Walking in Memphis

I guess you know this is a song. The Cher version is crap but Marc Cohn’s one in the early 90s was great

Anyone who has heard of, let alone been, to Memphis will associate it with two people.

First and foremost Elvis Presley and secondly it’s the city where Martin Luther King was assassinated.

It was founded in the early 19^th century on the east bank of the Mississippi and while a sizeable place has not done nearly as well as other southern cities like Dallas, Atlanta and Charlotte

It’s also in the middle of nowhere. A friend was living in Atlanta and after we’d done a weekend there we drove up through North Georgia through the Tennessee border at Chattanooga to Nashville. The detour through Lynchburg to see the JD distillery was great fun.

The town is from the 19^th century. Central square without much traffic. You almost expect to see horses tied up but the sandwiches we got in the deli were amazing

The distillery really is like the adverts. All these wooden warehouses and big wooden kegs. Out tour guide was a walnut coloured white guy who claimed the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth were from saying the word “whiskey” too often.

Eventually we got tipped into the bar area.

Problem here was that it’s a dry county. No booze on offer but the most delicious ice cold lemonade. It was hot and humid outside so I got through a couple of large glasses of that in no time.

It was 1998 and to mark the 200^th anniversary of Tennessee’s accession to the union JD had produced a memorial bottle. A booth had been set up in the corner of the bar that was somehow excluded from the prohibition on booze sales. I paid about 15 quid

28 years on it’s still unopened and in the undamaged box. Last time I looked on eBay I’d get about 600 quid now. A small but successful investment.

After this brief interlude we proceeded up to Nashville. A tedious place but where I attracted attention due to my accent. Despite the country music stuff they don’t see many foreigners.

After a gutful of Buffalo wings and local craft beer we retired to the hotel ready for the drive to Memphis the next morning.

It’s a tad over 200 miles. Setting off at 6:30 we arrived in Memphis at around 9:00 ( ok I had a bit of a heavy foot in those days).

There’s only one place to head to when you get there – Graceland

It’s on the southside. I suppose when Elvis bought it in 1957 it was at least semi rural but even when I went in the late 90s it was on a 6 lane road surrounded by furniture warehouses and car yards.

It’s a sizeable piece of land though. Set well back from the road with a large carriage driveway there’s also a few paddocks at the back as well as a few outbuildings. Horses were being kept when I went.

The visiting arrangements were well organised. There was a visitor centre the other side of the main road where tickets are bought. Then you get loaded on to a small bus. It regulates the flow of visitors and after a 5 minute drive you are dropped off at the front door.

It’s not that big a place (since heard it’s 17,000sq feet but I think that includes the outbuildings) and while you can’t go into the living areas either side of the front door or even upstairs you can see the 70s furniture and décor. It is all pretty much as it was in 1977

They let you though into the place everyone wants to see – The Jungle Room

It’s not very big and a bit pokey because of the dark décor but you know you have to go there. Then there’s the pool room in the basement with the balls still set up as they were in August 1977.

Once you’re out of the house you’re amongst the outbuildings and the garden. Elvis’s grave is there and his parents.

The highlight though is the building with displays of his clothes – sequinned suits and all sorts of other eclectic stuff

His fashion sense was so bad it was good.

Then you climb back on the bus. Once I’d got back to the visitor’s centre I realised why turning up early was a good idea. The queue of about 10 when we’d arrived had expanded to a few hundred.

There was still more to see though – a museum with his cars and motorbikes was fascinating. The jet was parked in the courtyard. I’m not sure how they got that there unless a particularly game pilot though he could land the thing on the freeway.

A somewhat cheesy experience but wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

After we got back in the car (high end one obviously – there’s nothing like driving around the US in a muscle car or massive SUV) it was like David Coleman on A Question of Sport..

Errrr and what happens next.

It was still only about noon. I’d driven north of 200 miles and done this whirlwind tour and not even had a drink.

We opted for the zoo. Trying to find that without satnav was a challenge in itself. Fending off various squeegee merchants and gangsta types at the traffic lights we eventually arrived after a couple of wrong turns.

It was already about 35 degrees and clearly not much shade on offer.

I like zoos – it’s a relaxing day. The American ones are really well run and look after the animals properly as well as doing more than their fair share on wildlife conservation. I’ve been to the big well known ones like San Diego and New Orleans but also smaller ones in places like Providence, Tampa, Boston and San Francisco.

Memphis Zoo was nice. Back on the ice cold lemonade I consumed well over a litre on the way round but it whiled the afternoon away. As you can easily imagine it has a bit of an Egyptian theme

In accordance with my usual standard of holiday planning I’d neglected to book any accommodation so next thig we were downtown looking for somewhere cheap. One of the appealing features of American regional cities is that there are a fair few cheap shitty hotels. You don’t really want to stay in them for more than one night ( God knows what you’d catch} but they served a purpose.

We secured one downtown – cheap and the place big enough that you were unlikely to be interrupted by the local working girls plying their trade in the hallway or leading some hapless business traveller by his tie back to the room before drugging him and stealing his wallet before he’d got his money’s worth.

It was time to head for Beale St. It’s an old street where all the Blues and other music bars are located

If you look closely you can see the first bar on the right is BB King’s Blues Bar. There was a show the night we were there and no entrance so found somewhere nearby where you could have dinner while watching an Elvis impersonator and other blues acts ( I can’t remember the name of the place). The food was the usual mid range American stuff – steaks, ribs, wings, burgers and the like. The act was actually decent and we enjoyed a couple of hours eating and watching.

Being still only in our 30s then we weren’t quite ready for bed so back to the main strip to find a music bar. As you can see from the picture there’s a lot to choose from and as it was a Tuesday night reasonably quiet. We found a piano bar with duel pianists taking it in turns to do a song with a few duets thrown in. Seems every musician we saw in Memphis was more than decent.

Although there were an awful lot of people at Graceland the downtown area wasn’t overrun with visitors. Truth be told it’s a decent place to visit but a day or two rather than a more extended stay.

The next morning it was up early and then a short drive north of the downtown area past the most memorable building in central Memphis – the Pyramid

32 stories high and constructed in 1991 it’s actually a 20,000 seat arena, In the late 90’s when I was there it was mainly used for college basketball. Later the Memphis Grizzlies of the NBA had a short tenure, Lennox Lewis fought Tyson there and bands like the Rolling Stones and Grateful Dead played. Superseded some 20 years ago by a more modern venue it’s a combination of retail and museum now.

Once you’re past that it’s over the de Solo bridge across the Mississippi River and you’re in Arkansas. Our destination was Vicksburg, Mississippi ( there is an amazing Civil War battle site there). There is a more direct route down through northern Mississippi but since we had a day to kill before meeting friends in New Orleans we’d opted for a 100 mile detour to Little Rock (Top tip: don’t bother). After realising there was little to see or do there it was a long afternoon driving. Once you get west of the Mississippi everything is flat so it was just driving through a series of nondescript towns in southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana before once again crossing the river on the Mississippi River bridge into the state of the same name and Vicksburg.

Looking back I really enjoyed Memphis in the short time I was there. Will I ever go back there? Probably not too many places I haven’t been.

Before I leave you though  it would be remiss of me not to put up a couple of things from the main man.

An upbeat one

And my favourite of his ballads

I was going to end it here but there’s one more track I couldn’t leave out and sums up my marriage.

Sorry love.
 

© ArthurDaley 2026