The legendary Sun Studio!
The Millionaire Quartet! Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, and Johnny Cash
Seeing the ducks in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel!
B.B. King's guitar "Lucille" and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame
Greetings
from Memphis! It’s been a busy day of traveling, getting introduced to this
city, and eating barbecue. One thing that I didn’t mention in my last blog post
is that I’m actually not traveling solo for this trip. That was originally the
plan, but when my music-loving uncle, Mark, heard that I was planning a trip to
Memphis, he got jealous and decided to join me.
We were up
and moving bright and early this morning, getting to the airport in plenty of
time to make our eight o’clock flight to Houston. After a layover of just over
an hour, we were in the air again, arriving in Memphis around lunchtime. We
decided not to rent a car for this trip, but just use shuttles and Uber to get
around. With the aid of the hotel’s shuttle service, we left the airport and
got out to explore the city. It’s predicted to rain tomorrow, but so far the weather
here is great! A nice blend of cloudy and sunny, the temperature’s in the low
seventies with a nice cool breeze!
After
getting checked into the hotel and settling in, we walked over to a little
shopping center right down the street from our hotel for a quick lunch, then
returned to the hotel to look at some maps and tourist info to decide how to
spend the rest of the day. We decided to start with the legendary Sun Studio,
then see what else we’d have time for. We got an Uber and made it to Sun Studio
in time for the 3:30 tour. The building itself actually isn’t very big- they’ve
clearly tried to keep it as original as possible. Started by Sam Phillips in
1950, Sun Studio is (as our tour guide put it), the birthplace of rock and
roll. Although it was only an active recording studio for ten years, it was the
original studio for a lot of successful musicians including Elvis, Johnny Cash,
Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and B.B. King. While on the tour of the place,
it was really cool to be in the exact studio where so much of that music
originated. They even still had one of the original microphones that a lot of
those musicians used.
After the
tour of Sun Studio, we headed down to the famous Beale Street, just a few
minutes away. On a spur of the moment decision, we decided to run into the
beautiful Peabody Hotel to see the ducks playing in the lobby fountain. The
place was huge, and very packed with people, so we didn’t stay too long.
Afterwards we walked down to the Memphis Music Hall of Fame, where they had a
lot of cool music memorabilia. By the time we were done there it was about
dinner time, so we decided to take the advice an Uber driver had given us for
barbecue. Thankfully, it was right across the street from the Music Hall of
Fame! The place was called Blues City Café, and a sign said that they were
voted best ribs in town. We both ended up ordering the ribs, and they didn’t
disappoint! This city seems to be mainly known for music and barbecue, and so
far it seems to be deserving of both.
When we were
done eating we came back here to the hotel to relax after a very full day.
Tomorrow it looks like rain is pretty likely, so we’ll most likely do the Civil
Right’s Museum, since that should be mostly indoors. It’s so nice to be out
exploring a new city! This post’s food for thought: “If you reject the food,
ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better
stay at home.”- James Michener
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