Memphis - Walking through Memphis International Airport in Tennessee, it’s obvious Elvis hasn’t left the building. His image is everywhere, his music plays over the public address system – Heartbreak Hotel, Jailhouse Rock, That’s Alright Mama… the rock ‘n’ roll classics reverberate around the halls as if the place is in a 1950s time warp.
Images of Elvis as well as guitars and other musical instruments adorn the arrivals hall. Music is the dominant image and the big attraction, apart from live bands playing in pubs and clubs all along the city’s Beale Street, is Graceland, the place Elvis Presley called home.
And many of the boppers in town to soak up the sounds and atmosphere are old ballies (like me) who remember their glory days and can still do a mean jive, especially when it’s to one of the “King’s” old upbeat numbers.
A well I bless my soul what’s wrong with me; I’m itching like a man on a fuzzy tree; My friends say I’m acting wild as a bug; I’m in love, I’m all shook up….
Suddenly, the years roll back in a flash and the music gets to me – my knees start to twitch and, hey man look out, I’m ready to rock, even if it’s all on my own.
I only just manage to stop making a complete idiot of myself, remembering that the exertion of a heated solo jive could do my back in.
Memphis was the second stop on an American musical journey my wife Colleen and I were making. Jazz had been the priority during our six-day stay in New York. Now it was time for rhythm & blues and good old rock ‘n’ roll.
Growing up in the late 1950s, Elvis had been my hero. He had everything and most young boys wanted to be just like him. We tried to copy his hairstyle, his clothing, the way he walked, talked, sang and gyrated. He was a phenomenon who changed the face and sound of popular music and lifestyles in the late Fifties.
Today, 60 years later, his legend lives on. Visitors from all corners pay good money to walk through Graceland, marvelling at the displays of his scores of gold records, clothing and a wide variety of other Presley memorabilia.
Guides explain that the rooms on show have the furniture, equipment and appliances Elvis used while living there. The tour of the home ends at the family cemetery where he, his mother, father, stillborn twin brother and other family members are buried.
But there’s still lots to see, including his two customised jet airliners – one named after his daughter, Lisa Marie – and his impressive collection of fancy cars, with the standout vehicles being Elvis’s signature pink Cadillac, an Eldorado Convertible and the red MG used in the film, Blue Hawaii. There’s also his John Deere tractor.
Graceland is the top tourist attraction in Memphis with the number of visitors growing every year. Well worth experiencing even if you’re not an Elvis disciple.
Based at the comfortable Memphis Hilton, we went on a guided tour of the city, recognised worldwide as the home of blues music.
We visited the Beale Street district which is packed with music pubs and clubs, Sun Studios where singers such as Elvis, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis of Great Balls Of Fire fame cut records in the early days, and the National Civil Rights Museum built around the Lorraine Motel where Dr Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in 1968.
We went down to the Mississippi River where paddlewheel boats tour the waters around the city during 90-minute excursions or for an evening of dinner and dancing. Also included on the tour was a visit to the Memphis Rock ’n’ Soul Museum and the nearby Gibson Guitar Factory where I very carefully (the instruments costs thousands of dollars) strummed a 12-bar blues on one of the custom-made guitars.
Finally, there was a stop at the posh downtown Peabody Hotel at the corner of Union and Second Streets where the Peabody ducks are in permanent residence in a penthouse.
Every day at 11am the duck family is escorted down in the lift to the lobby where they waddle along a red carpet into the hotel fountain. They return to their penthouse around 5pm. Lots of fun – especially for youngsters.
Taking a bus from the hotel and then a tram around the city, we trawled Beale Street one evening, starting off at the statue of Elvis, posing for pictures in be-bop stances, before moving on to enjoy the music (and bourbon on the rocks) at places such as BB Kings Blues Club, Wild Bills, Automatic Slim’s and Rum Boogie. Great sounds, magic party atmosphere and heaps of that famous Southern hospitality – howdy y’all!
A day and a night were set aside for a visit to Nashville, about 320km north of Memphis, where I had booked seats for the Grand Ole Opry – the show that made country music famous.
The challenge was I had to drive us there and back on the wrong side of the road, although the Americans say it’s the right side. I rehearsed things beforehand – hard right, wide left when turning into corners, just the opposite of what it is in South Africa.
We got there okay and pub-crawled around Broadway, the equivalent of Beale Street in Memphis but with a lot more musical entertainment, before the start of the Opry. The show in the Ryman Auditorium featured the Whites, Joanna Smith, Daryle Singletary, Larry Gatlin and topping the bill, Bobby Bare.
Bobby looked like he may have come straight from a session with a bottle of Jim Beam but when he opened with the crowd favourite homesick number: I Wanna go Home, he brought the house down with his big, booming country voice.
It was an evening to savour – we enjoyed every minute. We drove back to Memphis around midnight, getting to bed very late but very happy.
Time flies when you’re having fun and it was soon departure morning. We caught a taxi to the railway station, excited about our 600km Amtrak railroad trip to New Orleans in the state of Louisiana.
All aboard! - Sunday Tribune