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Published: September 28th 2011
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After breakfast (with Elvis of course) we set off for the Stax museum. Back in my teens I loved Soul and Motown music; still do actually, especially the 60's stuff. So I was really looking forward to seeing this place but I hadn't realised quite how much there was to learn.
Alongside the museum is a school called Soulsville Music Academy. What a cool name for a school! 'Oh I'm a graduate of Soulsville' has a certain ring to it.
Musically gifted children can win a scholarship and standards and expectations are very high so the pupils take their education extremely seriously.
It’s very strict, for example there is no talking in the corridors and any pupil out of the classroom has to carry a text book! But it seems to work and is giving a future to kids who would never have such an opportunity normally.
I was never sure what the difference was between Soul and Motown. Well, Motown is recognisable because of its lush orchestrations whereas Soul is much more raw and Stax was the main recording label for this style with artists like Sam and Dave, Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding. The name Stax was
a made up word from the two founders who were called Stuart and Axton and it was unusual because there was no racial barrier and although the main artists were black many of the musicians or production team were white.
Sadly when Martin Luther King was assassinated this all changed and within a very short time the Stax label folded.
The museum explores all the racial tensions of the day as well as the lives of the main artists with lots of music clips, costumes and other stuff linked with them. I could remember seeing Otis Redding on TV in the outfit displayed at the museum. Actually there was a man from a local TV station filming in the room connected with Otis Redding’s death when I was wandering around, and later that evening a family on the tour had the local news on in their room and apparently I was on it in the background. Missed my 2 seconds of fame!
After Stax we drove over to Sun studios which of course is where Elvis made his first recording. It’s still exactly as it was when Sam Phillips opened his recording business, but contrary to common legend it
was actually Sam’s secretary who liked Elvis and persuaded Sam to give him a listen – and Elvis wasn’t making a recording for his mother’s birthday, that was just a line to get his foot in the door!
We heard lots of stories about those who recorded at Sun.........like Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis who along with the King made up the million dollar quartet. Hearing some of the songs actually in the studio and also getting to sing into the mike used by them all was quite a thrill (although in the photo where John and I are trying to look like rock stars, we both look like we’ve got stomach aches!) I think my fav bit of musical trivia was learning that on his big hit 'Walk the Line' Johnny Cash wanted a percussion sound so he stuck a dollar bill between the strings and when he played it made a sound like percussion!
The rest of today was spent having a drive around Memphis, walking along the banks of the Mississippi, visiting the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King was shot (we’ll be back here later in our trip) and at 5pm we
found ourselves at the Peabody Hotel where every day the ducks that swim in the lobby fountain are ceremoniously marched back to the elevator by the Duckmaster (a man in ceremonial red clothes) and up to their duck palace on the roof, accompanied by rousing marching music. Dozens of people were waiting to watch this ceremony which was all over in about 10 seconds!!!! It was so ridiculous it was good!!!!!
In the Peabody is a men’s clothing shop called Lansky’s – and it was here that Elvis got many of his clothes made so I had a bit of a peer inside and there was an old man behind the counter but I didn’t have enough nerve to ask him if he had indeed been familiar with Elvis’ inside leg!!
The evening plan was to have been another trip to Beale St but we were so tired by now that we wimped out and instead got a bucket of KFC and smuggled it up to our room and had a picnic. And in case you’re wondering....KFC in the US tastes EXACTLY the same as in the UK!
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