Bluesville USA

For lovers of the blues, there is no place like Memphis. Elvis and the early rockers got their start here at Sun and Stax record companies. But, prior to the birth of rock and roll, Sam Philips, the founder of Sun Records, used to travel around the rural south with rudimentary sound equipment, recording regional blues players in their homes. As a result, Memphis was the city to which all the bluesmen (no women….but that’s another story) gravitated.

“Good Morning America” was in town on Friday but, since my “good friend” Diane Sawyer did not make the trip, we stayed in bed. Justin Timberlake (local boy) announced that he is going to resurrect Stax Records (local icon). Big news in M’town.

We spent the past 2 nights on Beale Street, which is just like Bourbon Street in New Orleans, only better. In a 3 block area of the street there must be 20 blues clubs. And these are the real deal!! For $12 on a Friday night you can buy admission to almost all of the clubs, allowing you to hear some of the best live blues ever. Some of the performers have been playing “the street” for 35 years. There are even bands set up in alleys and out on the sidewalk. The aroma of barbequed pork (Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it) hangs in the air everywhere. In our favourite club, the Rum Boogie Café (motto…….Eat, Drink, Boogie, Repeat), there hang signed guitars from just about any blues or rock guitarist you can name, past and present. They have all played here. At B.B. King’s club, the house band is better than any we have ever heard. And, Hammond B3 organs (rare and….. THE blues organ) are all over the place.

Since Brenda is still sound asleep (it is 9:00 on Saturday morning) and, the performers were starting to recognize us when we entered Beale Street clubs, it is probably time to move on and do something a bit more cerebral. We did do much more in Memphis (visited the Peabody, museums, and yup, to our mutual surprise, we even took in Graceland. Now there is garish decorating taken to a new level!!)

We are staying outside Memphis on the Arkansas side of the Mississippi and, will drive the car over to Little Rock to take in the Clinton Library. When it is said that the Mississippi alluvial plain is flat, they’re not just kidding. However, the corn and soy beans which dominate the landscape south of Chicago have given way to cotton. Neither Brenda nor I had ever seen ripe cotton, ready for picking. The fields look like they have experienced an early season snowfall; mostly white with the brown branches of the cotton plants sticking up through. In some areas the fields are white to the horizon.

We are told that the Ozarks of Arkansas are not to be missed. However, we may not get there on this leg of the trip. We have to be in Atlanta at the end of the month to catch a flight home and, have to make sure we stay on SCHEDULE. The pressure is unbearable!! ;-)