Day 51

They Say That Every King Has A Palace But This One Had A Home.



Graceland is on what is now known as Elvis Presley Boulevard - number 3734 to be exact. It was built by a wealthy Memphis newspaper publisher called SE Toof. He named the estate after his daughter, Grace. When he passed away, she inherited it and eventually gave it to her niece Ruth Moore in 1939. Elvis bought the estate from Ruth in 1957 at the tender age of 24. He lived there until his death in August of 1977 and gave it large the entire time. There were always people visiting - 24 hours a day and Elvis was constantly surrounded by his loved ones. It was the only place that he truly felt comfortable, so when he was touring extensively he would have his hotel rooms remodeled like his favourite rooms in Graceland before his arrival to make it feel like home.

The tour of his house only includes the downstairs in order to preserve the privacy of his life but it is incredible. And very fascinating because the King had really quirky taste.

It begins with the sitting room that is just inside the front door to the right of the entrance. Apparently, he spent a lot of time with his parents in this room and loved the big white couch that you can see reflected in the second photo.





Next is the dining room where he would entertain guests and serve huuuge meals.



Walking through the dining room leads into the kitchen, which was very low lit but contained all of the essential mod cons of the day.



After the kitchen, you walk downstairs to one of the rooms that Elvis would hang out in and watch TV. Actually, he would watch three TVs - at once. There is also a bar and some sort of strange white monkey on the table. It also has a turntable and some of his record collection. The whole room is done in yellow and white and the back wall has the trademark lightning bolt that he used with the TCB moniker (Takin' Care of Business).

The next room is the pool room

The next room was one of his quirkiest (and favourites) - the 'jungle' room. It's basically another sitting room with furry furniture and a huge green shag carpet the whole way around. But it also has a waterfall that he used to sit and listen to. And more monkeys. Apparently the room also acted as a studio and when friends came over they would jam and record songs together.

That was the end of the rooms that the public can see. The next section was a room that contained some of his and the family's things. There were clothes, furniture, office equipment and some of his sports equipment from his teenage years. My favourite thing was his 'mobile' telephone.

The view of the house from the back garden. Well, part of the back garden.

Walking across the garden, brought us into a shed (of sorts) that contained an enormous amount of pictures, posters, memorabilia and of course gold records. The first room had exhibits from the beginning of his career when he was referred to as the young man with the big beat.

That room led into a long, long, long hallway that contained some (but nowhere near all) of his gold and platinum records.

The next room was dedicated to his movie career. It contained every poster from his 31 films as well as many records, props and costumes as well.

By this time my head was spinning from trying to take everything in. But the most amazing thing was yet to come. We had a short walk into the building that was his racquetball court. He was interested in the game, so he had his own court built that also contained a sitting room with leather couches. The piano that he supposedly played only hours before his death is also contained in the room. But when you walk through to what used to be the court you see this:

Every bit of wall space around the entire room is covered in gold, silver and platinum records. As well as awards and special recognitions. There is also a big screen TV that plays excerpts from concerts and there are cases that contain some of his more famous jumpsuits. It is totally unbelievable.

The tour finishes in the meditation garden where you can walk past the grave sites of him, his parents and his grandmother. It is very well done and very touching, especially the inscriptions on all of the tombstones.

After all that we were tired and hungry. But there was more to see. We started with some of his car and motorcycle collection. In this section, you can see some of his bikes, his Ferrari Dino, MG, Stutz Blackhawk, pink Cadillac Fleetwood, Lincoln Continental, Rolls Royce and numerous carts, buggies and sleds.

We then legged it into a special exhibition - his jumpsuits. There were hundreds of them. It was interesting to read how they started very simple and were modelled on karate gis, evolved into suits with belts and intricate stitching and eventually became the famous suits full of thousands of beads, studs and sequins. All of the suits were made by hand and had to be personally approved by the King himself. And in his own words:

Our last stop was to look at his two planes. He had is own Boeing 737, named after Lisa Marie and a smaller plane that was used for short distance traveling.

It was a fabulous day but we probably didn't give it as much time as we could have. You really need to spend an entire day there or even go back for a second day to properly see and take in everything. But we had to move on - next stop Colleyville, Texas.

We took 55N, then 40W to Little Rock and then 30W to Texarkana. We stopped for a quick bite before continuing to Dallas. We hit some really heavy thunderstorms along 30 just before Hope, where Bill Clinton was born.

After 11pm, we arrived at my aunt's house in Colleyville totally knackered from sightseeing and driving. Still, we had enough energy for a beer and a chat with my aunt to begin telling her all about our exploits. Then it was time to hit the scratcher (or couch in my case). And I hit it hard.

Day 50 (Part I)

We woke up early today, had breakie and went to Soulsville USA, the home of Stax Records.



The recording studio was set up in 1957 in an old abondanded movie theatre and over the course of twenty years became the site of hundreds of famous soul recordings by Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, the Bar-Kays, Booker T & the MGs and dozens more. It was eventually sold, then torn down in the 80s and today the exact location has been rebuilt and is now a museum for Stax Records. And they have tours.

