Memphis was our first real bout with winter weather. Didn’t we take the southern route to avoid this?1
In another instance of serendipity, we arrived in Memphis during the International Blues Challenge 2024. Bands from the U.S., Canada, and beyond were playing in the restaurants on Beale Street, so we got to enjoy some good BBQ and blues music. A few shots of the performers, which don’t at all capture the experience:
We also visited the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rock and Soul Museum, the Stax Museum, and Sun Studios.
Bottom row: A replica of Memphis DJ Dewey Phillip’s studio (left). Dewey Phillips used to smash records he hated on the floor so that no one else would ever play them (see the vinyl shards in the lower right corner). He played the first copy of Elvis’ “That’s Alright Mama” (center) which elicited such a reaction he played it another 14 times during his show. Elvis recorded it, and other Sun artists recorded their songs, in the Sun Records recording studio which is still in use today (right).
For some reason, I took no photos inside the Stax Museum. In the late 1950s and the 1960s, when the rest of Memphis was segregated, Stax was one of the few places where black and white artists and staff could work together as equals; when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, while rioters destroyed much of the neighborhood, no one touched the Stax building because it was so esteemed by the community. In the aftermath of the assassination, however, divisions began to form along racial lines; and despite having a stellar group of artists and songwriters—including Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, Booker T. & the MGs, Isaac Hayes, and others—a series of bad distribution deals ultimately led to Stax’s bankruptcy. Today, there is a music charter school attached to Stax, but the neighborhood looks to have not recovered from the riots.
Next: the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel
- On our first night here, a water pipe burst in one of the garage stairwells due to the cold. This triggered the fire alarm, and we all had to exit the building. We were allowed back in almost immediately, but the alarm kept going for another hour, until the hotel staff could override the alarm system.
On our fifth day, another hotel water pipe burst, resulting in a water shutoff for the whole building. The South is going to have to learn about pipe insulation. ↩︎