Destination Anywhere: Memphis, Tennessee

There’s a reason there are so many songs about Memphis.

Besides New Orleans, no other city in the United States has produced so much groundbreaking music of lasting influence. From the jug bands of the vaudeville era, to post-war blues, to the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, to the perfection of soul music, to ‘70s power pop, and on to some of today’s more edgy indie rock and hip-hop, Memphis has always been ahead of the curve, moving at its own pace, relatively unconcerned with trends elsewhere. It’s a special place, with its own quirks, its own food, its own music, and in all things, its own soul. Memphis is a must-see destination for any songwriter, musician or serious fan of American music.

The last westward stop in Tennessee, the south end of the Memphis city limits is also the Mississippi state line. Downtown overlooks the Mississippi River, with Arkansas beyond. Many locals think of themselves not so much as Tennesseans but as Memphians, and anyone who spends any time here comes to understand it, seeing all the Arkansas and Mississippi license plates. The city has always been a magnet for the rural residents of the surrounding states, both black and white, and this cultural and ethnic mix is perhaps the main reason why so much music was born here.

The Blues
One Alabamian who made his way to Memphis in 1909 was W.C. Handy, nicknamed the Father of the Blues. Born in 1873, trumpeter Handy was a veteran of the turn of the century minstrel circuit, and a prolific composer. He and his band took up shop on the black side of downtown, on Beale Street, and it is largely thanks to Handy that the blues ever reached the world outside Beale. Handy’s years on the road had made him keenly aware of the appeal of the blues form to whites as well as blacks, and in 1912 his first composition in the style, “Memphis Blues,” was a huge success, launching his career as a composer, chronicler and popularizer of black Southern music.

You can see Handy’s statue today in Handy Park, on Beale Street. Created in 1931, the park has often been a meeting ground for blues musicians; the Memphis Jug Band, David “Honeyboy” Edwards, Memphis Slim, Roosevelt Sykes, Big Walter Horton, Little Walter Jacobs, Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, Furry Lewis and countless other Delta blues masters all played for change in Handy Park at some point in their careers. Blues bands still play there today; if you’re lucky you might catch old-timers like Fred Sanders or upstarts like Johnny Holiday, a guitarists’ guitarist in the mold of Albert Collins and Albert King, who also appears as Carl Perkins in the Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line.

Much like Bourbon Street in New Orleans or Lower Broadway in Nashville, Beale Street long ago became a tourist attraction, home to the likes of the Hard Rock Café. On weekends, the street is blocked to traffic, allowing tourists and revelers to walk freely, while vendors sell beer and the Beale Street Flippers perform acrobatics in the middle of the street. However, one can still hear and feel remnants of what made Beale Street such a special place in musical history. At Blues Hall, the Dr. Feelgood Potts Band holds court several nights a week, playing the standards of Mississippi, Memphis, and Chicago blues. The good Doctor Potts is a humorous fount of blues history, and patrons are often given a quick history lesson before each song.

Next door at Rum Boogie, James Govan puts out the old-school soul, replete with the classic Memphis-style horn section (featuring Albert King alum Charles Campbell on sax) Wednesdays through Saturdays. The remainder of the week, the Billy Gibson Band plays a crowd-friendly mix; Gibson is a harmonica virtuoso, and singer/guitarist David Bowen, drummer Cedric Keel, and bassist James Jackson (yet another veteran of Albert King’s band) are as adept at Bill Withers or Marvin Gaye as they are at Sonny Boy Williamson.

On up at the eastern end of Beale, near the New Daisy Theatre, a crowd can often be seen dancing around or just gawking at Richard Johnston, a one-man-band playing an infectious, hypnotic interpretation of Mississippi hill-country blues. Johnston sings through a makeshift portable PA for tips, playing low-tuned, one-chord boogies on the guitar and simultaneously manning the drums with foot pedals to create the primal grooves of an earlier era of blues. His music is a gritty contrast to the more uptown version of the blues usually played on Beale.

To most people, however, no name is more synonymous with Beale Street than B.B. King. In fact, the name B.B. is actually short for “Blues Boy,” which in 1948 was short for “Beale Street Blues Boy,” young Riley King’s on-air moniker as a deejay on local R&B station WDIA. Like so many other Memphis bluesmen, King made the move from the Mississippi delta to the Bluff City and literally made a name for himself on Beale. Today, that name is perpetually lit in neon at B.B. King’s Blues Club; King’s is something of a flagship for the Beale Street bars, with local regulars like Preston Shannon sharing the stage with touring acts from all over the world.

Perhaps the most respectable tribute paid to the history of Beale Street is the Rock ‘N’ Soul Museum, at the corner of Beale and Highway 61, in the plaza of the FedEx Forum (home of the Memphis Grizzlies). An affiliate of the Smithsonian Institute, the Rock ‘N’ Soul has the broadest scope of any of Memphis’ museums, beginning with gospel and the blues and continuing on up through country, rock ‘n’ roll, soul and on to the present. Indeed, the Rock ‘N’ Soul Museum may be the single best exhibition of American musical history in the country. Visitors can linger at many of the pieces, with the option of listening to full-length examples of music pertinent to the display. Coupled with the barbecue at The Pig on Beale or The Rendezvous, the hamburgers at Dyer’s, and the fried chicken at Gus’, fans of Southern music and Southern food can easily spend a whole day in Memphis without leaving downtown.

