Day 4 - Saturday, September 13
Decent breakfast buffet at the hotel and then off quite early to get to Graceland before it got too busy.
It's about 15 minutes drive south of downtown - we played Paul Simon's "Graceland" in the car on the way - and there weren't many cars in the huge car park when we arrived.
It's very well done - all the ticket areas/coffee shops/restaurants/ancillary attractions are across the road (Elvis Presley Boulevard) from the house and grounds. Visitors are taken across in one of a fleet of small buses so that there is a nice steady flow rather than a scramble.
The house itself is not huge - but a world away from the Tupelo shack we'd visited yesterday.
The tour goes through various rooms, on the ground floor only, and initially it's all fairly normal living room/dining room/kitchen etc. but then you get to the music/tv room, pool room and the "jungle room" which are really boy's toys where he used to hang out with his mates. He was only in his very early 20's after all with huge amounts of recently acquired wealth.
The most interesting rooms were the music related ones - one a converted squash court full of all kinds of memorabilia including some of the spectacular (and not a little iffy) Las Vegas stage costumes
and the other a room with the walls covered in Elvis's gold discs
Outside, there are large grounds with paddocks for horses etc. And a garden where Elvis and his parents are buried. A very nice memorial and quite tasteful.
I'd never seen a copyright protection on a grave memorial before.
And I did think that this was a bit over the top...........
The museum was fantastic and we stayed for hours.
When we arrived back downtown we went to have a look at the river. Surprisingly, given that the history of Memphis is largely related to commerce on the river there is very little made of the riverbank now - no cafes, restaurants etc., just a bit of a park.
and, by the way, this is as close as I got to "The Mississippi Delta, shining like a National guitar".
As we got back in the car we noticed this...
We've come across Audubon's name before on various trips. His is still the fundamental work on American birds and his amazingly comprehensive collection of incredibly detailed drawings is accessible.......
Audubon Birds
and the US equivalent of the RSPB is The Audubon Society.
Then back to the hotel for a bit.
Pam was still not too well so didn't come out with us that evening.
We drove about 20 minutes to East Memphis to a ribs place called Corky's which had been recommended. Apparently it is quite well-known - there were photos on the wall of sports, entertainment and political figures visiting the place. We understood why - the ribs were very, very good. They do them two ways - "wet" which is basted and served with a BBQ sauce, and "dry" which is rubbed with a mix of BBQ spices. Both lovely and moist with the meat falling off the bone.
Later, Beale Street was very different from the previous evening - it was now Saturday night and access was being controlled by a security team. Barriers had been set up and everyone was being frisked before being allowed into the area, so there was a long queue. We had seen other, less used, access points the previous evening and so we walked a couple of blocks and found a much shorter queue. The streets which had been busy the previous evening were now packed. Although the crowd was different - mainly young black people who were partying in the streets with their own sound systems. Most of them didn't seem too interested in the blues bars along the street. We felt like the only white faces there,
Went to the Rum Boogie Cafe - which was packed and where there was a very good band on. There are loads of guitars hanging from the ceiling and on the walls - with names of famous guitarists on them. It's not clear whether these have been donated by those people or whether it's just a decor feature.
There was a nice atmosphere and we eventually got a table so we decided to stay put rather than negotiate the crowds outside to go to another venue.
We eventually left around 1 am and felt like old fogeys as people were still arriving at the barriers - mostly local and young, and not there for the music venues, just to hang out. Many of the girls were dressed to kill........
Decent breakfast buffet at the hotel and then off quite early to get to Graceland before it got too busy.
It's about 15 minutes drive south of downtown - we played Paul Simon's "Graceland" in the car on the way - and there weren't many cars in the huge car park when we arrived.
It's very well done - all the ticket areas/coffee shops/restaurants/ancillary attractions are across the road (Elvis Presley Boulevard) from the house and grounds. Visitors are taken across in one of a fleet of small buses so that there is a nice steady flow rather than a scramble.
The house itself is not huge - but a world away from the Tupelo shack we'd visited yesterday.
