Monday, September 25, 2023: The music city on the Mississippi!
Info:
Where the city of over 600,000 people is located today (1.3 million in the metropolitan region), the Chickasaw once lived. The town became rich thanks to the cotton plantations and shipping traffic on the Mississippi. After the abolition of slavery, cotton and wood remained the most important sources of income. Today, transportation and logistics are of great importance. FedEx is headquartered in Memphis and is the largest employer in the city.
When it comes to music, Memphis is home to inventors and pioneers of several musical genres, including Memphis soul, Memphis blues, gospel, rock’n’roll, rockabilly, Memphis rap and “sharecropper” country music.
My opinion:
Memphis is worth a visit for its many stories alone. Apart from that, it is a very interesting and beautiful city. And where else is there an intersection where B.B. King Street and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Ave meet?
Diary:
On the drive towards Memphis, I suddenly saw fruit in a field that I didn’t know what it was. White tubers. Until I realized that I was in cotton country in the USA!
The Mississippi is the border between the states of Arkansas and Tennessee. Memphis is in Tennessee (as we know from Paul Simon’s Graceland), West Memphis in Arkansas. The states are connected by several bridges.
First of all, I took a stroll through the legendary Beale Street. There is live music in cafés and restaurants, and in between you can find everything a tourist’s heart desires in souvenir stores …
As I was a little overwhelmed by the many musical themes that Memphis stands for, I decided to take a guided tour to get an overview of the city. I also wanted to see the Sun Studio.
It was there where a truck driver named Elvis Aaron Presley showed up at the age of 18 – yes, that’s the door he walked through in the photo, the studio was just the rooms behind it. The right-hand part of the building was purchased later and serves as a bar, sales and exhibition space.
Shortly before Christmas 1953, the young man in question was standing in the office of Sam Phillips’ Sun Studio. But he wasn’t there, which didn’t matter, because his secretary Marion Keisker knew her way around the studio and recorded a record for Elvis, which he wanted to give to his parents for Christmas. She was moved to tears by the way he sang. She then begged Sam Phillips to call the young man, but he wasn’t interested. For a year, she kept reminding him of Elvis, and one day, when he urgently needed a musician for a recording, he was persuaded to give Elvis a try. So Elvis went through this door a second time.
The rest is history.
The fact that Sam Phillips took the credit and the money for the discovery of Elvis is also history. Marion Keisker is not even mentioned in Graceland. There is at least one picture of her at her former workplace in the Sun Studio.
And of course I was also holding the original microphone with which they all made their first recordings: Elvis Presley, Ike Turner (who invented rock’n’roll and was actually a musician before his inglorious fame), B.B. King, Howlin Wolf, Johnny Cash and many others.
Graceland belonged to the late Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis and Priscilla. As the upkeep of the villa and the land was costing an enormous amount of money, Lisa Marie and Priscilla were forced to take action. They opened the property to visitors. Graceland, which Elvis bought back then for 100,000 dollars, is now worth 500 million and generates a profit of 10 million every year. The cheapest ticket costs 79 dollars plus tax, plus parking.
However, in addition to the actual mansion and the garden, there is also a great deal on offer: countless exhibitions on various topics, for example the vehicle fleet, the airplanes, Elvis’ parents, his childhood, Elvis’ time in Germany in the military, Lisa Marie’s childhood, Elvis’ suits and jumpsuits, simply everything that has or could have anything to do with the King of Rock’n’Roll.
There is a hall with pictures and outfits of other stars who were influenced by Elvis. John Lennon is quoted as saying “Before Elvis, there was nothing.” He said that without Elvis there would have been no Beatles. Who is completely missing in this hall, however, is another King, namely the King of Pop. Lisa Marie’s life story probably explains why he doesn’t appear.
Memphis is the cradle of blues, rock’n’roll and soul, i.e. music that originated from black people. But it is also known for an atrocity. The Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot here in 1968. The Lorraine Motel, where he stood on the balcony, is now home to the Museum of Civil Rights.