Rock ‘n’ Roll
Only a couple of miles away from Beale Street is another essential Memphis landmark. At 706 Union Ave. sits a small radiator shop that in 1949 was bought by one Sam Phillips, an entrepreneur and music enthusiast from Florence, Ala. By 1952, his Memphis Recording Service ("We Record Anything — Anywhere — Anytime") had become Sun Studio, home of his new independent rhythm and blues label, Sun Records. Having already recorded B.B., Howlin’ Wolf, Rufus Thomas, and other local R&B heroes, Phillips made what many consider to be the first rock ‘n’ roll record, Jackie Brenston’s “Rocket 88,” featuring the young Ike Turner on piano. If that were all Sam Phillips had accomplished, his place in Memphis music history would be cemented.

But in 1954, a recent graduate from Memphis’ Humes High School named Elvis Presley walked into Sun to record a song for his mother’s birthday. After a handful of electrifying sides, Presley left Sun in 1955 for Nashville, Hollywood, Las Vegas and immortality. Phillips, however, went on to focus on the rest of his roster, which included Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Charlie Rich and many other pioneers less well known but no less revolutionary. While taking the short tour of Sun Records, the magnitude of Phillips’ vision and sheer luck is mind-boggling to anyone at all interested in the birth of rock ‘n’ roll. When the tour guide flips on the old reel-to-reel tape machine, it is spine-tingling.

And while Presley in many ways abandoned the Memphis sound that made him famous, he never truly left Memphis. His body is still there today, in the backyard of his Graceland Mansion, on Elvis Presley Boulevard. Without question the most famous tourist attraction in Memphis, if not the entire southern United States, Graceland is a must-see for any visitor to the city. Of almost equal attraction to sight-seers are the pilgrims to Graceland every August 16th for a candlelight vigil commemorating Presley’s death, viewable in recent years both on local television and online at the official Elvis.com VigilCast.

Not far from Sun, the midtown area of Memphis has its own attractions as well, especially on Madison Avenue. Anyone seeking to soak in the city’s laid back vibe and its twangier side will want to visit the Lamplighter, a funky little hole in the wall and the oldest bar in Memphis, having first opened in the 1940s. The old vinyl jukebox makes Otis Redding and George Jones classics sound even better than they already do, and the placemats on the bar and thrift-store knickknacks give the place a homey feel. Miss Shirley serves up burgers and Pabst Blue Ribbon 365 days a year, including Christmas, and no cursing is allowed. 

Also on Madison, guitarists will enjoy Taylor’s Music, with its wide selection of vintage instruments, as well as Memphis Guitar and Amp Works, which doubles as a high-end gear boutique and guitar-player hangout. Next door is Shangri La Records, a vinyl and CD shop that is known for more than just selling music; the store is headquarters to a sort of underground Memphis preservation society, having published The Memphis Garage Rock Yearbook: 1960-1975, A History of Memphis Garage Rock: The 90’s, and Kreature Comforts Lowlife’s Guide to Memphis. Shangri La’s Sherman Willmott also provides custom-tailored tours of off-the-beaten-path Memphis landmarks, including the current home of Carla Thomas, or the electrical repair shop formerly run by pioneering guitarist Paul Burlison of Johnny Burnette’s Rock N Roll Trio.

Across the street from Shangri La is Huey’s, a Memphis landmark and a competitor with Dyer’s for bragging rights to best burger in town. The Kwik Check nearby has cheap, fast, terrific gyros, and lies just across the street from yet another Memphis historical site, the still-busy Ardent Studios. In the 1970s, Ardent was the home of Alex Chilton’s legendary band Big Star, with their Southern take on British pop. Big Star may not have had big hits, but their dreamy, druggy idealization of youth and rock ‘n’ roll have made their three records Rosetta stones for an entire generation of alternative and indie bands. Ardent is still one of the most popular studios in the country for big name acts as diverse as the White Stripes and John Hiatt, a destination for artists seeking something outside the New York-L.A.-Nashville axis. Lately the studio has been busy with the score to local filmmaker Craig Brewer’s Black Snake Moan. The follow-up to Hustle and Flow, Moan is the story of a nymphomaniac (Christina Ricci) who seeks help from an older bluesman (Samuel L. Jackson), and was filmed in Memphis.

Of course, midtown is also home to more of that ubiquitous Memphis barbecue, from Central Barbecue’s selection of vinegar or tomato-based sauces, and the fast-food approach from Tops.

Soul
If the only thing Memphis had contributed to American musical history had been its bluesmen, the city would still be a huge attraction. Likewise, if the city was only known as the birthplace of rock ‘n’ roll, its reputation would be warranted. But Memphis is ground zero for not only blues and rock, but a third equally timeless strain of American popular music: soul. And ground zero for Memphis soul is Stax.

