Walking In Memphis

I put on my blue suede shoes, got off the bus and made my way to the only hostel in Memphis, it is part of a local church outside of town, there was no religious feeling to it but you had to complete one small chore every day. This part of the United States really is a cradle for many genres of music and I started my musical pilgrimage by visiting Sun Studios, the place that discovered Elvis Presley among many other stars and recorded the first Rock and Roll song. I was lucky enough to be in Memphis on a Sunday, when soul legend turned reverend, Al Green, hosts the Sunday service at the church which he founded himself. The gospel was more of a two hour long, energy filled concert and standup comedy routine than a religious sermon and was quite possibly the best experience so far on this trip. After this I went to see Graceland, the former home of Elvis to see what all the fuss was about. To be honest the house itself wasn't as grand as I would have thought but it was interesting to see what kitschy decor you could buy if you had unlimited funds in the seventies. Next up on the weird and quirky tour I saw the Peabody Ducks, a very strange tradition dating back to 1930, where every day at 11:00 AM a group of ducks are first led down from their penthouse room in the Peabody Hotel before they are then marched back up at 17:00 after a day of lounging in the lobby's fountain. Hoards of people gather round to witness this short and peculiar act every day and I don't know why, but I actually saw it twice.

I had to wait in Memphis, as my new creditcard was being sent here and spent my evenings drinking beers by the Mississippi river then eating catfish and drinking more beers listening to rock and blues in different bars and clubs on the famous Beale Street with fellow backpackers. The creditcard did finally arrive so I decided to tag along with Anna, a German girl I met in Chicago, another German called Lisa and Filip a Swedish speaking Fin, as Anna drove us all to Clarksdale. I was really lucky to find somebody with a car, as these parts of the Mississippi Delta are virtually inaccessible without a private vehicle. Clarksdale is a kind of Mecca for Blues lovers worldwide but when we got there it felt like everything in the small town had shut down.

We did manage to find an incredible place to stay at the "Shack Up Inn." Formerly a cotton plantation we rented a shack which once used to house the slaves. It is a surreal place with old American cars, farming equipment and random artefacts scattered around the grounds but definitely one of the coolest accommodations I have ever stayed in. On our second day in town, it felt slightly more opened up as we had an option of two Blues clubs, the first one, owned by Morgan Freeman, wasn't quite our cup of moonshine, so we went to "Red's" instead which hit the spot more accurately. This juke joint was no more than four tinwalls and a roof and walking in you hit a wall of musky odours that are probably left best undescribed, but the beers were cheap and we could listen to a one-man-band play his harmonica and cigarrbox-guitar whilst complaining about all the woes in his life. The following morning we decided to drive south so first we dropped northward bound Filip off in Jackson as the girls and I headed for Natchez.