The tour goes through various rooms, on the ground floor only, and initially it's all fairly normal living room/dining room/kitchen etc. but then you get to the music/tv room, pool room and the "jungle room" which are really boy's toys where he used to hang out with his mates. He was only in his very early 20's after all with huge amounts of recently acquired wealth.
The most interesting rooms were the music related ones - one a converted squash court full of all kinds of memorabilia including some of the spectacular (and not a little iffy) Las Vegas stage costumes
and the other a room with the walls covered in Elvis's gold discs
There's also quite a bit made of Elvis's charitable giving and general good egg-ness - but that's fair enough.
Outside, there are large grounds with paddocks for horses etc. And a garden where Elvis and his parents are buried. A very nice memorial and quite tasteful.
But this memorial for Elvis's father was interesting....
And I did think that this was a bit over the top...........
Back across the road are a couple of his private planes and his extensive collection of cars.
After this we had a bit of lunch in a restaurant themed like a 1950's diner which was fun, and then headed off to the Stax Museum which is not too far away.
Sadly, the original building is no longer there but the museum is on the original site and is part of a complex which includes a school and music academy, run by a charitable organisation.
Stax went bust in the mid 1970s following bad deals with Atlantic and CBS but the story of its inception, growth and demise was set out in the museum and is fascinating.
It was founded by Jim STewart and Estelle AXton and became a hotbed of talent - much of it very local - and was way ahead of its time in its inter-racial working.
There was lots of stuff about the house band - Booker T and the MGs (he grew up just around the corner), who featured on many hits by other singers - and about the Memphis Horns who gave that distinctive "Stax sound" to so many records.
And Rufus Thomas featured quite a lot - we kept on coming across his name in various places during the trip. I hadn't realised he was so influential.
There were lots of interesting artefacts - records, video clips, costumes, photos etc. The most striking was a car driven by Isaac Hayes - a turquoise Cadillac with white sheepskin carpeting and 24 carat gold outside trim.
There was also a lot of information about the business side of things - including about the deals referred to above which was very interesting
When we arrived back downtown we went to have a look at the river. Surprisingly, given that the history of Memphis is largely related to commerce on the river there is very little made of the riverbank now - no cafes, restaurants etc., just a bit of a park.
As we got back in the car we noticed this...
We've come across Audubon's name before on various trips. His is still the fundamental work on American birds and his amazingly comprehensive collection of incredibly detailed drawings is accessible.......
Audubon Birds
and the US equivalent of the RSPB is The Audubon Society.
Then back to the hotel for a bit.
Pam was still not too well so didn't come out with us that evening.
We drove about 20 minutes to East Memphis to a ribs place called Corky's which had been recommended. Apparently it is quite well-known - there were photos on the wall of sports, entertainment and political figures visiting the place. We understood why - the ribs were very, very good. They do them two ways - "wet" which is basted and served with a BBQ sauce, and "dry" which is rubbed with a mix of BBQ spices. Both lovely and moist with the meat falling off the bone.
Later, Beale Street was very different from the previous evening - it was now Saturday night and access was being controlled by a security team. Barriers had been set up and everyone was being frisked before being allowed into the area, so there was a long queue. We had seen other, less used, access points the previous evening and so we walked a couple of blocks and found a much shorter queue. The streets which had been busy the previous evening were now packed. Although the crowd was different - mainly young black people who were partying in the streets with their own sound systems. Most of them didn't seem too interested in the blues bars along the street. We felt like the only white faces there,
Went to the Rum Boogie Cafe - which was packed and where there was a very good band on. There are loads of guitars hanging from the ceiling and on the walls - with names of famous guitarists on them. It's not clear whether these have been donated by those people or whether it's just a decor feature.
There was a nice atmosphere and we eventually got a table so we decided to stay put rather than negotiate the crowds outside to go to another venue.
We eventually left around 1 am and felt like old fogeys as people were still arriving at the barriers - mostly local and young, and not there for the music venues, just to hang out. Many of the girls were dressed to kill........
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