dollar Quartet |
Walking in Memphis, Marc Cohn, 1991
Put on my blue suede shoes and I boarded the plane
Touched down in the land of the Delta Blues
In the middle of the pouring rain
W. C. Handy, won't you look down over me?
Yeah, I got a first class ticket but I'm as blue as a boy can be
Then I'm walking in Memphis
I was walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel?
Saw the ghost of Elvis on Union Avenue
Followed him up to the gates of Graceland
Then I watched him walk right through
Now security they did not see him
They just hovered 'round his tomb
But there's a pretty little thing
Waiting for the King
Down in the Jungle Room
Then I was walking in Memphis
I was walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel?
They've got catfish on the table, they've got gospel in the air
And Reverend Green, be glad to see you
When you haven't got a prayer?
But boy you've got a prayer in Memphis
Now, Muriel plays piano every Friday at the Hollywood
And they brought me down to see her
And they asked me if I would do a little number
And I sang with all my might
And she said, “Tell me, are you a Christian child? "
And I said "Ma'am, I am tonight"
Walking in Memphis
I was walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel?
Walking in Memphis
I was walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel?
Put on my blue suede shoes and I boarded the plane
Touched down in the land of the Delta blues
In the middle of the pouring rain
Touched down in the land of the Delta blues
In the middle of the pouring rain
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