We arrived at the museum in time to start the 11:00 tour, which begins with a fifteen minute film about the history of Stax Records. We were the only ones in the small, make-shift theatre.

Having had our appetites whet, we started the self-guided tour at the beginning where there is a replica of an old southern church. This particular exhibit explains how gospel and blues are the origins for all the genres of music that began in the 40s and 50s. I was interested by the fact that gospel was explained as singing to the Lord in order to forget hardships, while blues is singing to another person (usually a loved one) about difficult times.

There were sections devoted to all the genres of music that influenced soul - Jazz, White Pop, R&B, Rock 'n' Roll as well as all the major influences from each of the genres. It was very interesting and laid the groundwork for the stories behind all of the Stax recording artists.

The next section displayed the history of Stax and explained how it was started by Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton (brother and sister) in 1957 on the corner of E McLemore Ave and College St.



Jim handled the production and studio work, while Estelle looked after finances and promotion. The label was originally called Satellite Records (after a shop across the street) but was changed when they found out the name was already taken. They changed the name to Stax, which is the first two letters of each of their surnames.



The shop across the street was run by Estelle and all the neighborhood kids, including members of the MGs, used to come by after school and listen to records. It was a relaxed atmosphere and served as a musical education in jazz, blues and country for all of the kids. The original building is still there today but does not seem to currently be in use.



After the studio was set up, Rufus and Carla Thomas were the first recording for the label. A band comprised of high school students called the Mar-Keys recorded 'Last Night', which became the first nationally distributed hit.

When the Mar-Keys broke up, some of the members became MGs and they along with Booker T were the house band for Stax and played on nearly every single recording of the 1960s for artists.The featured artists in the museum were Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, William Bell, Booker T & The MGs, The Bar-Kays and of course Isaac Hayes. Each section contained stage wardrobes and memorabilia for the artists. One of the coolest things was Isaac Haye's 1972 Cadillac El Dorado. It was peacock blue, had gold plated everything on the outside, a TV and refrigerator inside as well as floors covered entirely in white fur. The car was part of a contract that Hayes negotiated after the success of Shaft.

The story about the plane crash that killed Otis Redding and most of the Bar-Kays was of course very sad. The plane went down in December of 1967 when they were returning from a weekend of performances. It was a huge loss of talent for Stax and the loss of one of the nicest guys around as Redding was described.

One of my favourite stories was about the recording of Sam & Dave's hit 'Hold On, I'm Coming'. David Porter (Dave) wrote a lot of songs with Isaac Hayes and one night they were in the studio and really struggling with a particular song. David went to the house of wax when Hayes finally came up with the riff and yelled to David to hurry up. He replied by saying, "hold on, I'm coming" and ran back in to the studio with his pants at his knees. Apparently the song was born and written on the spot.

Stax was never very concerned with the latest technology and used very old, outdated equipment for nearly everything. All of the recordings were done with only one track machines. Since the studio was set up in an old cinema, the speaker that was already there was used for playback. Using all of these old equipment created a very distinct, unique sound for the label. Whereas Motown records were very over produced and aimed at making the charts, Stax records were very raw, unpolished and mainly concerned with capturing the intensity of the live music being played. Most of the original recording equipment used is in the museum along with an exact replica of the recording studio. Inside the studio are all of the instruments used by Booker T & The MGs for the recording of 'Green Onions'.

The next section contains nearly every single one of the 300 albums and 800 singles made for Stax and it's subsidiary labels like Volt, Enterprise, Chalice and Hip. All of these other labels were created to avoid problems with radio stations and their airplay regulations. No one single label could provide all of the songs played on air but by using other labels a lot more of Stax recordings could be included in regular play lists.

For most of the sixties, Stax was free of inter-racial tensions and everyone was able to work together and record hit after hit together. But after Otis Redding's death, Martin Luther King Jr was shot and killed in the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis and Atlantic Records (Stax's distributor) was sold. After the sale, Stax lost every single one of their original master recordings due to a previous agreement. In the space of six months, everything went pear shaped, the label struggled and began to fall apart.

The label got a second wind when in 1968, 28 albums were recorded and released on the same weekend. It raised millions of dollars in revenue, brought the label to the forefront again and provided a brand new batch of original master recordings.

In 1972 the Wattstax concert was held in The Pasadena Bowl and was a huge success as well. But Jim Stewart was unhappy with how Stax was progressing and sold his portion of the company for several million dollars.

Stax began to struggle again and eventually couldn't pay its' loans or the musicians. Employees were laid off and by 1975 there was no one left. Stewart lost everything and the studio was later sold to a church for only ten dollars. In 1989 the entire studio was demolished. A sad ending to a musical goldmine.

The last part of the museum is a special photo exhibit of Joel Brodsky, who was the Stax photographer and took most of the seminal photos during the 60s and 70s. He is also known for shooting the iconic photo of Jim Morrison that was dubbed the 'Young Lion' picture and appeared on the inside cover of Strange Days.

I bought some CDs (of course) and a T-shirt with the original Stax logo on it in the shop. Paulo made it out with only a bottle opener and a guitar pick.