Next to the church (Clayborn Temple), from where the workers’ strikes of 1968 were organized, there is a monument with all the names of the people who took part in the strikes at that time and thus risked a great deal. “I AM A MAN” was written on the strikers’ signs, as black men were often referred to as “boy” by white men. The Memphis garbage collectors earned so little that they received additional welfare benefits. Martin Luther King told them that they were “men” and had the right to dignity.
Because I wanted to take a boat trip on the Mississippi once in my life, I booked a tour on a traditional Mississippi paddle steamer. Of course, the red paddle wheel was a dummy, but it looked appealing. Sitting on deck, chatting and drinking Strawberry Margarita was very pleasant.
Story/stories:
What follows is a collection of stories, tales and memories of things I’ve been told, simply so that I don’t forget them.
A young man named Jim Stewart asked his sister Estelle for money to found Stax Records. She agreed on the condition that they would do it together. They bought a movie theater in 1957 and had the seats removed. The acoustics of the movie theater produced a very specific sound that was to become legendary.
But we’re not there yet. First, the theater seats were cleared out. For some reason, a bus driver turned up outside the movie theater and asked Jim Stewart if he could sing to him in the studio. Jim didn’t have time, but said he could sing right here on the street, he’d give him three minutes.
The bus driver began to sing. After about thirty seconds, Stewart waved him off and said that was enough. Then he returned to the building. The bus driver shouted “Thank you” after him, went to his bus and was about to drive off when Stewart came running up with some notes. Before he left, he was asked to sign his contract quickly and please come to the studio as soon as possible.
The bus driver’s name was Otis Redding. The soul singer and songwriter who for example wrote “Respect”, which gave Aretha Franklin her breakthrough. “Respect” tops Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 best songs of all time.
It wasn’t long before the Beatles, already world-famous at the time, came to Memphis. Otis was sitting with his friends the night before and said it was his dream to meet the Beatles one day, but they probably wouldn’t even know he existed.
The Beatles landed, and as soon as they got off the plane, they said that it would be their dream to meet Otis Redding, but a musician like him would probably not even bother with them.
This led to a meeting between Otis Redding and the Beatles, which was groundbreaking for both sides.
Otis Redding died in a plane crash at the age of 26. Some incomplete songs were found in his estate, which it is assumed he had prepared for a joint production with the Beatles.
Back to Elvis. He moved to Memphis with his parents at the age of thirteen. The original and well-kept rooms of the mini-apartment can be rented as hotel rooms.
Johnny Cash lived two streets away. He was really discovered by Sam Phillips.
Elvis had to spend two years in the army in Germany. He did his job there like everyone else, cleaned the latrines on Fridays and didn’t stand out in any way – apart from the fact that he was Elvis. Like many others, he did not live in the barracks, but outside, with his parents and two friends. At first they stayed in hotels, later he bought a house where he also signed autographs in the evenings. Priscilla was fifteen when he met her, he himself was 25.
For Elvis, his mother was always the most important person in his life. When Gladys fell ill in Germany, he had her brought back to Memphis – he already owned Graceland at that time – so that she could be treated by her own doctor. Finally, he had the feeling that things were coming to an end with her and asked for leave to fly home. This was not granted to him, whereupon he announced that he would go AWOL, which would not look good for the American military. They let him fly. He sat by his mother’s bedside in hospital for hours. Finally, she sent him home that night. She died shortly afterwards.
After two years of military service, Elvis returned to Memphis. At some point, his girlfriend Anita Wood, with whom he had been together for eight years, found Priscilla’s love letters. She then broke up with him.
It took Elvis an infinitely long time to get over it, seven whole days, then he called Priscilla’s father and asked him to send his daughter back to Memphis. The father agreed on the condition that she finished school, didn’t live at Graceland and that Elvis would marry her after high school graduation. The thing with their place of residence did not work. Priscilla lived in Graceland, but Elvis took her to school every morning and picked her up after class. When she had her graduation party, she didn’t want Elvis to be there because otherwise all the attention would be on him and not on the young people and their successes. So Elvis and his friends actually waited outside the door until everyone came out.