Just a quick cab or bus ride from downtown and midtown, the original Stax site was demolished in the 1980s but has in recent years been lovingly reconstructed into a museum and music school. And while the breadth of its subject matter may not be as wide as the Rock ‘N’ Soul Museum, the detail and passion of the story told in the Stax Museum of American Soul Music is second to none.

That story is as unique as any in American history, yet so utterly Memphis that it makes total sense in hindsight. The label began in the late ‘50s as a labor of love for Jim Stewart, a fiddler and country music fan. Stewart was schooled in the details of operating an independent record company by his barber, Erwin Ellis, who (in true Memphis style) ran his own tiny label when not giving crew cuts. In 1958, Stewart released his Satellite Records’ first single, a country tune by a local deejay, recorded in his garage. Not long after, Stewart convinced his sister Estelle Axton to take out a mortgage on her home in order to finance the purchase of new recording equipment. The two then converted the old Capitol movie theater on the corner of East McLemore and College into a studio. They also turned the theater’s concession shop to a record store, which quickly became a hangout for kids from the neighborhood, like the young Isaac Hayes and Booker T. Jones.

One of the first artists to record at Satellite had been a mainstay of the Memphis scene since the days of vaudeville. Rufus Thomas began his career in minstrel shows in the 1930s, running a seminal Beale Street talent show in the 1940s, and recording for Sun in the 1950s. Throughout his entire career, he was also a deejay (like his friend B.B. King) at WDIA, well into the 1970s. Thomas first recorded for Stax in 1959 with his daughter Carla, and helped the fledgling label make inroads into the R&B charts, pointing the way for the company’s future.

Eventually renaming the company Stax Records (from the “st” in Stewart and the “ax” in Axton), Stax became a thriving home for what would come to be known as soul music. Local kids Steve Cropper and Donald “Duck” Dunn teamed up with Booker T. Jones and Al Jackson Jr. to form Booker T. and the MGs, the house band at the Stax studio and one of the first racially integrated groups in the segregated South. The roster of artists who walked through the doors of that remodeled theater are no less impressive than those who recorded in Sam Phillips’ place on Union: Otis Redding, Carla Thomas, William Bell, Eddie Floyd, Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers and the Bar-Kays were just a few who signed with the company; even more recorded there, under a deal with Atlantic Records of New York, whereby the Stax studio and its staff were farmed out to Atlantic artists like Sam and Dave, and Wilson Pickett.

The Stax sound is grittier, earthier and funkier than that of its biggest competitor, Motown. The Stax Museum’s first exhibit makes the reason for this abundantly clear: The interior of a small, rural, Mississippi clapboard church has been uprooted and reassembled, including the pews, pulpit and walls, making the connection between soul music and gospel explicit. Detailed displays, artifacts and videos tell the label’s story chronologically, while placing it in the context of the time. The recreation of the studio itself is stunning, containing the original recording equipment and even the slanted floor of the old theater. It is a first-class facility and an essential destination for any lover of American music or history.

But soul music is not just a museum exhibition in Memphis—it is alive and well. On any Friday, Saturday or Sunday night, make the quick drive over to 1580 Vollintine Ave. in North Memphis to Wild Bill’s Social Club to see the Memphis Soul Survivors. The club is tiny, with excellent acoustics thanks to the low ceilings and invariably packed crowd. Don’t bring a credit card; only cash is accepted, and only 40 oz. beers are served (although you can bring your own wine or liquor). It’s best to get there before 11:00 p.m. if you want to get a seat; however, most people find it hard to sit down for long anyway, thanks to the Survivors, who play an irresistible mix of classics, blurring the line between blues, R&B, and soul. Instrumentals like Willie Mitchell’s “Soul Serenade,” pop hits like Al Green’s “Love and Happiness,” gritty R&B like Z.Z. Hill’s “Down Home Blues” and juke-joint standards like Howlin’ Wolf’s “Backdoor Man"—the Soul Survivors can play it all. Veterans of the city’s scene, some members were playing around town when the originals were cut. If you’re lucky, you’ll see Miss Nikki sitting in on vocals, with her raunchy, tongue-in-cheek life-lessons for all the ladies in the house. It is a unique opportunity to see real soul music played the way it used to be, and a damn good time.

Memphis still has a thriving music scene to this day. Indie rock acts like Lucero, Harlan T. Bobo, the Bloodthirsty Lovers, Cory Brannan and others pack midtown rock dives like The Buccaneer, The Hi-Tone and Young Avenue Deli. Memphis hip-hop group Three Six Mafia command national attention, major label rock act Saliva still call the area home, and Mississippi natives Three Doors Down continue to record and perform in the area. Legends like Al Green, Jim Dickinson, Isaac Hayes and Jody Stephens live in the area and are active around town. And in the pawn shops, record stores and beer joints strewn all over Memphis, one can meet old-timers with incredible stories, as well as up-and-comers with amazing talent.

Maybe it’s the river, maybe it’s the humidity, maybe it’s the history, or maybe it’s the unique mix of people. But whatever it is, the aura of Memphis is palpable—in the music, in the food, and in the character of the city.