Day 3 - Friday, September 12
Still pretty much on UK time so we were away early and back on Interstate 20 around Birmingham and onto Interstate 22 heading for Memphis. Motorways in northern Alabama seem to be wide swathes cut through the forest - mile after mile with nothing but woodland stretching as far as you can see both sides.
During the journey we crossed into Mississippi and - as in most state lines we crossed during the trip - there was a visitor centre just inside the state. This one was a bit special.
Inside it was a bit like a hotel lobby - nice chair and coffee table arrangements, stands of leaflets. maps etc., and a couple of very friendly and welcoming people behind the countering offering coffee and advice. A very pleasant stop, and we got lots of leaflets about places we were planning to visit in the delta area.
A few miles down the road we came to Tupelo. My main previous impression of this town was from the John Lee Hooker song I came across many years ago, and I was expecting a poor, depressed sort of place. It probably was at the time the song was written but now it's quite a pleasant prosperous-looking town. The main reason for visiting is that it's where Elvis Presley was born and grew up. The two-room shack he lived in is now part of a museum park which includes the church he first sang at (moved complete a couple of blocks from its original site), a modern chapel which is available for weddings, and a vast elvis-based gift shop. All in the best possible taste.
In fact it was very well done - in the church they show a film of a recreation of the kind of service he would have sung at, with projections of the congregation on the side walls as well so it feels like you are part of the congregation. It worked well.
The family was very poor - the shack was just a bedroom and a kitchen - and they moved to Memphis when Elvis was only 13 to try to improve their prospects.
And here he is...................
Only seven years later he came back in triumph to perform a concert and gave the proceeds to local children's charities. An amazing turnaround in the family's fortunes.
After the museum we went downtown and saw a statue of him erected to commemorate that event.
My collection of photos with great musicians is growing............
Near the statue we came across a couple a little bit older than us - and of course he claimed to have been in school with Elvis. I suggested that probably everyone in Tupelo says that, but he insisted it was true. He had on a wonderful t-shirt which said "American by birth but christian by the grace of god". You don't see that kind of thing in Europe.
They recommended a place for lunch so we headed on through downtown Tupelo to a place called Danver's where we had a very good salad and sandwich. On the way we saw that there are brightly painted guitars set at intervals along the pavement as street art.
Notices indicated that various civic groups had created individual designs. Nice.
We were all really glad that we'd visited Tupelo as it put into context what we would see later at Graceland.
After lunch we continued on our way to Memphis, crossing another state line into Tennessee, arriving at our downtown hotel late afternoon.
On the way into town we drove through several very poor areas - many businesses and houses boarded up and huge numbers of pawn and payday-loan type shops. We noticed this a lot during our trip.
After a rest and wash and brush-up we couldn't wait to get started on the music, so we walked a couple of blocks to historic Beale Street where so many legendary people have played and which is now wall-to-wall bars with live bands.
The top end of Beale Street
We started off at Blues Hall - a good blues band but drinks noticeably more expensive than our margaritas at Pell City. On to a bar called Wet Willie's where there was another very good band in full flow. The front man singing & playing harmonica was an elderly blind guy.
We thought he was familiar so Mary asked at the bar who he was - turned out it was Blind Mississippi Morris who we'd seen playing at The Colne Blues Festival a couple of years ago. Small world again. Mary later had a chat with him and his wife.
It was by now mid-evening and Beale Street was buzzing - lots of people and music blasting from all directions.
Pam was not feeling too good so I took her back to the hotel and made sure she was OK and then rejoined M&P at Silky Sullivan's Bar (why do bars need to be alliterative ?) where there was a very good middle-aged woman singing with a piano player.
They finished while we were having a bit of dinner - catfish & chips as it happens - and then two piano players came on largely playing requests for tips. They had good banter - if they didn't like the request they would play it anyway but offer to stop immediately if a bigger tip came along. Entertaining.
Later, back to Wet Willie's for BMM's second set. Excellent stuff.
