We began our first day in Memphis with a visit to the National Civil Rights Museum. The museum is located on the same space where the boarding house stood from which James Earl Ray assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. across from the Lorraine Motel. There were many artifacts from the assassination and exhibits on the Civil Rights Movement.
The spot were Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated
From the bathroom window where James Earl Ray fired.
From there it was on to Sun Studios! This was one of the highlights of the trip for me. Sun Studios is where Rock 'n' Roll began. It is said that "If music were a religion Memphis would be its Jerusalem and Sun Studios its most sacred shrine".
Sun Studios!
"X" marks the spot where Elvis was standing when he sang "That's Alright, Mama"
The Sun recording studio
Looking towards the control room.
From Sun Studios we headed for Beale Street. What can i say? When you say Beale Street to a musician a faraway look comes to his eye. Beale Street WAS the center of the musical universe from the 1920s to the 1950s.
It was here that black musicians would head as soon as they had scraped up enough cash to buy a ticket out of the Mississippi Delta. Beale Street was a collection of juke joints, gambling halls and whore houses. Rufus Thomas, a Beale Street entertainer, once said, “If you were black for one Saturday night and on Beale Street, never would you want to be white again.” Well, that was Beale Street of the past. Today Beale Street can be compared to Bourbon Street in New Orleans. There are more tourists (mostly white) than locals and everyone has a camera hanging from around their necks. Drinks are overpriced as is the food. BUT, you still have to go!
Entrance to Beale Street
Just off of Beale is the Gibson Guitar Factory. Tours were available so, naturally, we took one. Photography was not allowed in the factory due to trade secrets. Competition between guitar manufactures is fierce. Suffice it to say the tour was very interesting IF you are a guitar player. The frau just didn't get why I was so excited.
Gibson Guitar Factory
The frau and I had dinner at B. B. King's Blues Club at the entrance to Beale. No, B. B. King was not there. He rarely plays the club, it is just a side business that uses his name. There was a band playing called the King Beez.
The frau and I at B. B. King's
That evening we spent doing what you do on Beale Street... hopping from one blues club to the next. We wound up in Jerry Lee Lewis' club (again, just a business name) and the place was jukin'! There was a pumping piano player in the style of Jerry Lee and even included audience members dancing on the piano! This is where we spent most of the evening. I am sorry that the audio in the video is not that great, but it was rockin'!
Dancing on the piano!
After Jerry Lee's we went back the hotel to get ready for tomorrow... Graceland!
The next day we headed for the home of the King, Elvis Presley. Graceland was Elvis' home and retreat from the pressures he endured as a world class performer. By today's standards Graceland is just a normal, everyday home. He only paid $100,000 for Graceland... but this is the 50's we are talking about.
Graceland
Living Room
Graceland from the back. Note the window units. No central air conditioning
Lisa Marie's swing set. Nothing fancy here!
The swimming pool
Elvis' grave. I forgot to bring a guitar pick!
From Graceland we headed for Stax Records. The day before we visited Stax Bobby Blue Bland, a Stax artist, passed away. Stax was home to many of the Rhythm and Blues artists of the 60's. The first song I remember really listening to as an adolescent was Otis Redding's Sitting on the Dock of the Bay on Stax Records.
Today the original studios are no longer standing, but they have been reconstructed to the original structures. Today there is also the Stax Music Academy where at-risk youths are turned onto music instead of drugs and gangs. Stax also operates a charter school. As a former educator, I was impressed.
Stax Records
Students in session
Looking into the studio from the board
Some of the original analog recording equipment
So ended our Blues Pilgrimage. The next day we left for home in Asheville and resumed our day to day lives...for now. We have a trip planned for the Outer Banks beginning next week and then we have to make our final preparations for Germany.
The next day we drove to Memphis, TN. It is not a very long drive from Clarksdale, only 70 miles or so. We took a lot of detours and it wound up taking us the whole day.
The first stop was Helena, AR. Helena is the home of radio station KFFA which broadcasts the King Biscuit Flour Hour. This program was started in the 1940's and is till on the air today. It is credited with bringing the Delta Blues to whites. It seems if you were black in those days it was much easier to get your music heard if the public did not know the color of your skin. Sonny Boy Williamson (whose grave we saw yesterday) was one of the first performers on the show.
The drums used by Sonny Boy Willamson's Band
In front of the KFFA studios
From Helena we drove back into Mississippi and visited Lula. Lula was home to many of the blues greats, but you could not tell it from the state of the town today. The best two words to describe Lula is economically depressed. It's not hard to imaging someone having the blues living here!
