Memphis, TN: Day Two

Memphis is not what one might have expected. The distinct lack of Elvis in the Downtown area that we are inhabiting for these three days, other than the billboards advertising trips to Graceland, is surprising enough but moreover it is the physical and economic austerity of the city that is immediately evident. Our first night was taken up with the simplistic majesty of the blues clubs on Beale Street, but our second was taken up with seeing this small city on the banks of the Mississippi in daylight for better and for worse.
It's hard to describe how surrounding can change from one street to another. Walking down Union Avenue the lush, tree-shaded boulevards with the trams run adjacent to you and the financial corporations in the skyscrapers of Downtown Memphis give the city the vertical dimension that every American metropolis has. This familiarity ends, however, when you reach the end of the East-West Streets and are faced with the banks of the Mississippi River. Nothing quite prepares you for that moment when you realise that this is it. The iconic waterway that effectively tracks our path south to New Orleans made a profound mark on us all, and we walked south along its banks as far as we could until the preparations for the Memphis BBQ Festival this weekend blocked our path so we decided to sit in the cloud-blocked rays of sunshine and relax enjoying 32c and 90% humidity. Once the talk between Deborah and Sam talked to the fickle subject of classing women's and men's attractive by their place of origin, I stole away down the river tram lines in search of picture taking spots. Walking down the railroad tracks in the killing heat of the sun was something so American I just had to take a picture.


Once I'd returned to the others after a half hour stroll we headed back into the city. I was keen to see the Civil Rights Museum, expecting the sensationalised historical experience the United States usually provides. If you're not aware the Civil Rights Museum is located in the former Lorraine Motel - a building where on the night of April 4 1968 a bullet from James Earl Ray's rifle ploughed through the neck and chest of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr and the race riots of that year were sparked. I knew that this building was the site of the museum, but what I hadn't realised was that the Motel is still intact as the site of the museum. Its worth stressing that this Motel still stands in the run-down, ghettoised area of Memphis that still suffers from the socio-economic problems that plagued the neighbourhood fifty years ago. The sheer lack of people here on a hot Monday afternoon made the experience poignant and eerie. If you can remember the black and white pictures of the Motel from the newspapers of the late 60s, then the pictures below will perhaps convey the awe and eeriness of visiting such a neighbourhood yesterday afternoon. To say we made haste for the familiar, comparatively affluent and (if we can all admit to such a shameful feeling) somewhat more Caucasian area of Downtown would be an understatement. But I shan't forget the sight of the Motel for as long as I live. The way that balcony is there within arms reach from the street with no barrier (a fate many sights protected from the public suffer, insulating their impact) was one of the most startling experiences of my life. I must reiterate, though, that it was the neighbourhood that it sat in that magnified its significance most.




Back in Downtown we took a walk through town including Beale Street in order to scout out our venue for this evening's entertainment. Given that other than the soundtrack to our periods of relaxing in our room, Elvis would be absent from our Memphis visit, the blues was the focus for us and it cannot be stressed enough - Memphis has the best live music in the world. Ever. It really is as simple as that. Knowing the rest of the day would be taken up with trying to escape from the heat and then heading out for the bars, we decided to not tire ourselves unnecessarily, while the other two found some food I swam in the hostel's pool looking at the skyscrapers hooking over the yard and thinking that this must surely be the hottest place I have ever been. The Mississippi River in Memphis marks the border of Tennessee and Arkansas but it seems to mark the point at which humidity reaches levels not found nearer the Atlantic. I thought to myself, this is our entrance point to the Deep South. North Carolina and Nashville were the South, no doubt about it, but the Deep South is something else entirely.

Once the clock reached 9:30, once Sam had urinated once again, and once Anglo-French relations had been reassured as stable we moved out towards Beale Street and once again we had a night of riotous fun in the company of a simply breathtaking blues band. Memphians are spoiled like no one could possibly comprehend until they visit Beale Street. Beer was expensive this evening, but we had the need to buy only one as we befriended George Higgs, a partner of law firm in town who was here to support his friend who not only was a John Lennon lookalike, but could play a mean keyboard solo. George bought Sam and I beers as we compared the ways of life and the Special Relationship, discussed marathon running and how if we were in town we would love to take up his offer of lending us his downtown Condo, as "he never had the time to use it properly." Before we knew it, it was midnight, and our cheering voices were hoarse from beer and whoops and another night filled with sheer magnificence was over.




Goodnight and Good luck.