Nashville
On our way to Nashville we took a few detours along small country roads and happened to pass through the tiny city of Lynchburg. We had no idea we would come here, and have not read about it. But as we drove through town and started seeing black signs with a distinctive yet familiar white font we realized we happened on the Jack Daniel’s distillery. Not having planned it, we arrived when it was just closing, but managed to get a peek inside.
The hotel we stayed at in Nashville was a bit south of the SoBro and Downtown areas, and was somehow designed as a hip hotel for long term stays. It had a few nice touches, for example a proper kitchenette, washer and drier in the room, and a sitting area for relaxing and working. The most weird thing about it was that the sitting area turned into t he bedroom when you dropped the bed down from the wall. It was quite convenient. The only complaint I had was that it was right next to a very busy train track. One of the nights we slept there a train was stopped on the tracks right next to our window the entire night with its engine idling. Aside from its engine, I could hear its air compressor pump operating for a while and then the pressure switch would turn it off with big “pshhhhh”, only to start again when the pressure went down.
Nashville is well know as the country music capital of the world and everyone said we must check out Broadway St. in downtown Memphis for a taste of its music. So after checking in to our hotel we took an Uber there (we wanted to not drive again after a long day of driving and didn’t want to worry about drinking a beer or two). The ride was nice and quiet and we chatted a bit with the driver all the way to Broadway. As I opened the door to get out of the car a cacophony of incredibly loud music rushed in like hot air after a long ride with the A/C on. The noise was coming from multiple open air bars that lined the street, each with multiple stories and different bands playing at each level. Above the noise came the sounds of the lead guitar of the band playing right next to where our Uber was stopped who started playing the familiar opening tune of “Sweet Child of Mine” by Guns and Roses.
We stood there for a moment taking in the music and chaos. Then we walked around and listened to several bands in a few different places, and also enjoyed some hot chicken (basically spicy fried chicken), a wonderfully delicious Nashville claim to fame. Most places have a cover charge of $5 or $10 which is a steal considering how expensive music shows are in the bay area. Granted, not all bands were excellent but some certainly were. And contrary to Clarksdale where crowds were slow due to the holiday, here there were tons of people everywhere. At some point a hockey game ended in the nearby stadium and throngs of fans streamed out and added to the people already in the busy street. Very cool.
The following day we went walked around and enjoyed the more quiet parts of the city, and in the evening went to an actual show that you buy tickets for at City Winery Nashville, to see Band of Other Brothers. Much like you run into techies everywhere in the bay area, you run into music industry insiders in Nashville. So it was no surprise that the guy sitting next to us is a studio recording artist who knows a lot about the band. He told us a bit of the personal histories of each member and how well known and famous they were. I could see why - they were really great.
The following day we drove down to Memphis along portions of the Natchez Trace, a beautiful road that loosely follows the path native people, conquistadors and enslaved people took on their way to Louisiana. At some point this road was a primary thoroughfare for enslaved people being marched to one of the biggest slave markets in the world, near Natchez. Today the road is a narrow, no trucks allowed road that winds its way among rolling hills with the occasional lake, hiking trail, vista point and historic landmark. After leaving the road we took other small roads to arrive at Memphis as it was getting dark.
Memphis
Memphis is also famous for a musical genre - the blues. It is just north of the Mississippi delta, so it makes sense that it would have a strong blues influence. But unlike Clarksdale that is run down and hard to get to, Memphis is a major city with (among other things) lots of clubs playing music and welcoming large crowds.
On the night we arrived here we went out to Beal St - Memphis’ equivalent of Broadway in Nashville. It felt very different. There we a little less people around and the vibe was rougher. It didn’t feel as safe as it did in Nashville, and the makeup of the crows was also different somehow. It also certainly didn’t help the vibe that there were roadblocks on the ends of the street and security checks where your backpack was opened and ID verified, as well as lots of police cars and police everywhere. I guess it was meant to both make the place safer and make it feel safer, but it made it feel more dangerous at the same time. As in - there must be a reason why all these police are here. What also didn’t help is the shootout that happened right here about a week prior, which probably is the direct cause of the heightened security.