Still pretty much on UK time so we were away early and back on Interstate 20 around Birmingham and onto Interstate 22 heading for Memphis. Motorways in northern Alabama seem to be wide swathes cut through the forest - mile after mile with nothing but woodland stretching as far as you can see both sides.
During the journey we crossed into Mississippi and - as in most state lines we crossed during the trip - there was a visitor centre just inside the state. This one was a bit special.
Inside it was a bit like a hotel lobby - nice chair and coffee table arrangements, stands of leaflets. maps etc., and a couple of very friendly and welcoming people behind the countering offering coffee and advice. A very pleasant stop, and we got lots of leaflets about places we were planning to visit in the delta area.
A few miles down the road we came to Tupelo. My main previous impression of this town was from the John Lee Hooker song I came across many years ago, and I was expecting a poor, depressed sort of place. It probably was at the time the song was written but now it's quite a pleasant prosperous-looking town. The main reason for visiting is that it's where Elvis Presley was born and grew up. The two-room shack he lived in is now part of a museum park which includes the church he first sang at (moved complete a couple of blocks from its original site), a modern chapel which is available for weddings, and a vast elvis-based gift shop. All in the best possible taste.
This is the shack - together with a crew making a music video on the porch
In fact it was very well done - in the church they show a film of a recreation of the kind of service he would have sung at, with projections of the congregation on the side walls as well so it feels like you are part of the congregation. It worked well.
The family was very poor - the shack was just a bedroom and a kitchen - and they moved to Memphis when Elvis was only 13 to try to improve their prospects.
Only seven years later he came back in triumph to perform a concert and gave the proceeds to local children's charities. An amazing turnaround in the family's fortunes.
After the museum we went downtown and saw a statue of him erected to commemorate that event.
Near the statue we came across a couple a little bit older than us - and of course he claimed to have been in school with Elvis. I suggested that probably everyone in Tupelo says that, but he insisted it was true. He had on a wonderful t-shirt which said "American by birth but christian by the grace of god". You don't see that kind of thing in Europe.
They recommended a place for lunch so we headed on through downtown Tupelo to a place called Danver's where we had a very good salad and sandwich. On the way we saw that there are brightly painted guitars set at intervals along the pavement as street art.
Notices indicated that various civic groups had created individual designs. Nice.
We were all really glad that we'd visited Tupelo as it put into context what we would see later at Graceland.
After lunch we continued on our way to Memphis, crossing another state line into Tennessee, arriving at our downtown hotel late afternoon.
On the way into town we drove through several very poor areas - many businesses and houses boarded up and huge numbers of pawn and payday-loan type shops. We noticed this a lot during our trip.
After a rest and wash and brush-up we couldn't wait to get started on the music, so we walked a couple of blocks to historic Beale Street where so many legendary people have played and which is now wall-to-wall bars with live bands.
We started off at Blues Hall - a good blues band but drinks noticeably more expensive than our margaritas at Pell City. On to a bar called Wet Willie's where there was another very good band in full flow. The front man singing & playing harmonica was an elderly blind guy.
We thought he was familiar so Mary asked at the bar who he was - turned out it was Blind Mississippi Morris who we'd seen playing at The Colne Blues Festival a couple of years ago. Small world again. Mary later had a chat with him and his wife.
It was by now mid-evening and Beale Street was buzzing - lots of people and music blasting from all directions.
Pam was not feeling too good so I took her back to the hotel and made sure she was OK and then rejoined M&P at Silky Sullivan's Bar (why do bars need to be alliterative ?) where there was a very good middle-aged woman singing with a piano player.
They finished while we were having a bit of dinner - catfish & chips as it happens - and then two piano players came on largely playing requests for tips. They had good banter - if they didn't like the request they would play it anyway but offer to stop immediately if a bigger tip came along. Entertaining.
Later, back to Wet Willie's for BMM's second set. Excellent stuff.
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