Listen To The Music

Our final day in Memphis provided more of the music theme that was common on Wednesday and Thursday. We started the day with a bus tour of the city, which focused on the musical roots of Memphis. However, this was no ordinary bus tour. The “Memphis Mojo Tour” (from Backbeat Tours) is a unique way to learn more about the city’s deep musical history. The tour guide is a local Memphis musician who, in addition to relaying various stories about the sites we passed on the bus, also provides entertainment by singing (and playing guitar) throughout the ride. The audience (in our case, just a small group of six people) can join in as well, with tambourines and shakers provided at the beginning of the tour. Performing from a repertoire of Memphis-recorded songs, we heard various tunes from Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Elvis (of course) and others. The tour included a one-hour stop at Sun Studio, where Elvis recorded his first song (“That’s Alright Mama”) and numerous early rock and roll stars had their start (including Lewis, Cash, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and others). The tour was definitely a lot of fun.

The next stop for the day (after lunch on Beale Street) was the Gibson Guitar Factory, where we had booked reservations for the 2:00 tour. The tour takes you through the factory (one of three Gibson factories in the US) where you can get fairly up-close-and-personal with the life cycle of a Gibson electric guitar. From cutting and bending the initial pieces of wood to gluing on the neck to sanding and painting and finally adding the electronic components and testing the finished product… you get to see it all as the workers go about their normal day-to-day activities. Even for non-guitarists (such as ourselves) it was fascinating to see the progression of the instrument. (I think Josh would have loved it.) And unlike a number of the sites we’ve visited recently, there were no restrictions on photographs (although no videos were allowed) within the factory.

After completing our tour at Gibson, we headed across the street to the Rock and Soul Museum. Created by the Smithsonian Institution, the exhibits at this museum focus on the birth of rock and soul music. After a brief introductory film, the museum is self-guided through the use of an audio tour guide. Having already visited the Stax recording studio and Sun Studio, some of the museum’s presentations were redundant. However, the overall visit was interesting, and the audio guide provided the ability to choose songs from a “juke box,” which was fun. Unfortunately, unlike the Gibson factory, the Rock and Soul Museum does not allow any photography at all within the exhibits.

That pretty much finished off our visit to Memphis… we now know more about the history of rock and roll, soul and other music than we ever thought we would. With our next stop being “Music City” (i.e., Nashville), we’ll probably be able to add country music to the list as well.

More to come,

Stu