Heightened security notwithstanding, the music was great. Orit was especially blown away by Vince Johnson and the Plantation All-Starts who were indeed really great. We listened to them in a particularly dark and cramped place and were sad to discover that they have no online recoding other than a few bootleg youtube videos. I hope they do get themselves to a recoding studio and produce something we can listen to even when we are not in Memphis.
The following day we had tickets to visit Graceland, Elvis Presley’s home. Orit and I both love Paul Simon’s Graceland and have been singing parts of it as we’ve been driving around in Mississippi. I figured it must be a nice big mansion because Elvis was so famous and rich. But somehow the line from the song that says “…But I’ve reason to believe / We both will be received / in Graceland” made me think that he just called ahead to arrange his visit with the caretaker, and made it seem like a small and friendly thing. Had I stopped to think about it, the fact that we had to get tickets was surely a big hint. But I was still not getting it.
So I was totally unprepared for the scale of the visitor empire built around Graceland or the number of people here when we pulled into the gigantic parking lot on Elvis Presley Boulevard. We walked into a campus that looks like Disneyland. Multiple ushers directed us to show our tickets here and stand in line there, we watched an introductory movie, and boarded a shuttle with lots of other people headed to the house, which is actually across the street. Elvis is still hugely popular and draws hundreds of thousands of visitors every year nearly 45 years after he died. His estate still makes lots of money from royalties from his vast repertoire of music, and from selling an endless stream of memorabilia to the millions who visit Graceland. It is one of the five most visited home tours in the United States, and is the most famous home in America after The White House.
The house itself is awesome. It is made to Elvis’ taste, which is very unique. It seems like a distilled version of many things we’ve seen in the south already - over the top, colorful, playful but sometimes very formal, and very geared towards social life and hanging out, all set in the tastes, fashion and technology of the 70s. There was a huge living room that had all white carpet, white coffee table, white leather giagantic sofa and all white grand piano. Another room was done in brown and green - the furniture was brown and the shaggy carpet, on the floor and the ceiling, was dark green. I think my 70s childhood home had one wall in a similar color. There are lots of exhibitions covering his cars, motorcycles, his time in the military (he enlisted and served as a private and was stationed in Germany, though he resided off base in a hotel with many members of his entourage, so not really your typical soldier, despite the very photogenic photos of him in uniform), his airplanes. We spent hours just going through everything and admiring it all. I especially enjoyed looking at his stage costumes and discovered that I really love his extravagant, colorful, over-the-top style. Might not be a huge surprise to those who know me.
At this point it is quite well established that Elvis was addicted to drugs and was taking multiple drugs which ultimately contributed to his untimely death at the age of 42. But there is very little mention of that in any of the exhibits. It is a missed opportunity to have a meaningful discussion about drugs and drug addiction in a place where many people might be at the same time more receptive and more empathic.
Another interesting point is how hard Elvis actually worked. He came from a poor family and for the 20 or so years that he was a star he worked really hard. He made tons of records, performed countless shows, including a residency in Las Vegas where he played more than 600 shows over a year or so. I’m sure he didn’t need to work as hard for that long, but he must have had a strong desire to do it and a sense of commitment to his fans. I think he was also driven very hard by the needs of his extravagant lifestyle and perhaps even by the greed of those around him like his manager or his father. There is a sad list of rock stars like Amy Weinhouse, Curt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison that is sometimes referred to as the club of 27 that burn out in this or similar way. Though Elvis was older when he died, the pattern is broadly similar and could have made for an interesting discussion, which was completely absent.
The expensive and expansive Graceland estate stood in stark contrast to the place we visited the following day, the Lorraine Motel near downtown Memphis. This is where on April 4th in 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. It is now civli rights museum where during the tour you can stop and take a look at the room as it was when MLK was there. It is striking how modest everything is, especially given MLK’s stature at the time. It is unimaginable today that a leader of that calibre would stay in a place like that. And some of the data uncovered after the fact leaves significant doubt about the role of law enforcement in his assassination. It seems that not only was he not protected, as an important political figure in a democratic society should be, but that on the day of his assassination his protection was mysteriously reduced. The best way to describe this and other actions by law enforcement is incompetence, the worst - direct government involvement in his killing.
After one last nice walk along the Mississippi river overlooking the I-40 bridge over it, we said goodbye to it and to Tennessee, and headed west.
(previous post here)