Fair warning- we did a lot of stuff in Memphis and as a result, this post is looong! Lots of pics though.

Memphis was the main destination of our trip, even though we fooled around in Ohio and didn’t get there until halfway through. I have never been to a place where the differences between rich/poor, white/black are so stark. The suburbs are beautiful, wealthy and overwhelmingly white. Much of the city (save a few areas) seems to be in various stages of ruin, with boarded up or destroyed business and houses at every turn. These areas are overwhelmingly black. The police presence in the downtown area is heavy at all times. We drove around a good bit of the city just to explore, so I don’t think our sample size is too small to be accurate. If you’re one of those people who doesn’t believe that systemic racism is still effecting our country, you need to go to Memphis.

Also- the roads there are loaded with potholes. Big ones.

Having said that, Memphis is so full of history and interesting places, that I would strongly recommend going there. We had a great time visiting despite its issues.

Saturday, June 14- Driving, Beale Street & Rum Boogie Cafe

We got into town by late afternoon after driving from Cincinnati, and decided to just drive around a bit to get a a feel for the place. The downtown looked rough, abandoned, closed, and full of police. The major hotels were wildly high-priced, so we chose a random suburb and decided to stay there instead, driving about 30 minutes into town each day. We ended up in Germantown- wow! What a difference from downtown!

After dumping our stuff in the hotel room, we went right back downtown to check out the famous Beale Street and its music scene. We were advised by the hotel desk worker to “avoid the lower end, especially late.” We didn’t take her advice, but I understand why she gave it.

Beale Street is set up as an “entertainment area”, which means going through a security check and paying a small cover charge just to get onto the 4 block area where the action is. Once you’re in and looking down the hill, the street looks so vintage that it could be Hollywood movie set. It’s very cool!

The place has a good, unique vibe with its bars, shops and music- but it is loud, with several clubs belching their music out into the street over top of each other. Our hotel desk clerk was right- the lower part of the street does get sketchy. There are fewer people around, most of the clubs are closed, and the vibe changes for the worse.

After scouting out the whole place for the best music, we ended up at Rum Boogie Cafe listening to FreeWorld, a great 9 piece horn band with a kick-ass guest singer. We stayed until they were done.

Sunday, June 15- Sun Records, National Civil Rights Museum, Urban Forest

Sun Records is a very small but massively important recording studio that produced and promoted music by many of rock n roll’s early giants like Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. The building remains now much as it was back then in the 50’s and you can feel the energy in the room.

After the Sun tour, we went over to the National Civil Rights Museum, which is built into the facade of the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr was murdered in 1968. The museum design is very cool and at the end, you can look into the rooms that King and his crew were staying in the night he was shot. The rest of the exhibits tell the story of the Civil Rights struggle in great detail and with a wide variety of presentations. It’s an excellent museum and I was embarrassed that my memory had gone fuzzy on some of the important events it covers. I needed the review. I also learned a lot.

A wreath outside the room MLK was staying in when he was murdered.
A map of modern day Memphis showing how segregated the city still is regarding housing. Red areas are mostly white, blue spots are primarily black.
Look at the sharp and immediate rise of African Americans elected to government right after the Civil War, and the steep, long-lasting decline as Jim Crow laws came into effect.
MLK’s room the night he was killed.
Main Street is full of trees and is closed to traffic. Unfortunately, there are more empty storefronts than open ones.
Tam didn’t believe me when I said the pic would be more interesting if she didn’t look at the camera.
We tried to walk along the banks of the Mississippi, but a lot of the downtown riverbank area was under construction.
We took a look around Beale Street to see what was happening, but instead decided to catch a concert across town in Overton Park.

Unfortunately, that concert had happened the night before, but while we were there we explored the Urban Forest. It’s a fairly large plot of land in the middle of a large city park that features an old growth forest with walking trails in and around it. What a great spot!

Monday, June 16- Elvis, Peabody Ducks, More Music on Beale Street

Visiting the Elvis shrines was not on my list of must see places in Memphis, but we couldn’t leave town without seeing them either. I was more into seeing the Graceland house than the “Disneyworld of Elvis” museums across the street. They were interesting too, but very long- it got to be Elvis overkill after a while.

Graceland front entrance
The living room
Elvis’s pool room was my favorite!
I also love the den! We had green shag carpet in our living room growing up too. Plus this room proves that everybody in the world had brown panelling on their property at some point😁 BTW- I would buy that furniture for my house right now if Tam would promise not to divorce me over it!
Elvis’s dad had an office in one of the back buildings and got sick of people coming in and wasting his time.
I once saw an Elvis biopic where he got mad at the TV and shot a bullet through it. I think of that often because I’m mad at the TV a lot too. I was super happy to find this item in the artifact museum and to know that Elvis actually lived my dream 😂
I don’t know why people make fun of his jumpsuits. Well, ok- some got out of control- but a lot of them were very cool! These are only a few of the many that were on display.
So many accolades!!
I was surprised at how close the neighbors are to the Graceland property. This house is Elvis’s neighbor.
This guy is The Duck Whisperer and literally rolls out the red carpet for them.