Downtown Lula
Leaving Lula we headed for Walls, MS in search of Memphis Minnie's grave site. Lizzie Douglas Lawlers, better known as Memphis Minnie, was one of the few women playing the blues. Her guitar playing is respected even today. She was said to be able to out-drink, out-fight and out-cuss many of the men in her day. Today she rests peacefully in a church cemetery just outside Walls.
If you look close you can see the guitar pick I left for Minnie
The frau was getting kind of tired of hanging out in cemeteries so I promised here just one more grave and then we would head to Memphis. We drove to the west of West Memphis, AR to see Albert King's fina resting place. Albert King was famous for his left hand Gibson Flying V guitar. Below is a video of him playing with Stevie Ray Vaughn.
Another guitar pick left as a tribute to Albert King
As I promised the frau, that was it for the day and we would head for the hotel in Memphis to rest up. The Nugent's were getting ready to take on Beale Street!
The next day we spent driving around the Delta seeking out spots that have significance for blues fans. First we drove to Tutwiler to see Sonny Boy Williamson's grave site. In Tutwiler we saw the ruins of the train station where W. C. Handy first heard a young black man playing the blues. Handy never forgot this eerie sound and years later wrote St. Louis Blues.
Old train station in Tutwiler
After visiting the train station it was on to Sonny Boy's grave. Sonny Boy Williamson is the harp play that all blues players model themselves on (at least they should). He is credited with starting the King Biscuit Hour on KFFA radio in Helena, AR, a program that is still on the air. It is customary for harp players to play a little and then leave the harmonica on Sonny Boy's headstone. I did this, although the frau could not understand the purpose in leaving a perfectly good Mississippi sax on a tombstone.
Playing for Sonny
From Tutwiler we headed for Greenwood, the site of Robert Johnson's grave. Even people who are not familiar with the blues know of Robert Johnson. It is said that Johnson sold his soul to the Devil at the Crossroads in exchange for guitar virtuosity. There are actually three sites in Mississippi that lay claim to being Johnson's final resting place. The site in Greenwood is generally accepted as being the probable true site due to an eyewitness report (the grave digger's wife). It is also customary to leave a small token for Robert on his tombstone. I left a Tortex guitar pick in hope that some of his playing ability would be granted to me. I still think it requires practice, practice, practice to approach his playing! The frau thought leaving a guitar pick was a lot better idea than leaving a harmonica!
Paying homage to Robert Johnson
We then drove to Indianola, the home of B. B. King. The B. B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center was great! It follow B. B. from a young boy learning to play the "diddly bow" to the international star he is today. I was fortunate to have seen B. B. King when I lived in Hamburg, Germany.
B. B. King Museum in Indianola, MS
On the way back to our shack we stopped to see Po' Monkeys. This is a juke joint that is literally in the middle of nowhere. It is only open on Thursdays and we were there on a Saturday afternoon.
That evening I decided to partake of Hick's Tamales. It's funny, but tamales are everywhere here. No one could tell me how tamales came to be ubiquitous to this area. They are a little different than the Mexican tamales we are use to. They are made with corn meal instead of Masa flour and tend to be highly spiced. Even Robert Johnson wrote and sang about them in the song They're Red Hot. Hick's are said to be the best and they were VERY good!
Even though we were tired we were not done jukin'! This was our last night in Clarksdale, so it was back to Red's where Terry "Harmonica" Bean was playing.
That was enough for one day and we had to drive to Memphis the next day. It is only about 70 miles but there would be many stops along the way.
The next day we spent in Clarksdale. This area of the country is very depressed and you could tell by just walking around the town that this area is not doing very well. The price of cotton is down and we saw mostly soybeans and corn in the fields.
First we went to the legendary "Crossroads". This is the intersection of Highways 61 and 49 where it is said that Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for virtuosity on the blues guitar. Robert Johnson wrote a blues song entitled Crossroads but there is no reference to the Devil. The song is actually about a black man in Mississippi try to get back
into down before sundown. During those days there was a curfew for
African-Americans and there would be severe consequences to being caught out
after dark. Eric Clapton recorded a version of this song and it is one of his signature pieces.
The legendary Crossroads
Afterwards we went to the Delta Blues Museum located in the old train station. It is appropriate that this be the location of the museum. One must remember that life in Mississippi was not pleasant (an understatement!) for African-Americans in the 1920s and '30s. As soon as a blues musician gained any modicum of success it was straight to the train station with a one-way ticket as far north as he could get. This is why you can follow the trail of the blues from Clarksdale to Memphis to St. Louis to Chicago. The museum had a lot of interesting exhibits, but photography was not allowed inside.