Incidentally, Elvis did not dance once with his dance partner at his own debutante ball at the age of sixteen. Reason: He couldn’t dance.
There was a store with creative suits near Beale Street. The owner, Bernard Lansky, saw a young man standing in front of the shop window one day and invited him in. The boy said he didn’t have any money yet, but one day he would buy the store. Lansky replied that he shouldn’t buy him out, but rather shop here. This was the beginning of the friendship between Elvis Presley and Bernard Lansky, who would soon be responsible for his costumes. And not just for his. Johnny Cash and many others also had themselves dressed by Lansky.
The store is still open, and Bernard Lansky’s son, who is now retired himself, still stops by every day.
When Elvis returned from Germany, he was offered the chance to become a film actor. He flew to Hollywood, everything was worked out, and he came back to Memphis with a script. A few days later, he flew back to L.A. for the start of filming. Since he didn’t know how the movie was going to work, he had memorized not only his own role but the entire script as a precaution.
Even before that, he had been intensively involved with the subject of film. He often rented a movie theater for his friends and himself to watch a film. If Elvis wanted to see a scene again because he found a movement or facial expression interesting, the entire film reel had to be rewound.
One day, a student who had just started her first summer job at the movie theater in question found out that the public screening that evening had been canceled because Elvis had rented the theater. She called her friend, who came with make-up and appropriate clothing, and the two of them hid in a closet, from which they emerged when Elvis and his friends were already there. She was fired for it, but Elvis invited the two girls to spend the evening with them.
For a while, it wasn’t clear who would become the King of Rock’n’Roll, Jerry Lee Lewis or Elvis Presley. Until Jerry Lee Lewis arrived in the UK one day and reporters asked him who the child at his side was. That was his thirteen-year-old cousin, to whom he was married. A scandal in Europe.
Jerry Lee Lewis came back and believed that this would not be an issue in the USA. But it was.
One more thing comes to mind, and that is Elvis’ first public appearance. He was booked as the opening act for a Hill Billy event in a park in Memphis where there was an outdoor stage. Two thousand people who all wanted to listen to country music. And then came Elvis. Not what the crowd had expected. His outfit and the fact that he was wearing make-up were the main reasons why he was laughed at. Elvis was blond in real life, so he had to dye his eyelashes and eyebrows to make it look real. The ultimate laugh for country music fans.
But shortly afterwards the women languished and screamed, while the men clenched their fists angrily …
Elvis disappeared backstage after his performance because he thought he had messed up. But the organizer told him to get out immediately and do it again. Elvis took this literally and sang the same song again. The organizer then told him to sing a different song. Elvis only had two songs in total at the time, namely the one from the front and the one from the back of the single that Marion Keisker had recorded for him before Christmas and pressed onto a record …
A year later, people no longer came to the concert in the park for country music, but to hear Elvis Presley …
Elvis and Priscilla married in 1967 and Lisa Marie was born in 1968. The couple divorced in 1973.
Lisa Marie is quoted as saying that she still spent a lot of time at Graceland. For her, coming to Graceland meant being happy. So completely automatic.
Priscilla is now 78 years old. She made a career as an actress and had another son, Navarone Garibaldi. Lisa Marie was a singer and mother of Benjamin and Riley Keough and the currently 14-year-old twins Finley and Harper Lockwood. She died in January 2023 at the age of 54.
Friends of the family are of the opinion that it was Priscilla who kept Elvis alive.
He died in 1977 at the age of 42.
They hadn’t slept all night. First Elvis played the piano and sang with friends in the squash house, then they played squash until the morning. His girlfriend found him dead in bed in the early afternoon. Heart failure.
Elvis Aaron Presley, his parents Gladys and Vernon Presley, his grandmother Minnie Mae Presley, his daughter Lisa Marie Presley and his grandson Benjamin Keough are buried at Graceland.