We left Stax and drove up to Beale Street, parked the car and found a great place to eat called Cafe 61. I ordered a Sierra Nevada to quench my thirst and a Po Boy sandwich. Po Boys originated in Louisiana but are very popular in Memphis as well. The thing that is different about them is the bread - unlike most subs or sandwiches, they are served on French bread. And they are mighty damn good.

My Po Boy was sausage with grilled onions and a side of potato wedges with feta cheese. Paulo had a steak Po Boy with fries. They were fabulous and the service was great as well.

Day 50 (Part II)

We found out we couldn't walk down Union Avenue to Sun Studios from Cafe 61 so we drove down and made it just in time for the 4:30 tour. It was really good but they let too many people in together. I thought it was overcrowded and really difficult to see everything or to take pictures. The guide was a guy called Dave who was very friendly and informative. But I wasn't impressed when he tried to sell us his personal CD at the end of the tour. He claimed to have played gigs in Memphis and around Tennessee as well as all over the UK. But he ain't no King, Jerry Lee or Man in Black and I found it very disrespectful to pedal his disc in the studio.

We began the tour in the little record shop just past the cafe / soda shop. Unfortunately the prices were through the roof and I am certain that the same CDs can be bought in a decent shop for up to ten dollars less. The King would have been disgusted...





The tour starts upstairs in a room that has four glass cases of memorabilia from the very early days. In fact, the first few sections contain equipment, record sleeves and other things from when it was known as Memphis Recording Service.



Sam Philips started it and his thang was 'We will record anything.' He eventually changed the name to Sun because he thought the name was bright and offered promise (as in a new day / chance).



The next window has information about Ike Turner who recorded the first rock 'n' roll song in 1951 called Rocket 88 with Jackie Brenston and his band . There was also some guy (whose name I can't remember) that had a pet rooster who went everywhere with him. His claim to fame was that he recorded the longest with Sam - nine years. Of course the next section is all about Elvis and his first recording of 'My Happiness' which he did for his mother. Apparently, the secretary Marion Keisker thought he was good but Sam Phillips did not. Elvis wanted to meet Sam but he went there on a Saturday and Sam wasn't working. The story goes that for the next year, Elvis kept going in, talking to Sam until he finally got another chance to record and of course the rest is history.



The second part of the tour is downstairs, through the original entrance and reception area into the studio. Again, there were too many people which was a bit distracting but there was still a lot of atmosphere in the place. There is an X on the floor where supposedly Elvis stood during his first recording for Sam Philips.



There are lots of instruments and equipment but none of it is original except for the microphone that was given to the Studio by Sam.











Dave told us lots of stories about the studio:

How Sun Studio opened on January 3, 1950. One of the first recordings was Rufus Thomas singing 'Bear Cat', which was actually the same exact music as 'Hound Dog' and only the words were changed. Sam was sued and had to pay a huge fine stealing the song.

How Sun Records started operations on March 27, 1952 (just over two years after Sun Studios opened.) The label launched the careers of Elvis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis.

How Sam sold Elvis in 1956 to RCA for $35,000 so he could raise the money to nationally distribute his records.



How Johnny Cash came to the studio one morning and pleaded with Sam to give him some time and let him make a record. He did and he recorded I Walk The Line. The clicking noise while he is playing was caused by a piece of paper he placed between the neck of the guitar and the strings to provide some percussion. He apparently was practicing the song for the Grand 'Ol Opry and they did not allow drummers on stage at the time.

How the 'Million Dollar Quartet' (Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis) were in the studio for one night and Sam recorded them, creating the very first 'jam' session.

How 'Great Balls Of Fire' by Jerry Lee Lewis is the biggest selling record of all time on the Sun label.



How he sold Sun in 1969 and then had nothing to do with the studio. The label was renamed Sun International Corporation and during the 1970s it re-packaged and re-released compilations of Sun's early artists.

How the studio became a scuba diving shop and then a barber shop before closing down entirely.

How the studio reopened and now records anyone for $85 per hour. They usually record seven nights a week.



We had a look around the shop / cafe next door to the studio and despite really wanting to buy something we both didn't. Mostly because the prices were ridiculous.



Now are heads were really melted and we both had total information overload. We got directions to the Heartbreak Hotel and drove down to it. I must say it was not what I expected and quite disappointing as well.





After a quick look in the gimp shop, we drove back to Beale Street and had a wonder around. Wednesday nights are bike night so everyone that has a motorcycle can park on Beale Street and the whole street is shut down to thru traffic. We got there at about 6:30 and things were starting to kick off.







We went into the Tap Room for a pint of Pabst but there was no atmosphere, so we continued on to The 'something' Cafe (I don't remember the name that's how overloaded with information I was). We had a drink there and ordered some chicken tenders and fried green tomatoes. There was a guy called Dave playing guitar and singing. Well, he was trying to sing but some group of drunkards sort of took over for a few songs. Anyway, he survived it and came back with a great second set after they had left.

We stepped back outside and the street was packed! There were people and bikes everywhere - a really good atmosphere.