The Peabody Hotel is famous for its fountain ducks and the royal treatment they receive, and since we were tourists, we did the touristy thing and watched them do their thing.

A toddler tries to leave his family behind and join the fountain duck clan.
Down the carpet, into the elevator, and up to their rooftop housing for the night.
The Peabody lobby.
I love the architecture of the grand old 1920’s era hotels, especially the public areas like the lobby and ballrooms.
Here’s a more modern but equally cool ballroom on The Peabody’s top floor.
Memphis is right across the river from Arkansas, but visiting a state doesn’t count unless you’ve set both feet in it. So, we drove across the bridge, made our footprints in the gravel, and added Arkansas to our list of visitied states.
We travelled “all the way” from Arkansas to Beale Street, looking for more music. I love this pic with the approaching storm!
The Beale Street sidewalks are covered with notes like these, honoring all sorts of musicians and others important to Memphis and music history.
We heard this band in passing a few times since they play the same spot every night. But this time they sounded much better- we thought it was somebody else. Turns out the band was missing their singer and the guitar player was doing vocals instead- and killing it! I loved the classic blues stuff he was doing. The guy in the hat is just some random dancer guy, but at first glance I thought he might be Dion Sanders 😅
We closed out the night listening to some great music at BB King’s.

Tuesday, June 17- Stax, More Music Museums, River Drive & Back To Beale

The Stax Museum was a definite must-see for us. That label is responsible for some of the best music ever recorded in my opinion, and The Memphis Sound comes directly from them. The Stax Museum exists on the spot where the original building stood, before a series of unfortunate events (possibly mixed with racism) brought down both the label and the original studio. There’s so much to tell in the Stax story- I hope to do a future post dedicated just to them.

Booker T & The MG’s, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett, The Bar-Kays, Isaac Hayes……..Stax!
A near exact reproduction of the original recording room.
I’ve always loved that Memphis Horn sound but didn’t realize that those sounds came mostly from the same 2 guys! On all those records!!🤯 Andrew Love on sax and Wayne Jackson on trumpet. This horn made some damn good records!
So many great records!
Aretha Franklin was born in this shack, just a few blocks away from Stax in an extremely poor and rundown neighborhood.
Schwab’s General Store on Beale Street has been a family operation since 1876!
It was a nice place to eat ice cream and wait for the rain storm to pass before heading around the corner to….
…the Rock & Soul Museum. The best thing about this place was the extensive listening examples they had on the audio tour- plus it’s all on a Spotify playlist you can access! 🤩
We squeezed in one more music museum- the Memphis Music Hall of Fame. Small but good! This baby grand was saved from total destruction after being the house piano at Stax.
The Canadian themed Kooky Canuck looked too fun to pass up. I’ll admit- I’m scared of alcoholic drinks that big though!
They have a pretty gross eating challenge at the Canuck. The plaques are for those who won/achieved/survived it.
Need something to do? May as well walk down Beale Street and see what’s up. Today it’s a Jeep show, featuring this “cool kid” parking style.

We aren’t that into Jeeps so we once again attempted to check out the river. This time we drove north, as close to the water as we could get. And once again, the area and overall living conditions were (for the most part) horrible. On the way back downtown we drove around Mud Island, which was extremely nice and was one of the few times in Memphis where we saw what appeared to be a desirable neighborhood that was racially mixed.

Mud Island
Sunset along the Mississippi at Mud Island
We weren’t going to stop at this big, goofy Bass Pro Shop but we both had to go to the bathroom and we were driving right by…
…they did have some pretty cool -looking displays.
Guess where we ended up for our last night in Memphis😁 Back at Rum Boogie Cafe on Beale Street for one last round of live music.

Wednesday, June 18-Blues Hall Of Fame, Arcade, Leaving Town

Yep- one last music museum!
They had a hologram of Taj Mahal. You could ask it questions and it would answer- and it looked pretty real! It was amazing! And it turns out that the museum guide who helps with Taj is married to a girl from Harrisburg, PA (about 45 minutes from our house) and we know some of the same places.
The Arcade has been in operation since 1919 and nearly everybody both famous and un-famous has eaten there at least once. So why not us too?

The Drive

It was Wednesday. I had to be home for a gig at 6pm on Thursday. Home was 14 hours away. It was 2:30pm. We drove all afternoon and evening. We felt good. GPS said we would get home at 6:00am if we kept driving. We felt like we could make it. But if that feeling were to go away at any point, we’d be screwed- too late to get a hotel.

So we wimped out and stopped to sleep at a hotel near Pigeon Forge TN around 11pm. Things were going to be TIGHT as far as me making the gig.

Thursday, June 19- Get Me To The Gig On Time

We got up early and hit the road, planning to go directly to the gig without going home. Remember I mentioned putting a trumpet in the car back in Part 1? I had learned my lesson on last year’s road trip; having a horn in the car can really increase your travel options if time limits gets pushed- and with me they usually do.

We had an 8.5 hour drive. The gig was in 9.5 hours. Of course there was traffic in spots. Heavy rain slowed us almost to a halt 3 times. And there was an accident that tied things up briefly near Harrisburg. The gig started at 6pm. I arrived at 5:50pm and was ready to roll!

Back to work at home in Lancaster County.

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