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Memphis

Speaker/Author Journal: As many of you know, your humble publisher (that's me) also speaks professionally, most recently at the International Group of Agents and Bureaus' annual conference (check out http://igab.org where you will find a handy speakers bureau locator). In addition to meeting many of the good people who have and will hopefully book me, the trip turned into something of a pilgrimage to the city many consider the cradle of Rock 'n' Roll: Memphis, Tennessee. Yours truly considers himself firmly planted in that group.

Memphis is a town on the comeback. Many said they often passed through, but now were going to it as a destination. The currency of conversation is music, as in Rock 'n' Roll, Rockabilly, R&B, Soul, and C&W. Musically, R&B and C&W are very much alike, you know. The cabbies, bellmen, waiters, other locals, tourists, and just anybody will sit right down and talk to you about the people and sounds that came out of Memphis. Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Steve Cropper, Booker T and the MG's, The Memphis Horns, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Picket, Isaac Hayes (whom I saw on the plane), John Lee Hooker, Johnny Cash, and of course Elvis Presley.

I had the good fortune of being at the opening of The Rock 'n' Soul Museum (http://www.memphisrocknsoul.org), where I found myself engrossed for better than four hours, amidst vintage juke boxes, radios, the original Ampex tape deck and mixer that recorded Elvis's early Sun Studio sessions, all set up in a recreated studio. Also found the actual transmitter first used to broadcast the Grand Ol' Opry, back in 1925, when it was called The Barn Dance. 50+ years of costumes, posters, guitars, and a saxophone (owned by a member of the original Marquies) and a head full of music poured out of the Acoustiguide headset and into my mind.

I've been in museums around the world, but never one that transported me thoroughly and for so long as the Rock 'n' Soul Museum. I stood transfixed as I listened to how inspirations came about for songs I've known all my life. One saw a retrospective throughout the museum of old juke boxes, with some spinning all ten 78's, allowing the needle to finally make contact with the one you selected, while the rest spun in unison.

Visualize diamond-shaped microphones with WDIA (the good will station) and WHBQ emblazoned on the side. Picture a sharecropper's kitchen table with a Sears & Roebuck Silvertone radio on it, making use of a large battery, as there was no electricity in many of those one-room country little shacks. Sharecroppers would get back to the house at 12:15 in the afternoon to hear the wailing harmonica of Sonny Boy Williamson. These white and black sharecroppers made their way up the Mississippi into Memphis with their country and blues sounds, helping to shape what would become C&W, Rockabilly, R&B, and ultimately Rock and Roll. These influences, along with Jimmy Rogers, Bill Monroe (Blue Moon of Kentucky which was one of Elvis's first recordings), Hank Williams, plus Buddy Holly and other sounds of the south shaped the American musical landscape.

The Mississippi caused musical influences to flow up and down its shores from other cities that had their own distinctive musical signatures -- New Orleans, St. Louis, KC (Kansas City), and by extension and over land, Chi town (Chicago), where people like The Howlin' Wolf would come on down and get found by Sam Philips in Sun Studios, only to return back to Chi and record for years with Chess Records, as many Sun artists did.

The Rock 'n' Soul Museum drew all sorts on it debut. Old people, young folks, hepcats with their girlfriends, Europeans, Asians, and Aussies. All approached this place and other public showings of this proud culture with a sense of reverence. Since I can't read signage well, museum volunteer Dave Weinberg helped me out. Upon leaving I mentioned I was headed to Graceland. "If you're not an Elvis fan going in, you will be going out," noted this kind, retired chemist. He's right, of course.

Graceland (http://Elvis-Presley.com) was nothing if not gracious in its style. I thought the main house would be larger than it was, like an overstated Georgian mansion with very tall columns. Graceland has columns on the front porch that greet, but they're of human scale, not meant to impose or overwhelm. It's a comfortable looking place decked out in Sixties decor. Elvis bought it from a doctor for $100K cash in the mid-fifties shortly after his meteoric rise to fame. The doctor's family named it Graceland. Elvis liked the name and kept it.

The famous Jungle Room was behind glass. In the gallery, thousands of artifacts and memorabilia of all shapes and sizes greet you as you stroll down gawking at showcases to the left, right and ahead of you. There are vintage guns and badges given to Elvis by various police departments who enjoyed working with and protecting him from admiring throngs. Posters from movies "Love Me Tender," "Jailhouse Rock," and "King Creole" (that he and others considered his best acting) cover the walls, as does his gold lame suit, made famous on the Ed Sullivan Show.

The Hall of Gold displayed 111 awards for albums and singles over the years, awards from Rock, C&W, R&B and Gospel. He listened to all those musical forms plus opera and jazz. He sold over 1 billion records worldwide, of which 400 million were overseas sales with no help from MP3 or the Internet. How did he do that? He simply sang.

More people viewed his "Aloha from Hawaii" TV special than saw the moon landing. 700,000 people visit Graceland yearly.

Separate from the main house was the museum that displayed his eye-popping car collection. Included were: a 1960 red MG used in "Blue Hawaii," a 1960 white Rolls Royce, a Ferrari Dino, chopped and un-chopped Hogs (Harley- Davidsons), a 300cc Honda Scrambler, a '71 Stutz Blackhawk, '55 Pink Cadillac, '62 Lincoln Continental replete with alligator top, and a '56 Caddy convertible Eldorado with a purple paint job and plush white interior.