The Delta Blues Museum
After looking around the town some more we headed back to our shack for a little rest before going out to hear some more live music in the evening. I was inspired enough to get out my old Epiphone and play a little blues on the porch.
Channeling Robert Johnson?
That evening we went to the Ground Zero Blues Club. The band playing was the Brandon Santini Blues Band. Ground Zero is definitely set up for tourists. The clientele was exclusively white and consisted mainly of older folks and college students.
Ground Zero Blues Club
After listening to a few sets we decided to go back to the shack and rest up for the morning.
I know I am way late posting about this trip. We were very busy enjoying ourselves and I did not have time to update this blog during the trip itself.
On June 20 we drove to Clarksdale, MS in the Mississippi Delta. We stayed at the Shack Up Inn which a collection of sharecropper's shacks on an old plantation. There was air conditioning, indoor plumbing, and a TV that had only one channel, the Sirius XM blues channel. Otherwise it was very authentic.
The Crossroads Shack
The interior of our shack
We arrived a the shack early thanks to the one hour of time we got by crossing into the Central Time Zone. We were in the mood for a little music, having driven all day, and chose to go to Red's. Red's is an authentic juke joint in Clarksdale. The place is an absolute fire hazard and I expect it to either burn or fall down withing the next few years. Like I said, it was very authentic. There was a little three piece blues band playing headed up by Big A, the guitar player.
Red's Lounge
Big A playing the blues in Red's Lounge
This was our first real experience with a juke joint, but we would become very familiar with these the next few days. Feeling tired and little drained we headed back to our shack for the night.
Tomorrow I will continue posting about this trip. Check back then!
On March 22, 2013 I departed Asheville for my hometown of Longview, Texas. My father's 84th birthday was on March 23 and I wanted to share it with him. Since I am going to be in Germany for about six months beginning in July I also had a few things to drop off for safe keeping.
To celebrated my dad's birthday we had dinner at the 5D Steakhouse in Avinger, Texas. I had a 20 oz. T-Bone and it was delicious. No steak sauce was needed. This came from the grill perfect.
20 oz. T-Bone at 5D Steakhouse in Avinger, TX
Of course, steak was not all we ate during my visit. What would a trip to Texas be without authentic Mexican food? For Sunday dinner we had Mexican at Tele's in Gum Springs, TX.
Tex-Mex
Sunday we also had a "4 Generations" photo taken with Dad, myself, my son Arlo, and my granddaughter Lexi.
My son and granddaughter had to fly back to San Diego on Monday and we took them to Love Field in Dallas. My sister arranged for us to have a VIP tour of Cowboys Stadium. For those that don't know I am a hopeless Dallas Cowboy fan and have been since birth. Texas Stadium was amazing. We got to see "Jerry's Perch", the luxury suites, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders dressing room (no cheerleaders unfortunately), the Cowboys dressing room and the press room. We were not able to go down onto the field because they were setting up for some college basketball thingy called the "Sweet 16".
The Cathedral of Football, Cowboys Stadium
Laying the floor for a Sweet 16 NCAA game
The interior of Cowboys Stadium
The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders dressing room
The Cowboys dressing room
On Tuesday we went to Caddo Lake near Uncertain, TX and Jefferson, TX. Caddo Lake is known for its trees covered in Spanish Moss. Jefferson is a historic little town that is best know as a river port during the days of river steam ships.
Spanish Moss at Caddo Lake
Caddo Lake
Downtown Jefferson, TX
On Wednesday I started back for Asheville and got as far as Jackson, TN the first day. There was a horrendous traffic jam near Hazen, AR due to bridge construction. It was the kind of traffic jam where you turned your engine off and got out and talked with the other drivers.
Traffic jam on I-40 near Hazen, AR
I made it home to Asheville the next day. Stay tuned! This summer I will begin a trip to Europe and this blog is the best way to keep up with all that will be happening!
One of our favorite places to hike is Dupont State Forest near Brevard, NC. Sunday, February 24, 2013 was one of those beautiful days that you don't get very often in February. The frau and I hiked the short 4 mile loop that included Thomas Cemetery.
Next month I will be heading to Texas and soon longer more exciting trips are to be taken. Check back to hear about my adventures in Texas and my upcoming trip to Germany via a freighter from Philadelphia to Hamburg! I have cabin fever and have to get out and about soon!!!
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