Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Blues Cruise Day 7 - Graceland and Beale St

OK, I now can check Graceland off the bucket list (frankly, it was never on - but, whatever!).  It is a testimonial to conspicuous consumption.  An NBA player would be jealous.  I even spotted a few wet eyes at the gravesite - nuf sed!


Gravesite visitors; a few wet eyes; are you kidding me?

My favorite photo; the exit!



The rest of the day was devoted to visiting the Stax Record Museum and the Sun Records studio.  Both were fascinating.  The Stax Record Museum was rebuilt near the original site of Stax Records.  This is the studio that gave us Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, The Staples Singers, and a lot more.  It can best be compared to Motown in that Motown created music for the masses, Stax made music the musicians wanted to hear.
The only photo I took of Stax record museum; couldn't take flash photos inside and I couldn't figure out how to take photos without the flash.

Memphis Slim's house near Stax; a good retirement project for Patti.

The Sun Studio was a lot of fun.  It is still an active studio where contemporary musicians can record in the same studio where Elvis, Howlin' Wolf, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and Roy Orbison made their first records.  It is also where Art and I auditioned for studio work.  They said they'd let us know.


Photo of Dewey Phillips; Memphis DJ who was basis for Broadway Musical "Memphis"

Using same mike that Elvis used in his first record; makes sense!

Art testing the tone of Roy Orbison's  guitar.

Finished the day on Beale Street; dining at the Blues City Grill and enjoying the music of Big Mac Johnson (no relation to Robert).  These are very young musicians covering a wide scope of material.  Just enough notes!





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