You can see the tailfins of a large and a small plane from the parking lot. On the way through the little terminal to view these aircraft you pass through an Elvis fan detector. The interior of the 1958 Convair was made over for $800,000 at the time when the actual craft itself was purchased for $250,000. Chairs, desks and countertops were all covered in dark leathers and suedes. The large craft was named Lisa Marie, after his daughter. Yo.

The meditation garden is where he is buried, next to his mother, father, and grandmother. A plaque also identifies his twin brother who died at birth, though he is not buried there. A woman quietly weeps. The music fades in the Acoustiguide as I leave this serene place.

In the gift shop I bought a hinged Elvis license plate which opens up to hold CDs for friend Matt Lederman, who's an Elvis devotee.

Sun Studios (http://www.sunstudios.com) is found at 706 Union Avenue, in a part of town that wasn't too hot even back in 1950 when Sam Phillips first started the studio as The Memphis Recording Service. On the way down there you pass by body shops, transmission garages, and used car lots, one of which featured a late model Hudson from the 1950s for $3500.

Shortly after the studio was started, Sam Phillips (a living legend and icon of American musical culture) changed the name to Sun Studios, and Ike Turner recorded what many believe to be the first Rock and Roll song. "You've heard those jalopies and the noise they make. Well you ain't heard nothing till you heard my Rocket '88." Turner's ode to the then popular "Olds '88" had that unmistakable driving backbeat and distorted guitar that would become hallmarks of American Rock 'N' Roll.

In 1953, Elvis rambled into Sun to make a custom recording onto acetate called "My Happiness." It cost him $4.00. One year later, he made his first professional recording, singing and playing Arthur Crudup's "That's Alright Mama," which came around as a happy accident. Elvis was jamming around with the musicians that Sam Phillips set him up with: Scotty Moore and Phil Grant. Phillips heard the magic and captured it on tape. There were only a very few takes.

Sam Phillips wanted to see if others picked up on what he was hearing. So, he brought the recording down to the mad- rapping DJ, Dewey Philips (no relation) who played it on WHBQ. Memphis went wild, and entertainment and musical history were changed forever.

The uncomplicated soulful sound of that place came through loud and clear. The "chickidy-chack" sound heard on Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line" was made by threading dollar bills through guitar strings and rubbing them together. I held the steelhead ribbed microphone on its spindly floor stand that Elvis used, along with so many others from back then. It all hit me, touching base with the scene, and I'd be lyin' if I said that I didn't get chills up and down my spine.

Amazingly, the original studio and its acoustics haven't changed at all in 50 years, despite the place having been a scuba shop and barbershop in the meantime. The original walls, ceiling tiles, and floors remain exactly intact. I had heard the acoustic characteristics of that room over my entire life in recordings of Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, early Elvis (before his contract was sold to RCA a year and a half later), and so many other artists. The loose and live tone of the room was a distinctive trademark of Sun recordings and was matched by the tone set by Phillips and the musicians. You play music, you don't work music. That looseness came through loud and clear.

All of the history of the Sun Studio tour was packed into one half hour. I bought some CDs at the shop and still felt compelled to hang out a bit. So I had a Coca-Cola at the counter downstairs. It seemed like everything moved in slow mo, the way a movie does when the camera is over- cranking. One hour later I achieved escape velocity and returned to my temporary headquarters, the Peabody Hotel (http://PeabodyMemphis.com), which is the grand dame of mid-South eloquence and hospitality.

Ah, the Peabody, with its 113 year history, and 75 years in its current incarnation, where Lindbergh preferred to stay. In fact, the Spirit of St. Louis was on display in the '20s. Hung from the ceiling, it must've been quite a spectacle at the mezzanine level.

For generations now, the ducks are marched in on a red carpet daily from their duckhouse on the rooftop, where they return at night, and there's a rather active singles scene on Thursday evenings, held as a time-honored tradition in Memphis. The deco dance floor is used when the outside terrace isn't available, in the unlikely event of inclement weather.

Beale Street's heyday was after WW II, in the '40s and '50s. Diamond shaped windows in shiny steel doors, and black tiles cover many of the storefronts. Clubs with names like Rum Boogie, Band Box, Blue Daisy and This Is It all pour out a mind-blowing array of the sounds that this street spawned. Everything's pretty inexpensive. On Saturday night you buy a wristband for $15 that gets you into all the clubs on the street.

After chowing down on barbequed ribs and black eyed peas at BB King's (he was originally known as the boy from Beale Street, giving him his eventual moniker of BB) I joined up with Deb & Chuck Lilly and Patti and Dale Gribow to take in some late night sounds. Chuck and I were surprised to learn from one of the acts that "Stand By Me" was a BB King tune.

One of the mementos I bought in Memphis was a two-disc set of Elvis's Sun sessions, many of which were not released previously. The last few cuts on the second disc were "lifts" from acetate live recordings in the early days. The surface noise would drive many an ear away. But those who stay would hear the raw Elvis's heat and energy juxtaposed with that of the crowd's excitement and enthusiasm. The screams of many a Memphis teenage girl in a high school or music hall are captured here, hailing back from the mid-'50s like some sound portal of yore, a bit removed, but decidedly intelligible. As I write this, it's been days since I've returned from Memphis to NYC. Like a music bed in a movie soundtrack, that diverse Memphis sound hangs in there. "Train I riiiiIIIIIDE, it's sixteen coaches long. Mystery TRAIIIiiiin, goin' down the track. Well I love my babyyyyyyyy..., she ain't never comin' back..." One thing's for sure. When it comes to Memphis and its lore, I surely will be comin' back for more.