MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE
On a flight to Memphis, a man told his wife, “Surely we’re not going to Graceland, are we?” to which she indignantly replied, “Are you kidding? I’m not going to Memphis without going to Graceland!”
No, traveler, don’t go to Memphis without going to Graceland. See everything.
Memphis is history and its history is music and the river, and that means blues and race, vulgarity and elegance, beauty and hard times. It means what happens when musical genius triumphs over the most difficult circumstances and it means what happens when you take a poor 22-year-old from a shotgun house in Tupelo, Mississippi, and turn him into a god.
Memphis is America.
Before the Europeans arrived in the area, the Chickasaw Indians had settled on the high bluff above the river, which came to be known as the Mississippi. The area actually divides the upper and lower Mississippi and looks south towards the delta, marshes, and what we consider to be the Deep South. Two rivers join here, the mighty Mississippi and the Wolf River. For these reasons, the area was an important and strategic location since before recorded history. De Soto arrived in the mid-16th century and 150 years later the French built a fort there, Fort Prudhomme. Later the English arrived and in the 19th century, Memphis was incorporated as a city and named after the ancient capital of Egypt. Today, the Memphis metropolitan area has a population of nearly 1.5 million, making it only slightly smaller than the Nashville metropolitan area, although within actual city limits, Memphis is the largest city. Big Tennessee.
Due to its strategic location, Memphis was the scene of a fierce battle in the Civil War and was eventually captured by Union forces. Devastating yellow fever epidemics followed, and for a time it looked as if the city would not recover. But despite this, Memphis called hundreds of freed slaves who came to the city on the cliff to work and brought their music with them. Memphis in those days had a reputation as an open and carefree place, and as such it attracted people who were enthusiastic about freedom and happy to be free from repression. They played their music for themselves, but soon found that others came to the area just to hear their music and join in the fun. Memphis became famous.
It may have been partly because of this history of racial freedom and miscegenation that Memphis eventually became central to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Dr. Martin Luther King came to Memphis to support the sanitation workers’ strike and was murdered in Memphis on April 4, 1968. The motel where he was murdered has recently been made a national historic site.
The Graceland site is in some ways exactly what one would expect and also in some ways surprising. The mansion (and that word is not an exaggeration) stands on its own and has been protected from any overt commercial venture. Ticketing, gift shop, advertising, are across a four-lane highway, and a small van shuttles visitors back and forth. It has been left, they say, exactly as it was when Elvis lived there, at least as he was the last time it was redecorated. It’s luxurious and to some probably tacky. Except that the kitchen, which we’re told was the heart of the house and where the constant stream of guests and hangers-on congregated, is surprisingly small and plain. We’re told Elvis liked to eat, but the fact that fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches are his favorite food may explain the fact that the kitchen doesn’t seem designed for culinary masterpieces.
But the hospitality, generosity, love of family and sentimentality that are so much a part of the Elvis Presley legend are evident everywhere in this iconic place.
Another place where evidence of wealth abounds and is lavishly displayed is in the sumptuous lobby of the Peabody Hotel on Union Avenue. Even if it wasn’t for the Duck Parade, there’s enough to see in the Peabody—fancy shops, jewelry, art—to make the short drive downtown worth it. Yeah, we said “Duck Parade” and if you don’t know it we didn’t tell you enough to spoil it. Just this: the ducks live in the hotel penthouse at night and spend their days in the lobby fountain, parading down the elevator lobby to the fountain twice a day with as much ceremony as at the changing of the guard at the Palace of Buckingham. Another thing NOT to be missed in Memphis!
And then there’s Beale Street, where the music began and where it still flourishes.
Here is the night life, some say it is the life of Memphis. Nightclub after nightclub, 30 of them in three blocks, every one of them playing music you just can’t hear anywhere else. Blues, of course, the music that was born here, but also jazz, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, gospel, you name it. Choose your music and your club, but if you’re going to BB Kings, be brave and wherever you go, expect to stay out late: the musicians don’t start to liven up until after 10.
Plan to stay a few days and it’s a good idea to take a tour at some point. Otherwise, you may not know where to find the Sun Studio, the little shop where Elvis made that recording of “That’s All Right, Momma” that was the start of a wild ride for a southern boy and the start of a cultural shift. for the whole country
Here’s just a taste of what awaits you in Memphis – we haven’t even mentioned the famous St. Jude Hospital complex, which has to be seen to be believed, the Rock ‘N Soul Museum, the Mississippi River Museum, the Museum of the Civil Rights, art, opera… too many to list. You’ll have to come and see for yourself, and then, “You’ll be back, huh?”
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