If you go to Memphis you will at some point visit Beale Street. Photo /123rf
If you go to Memphis you will at some point visit Beale Street. Photo /123rf
There’s a lot to see and do in Memphis and half of it is mentioned in that 1991 piano-driven Marc Cohn banger, Walking in Memphis.
And in the few days I was there, I was walking in Memphis, walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale (in a lateral direction at least). The Reverend Green was glad to see me (kind of), I saw the ghost of Elvis, and the pretty little thing waiting for The King down in the Jungle Room was me! I had also been drinking.
Cohn really nailed the brief with Walking In Memphis and the good people at Memphis Tourism can be thankful and proud of what he achieved in those four minutes. Sidenote: Cohn is a genuine one-hit wonder and the song has almost 220 million plays on Spotify.
If Cohn were to update the song, he might like to mention: the golf course Justin Timberlake owned, the Memphis Grizzlies basketball team and assorted barbecued meats.
Memphis is also going through a downtown revival with warehouses being converted into apartments, which are being snapped up by Americans moving south to Tennessee from those colder northern states with a lot less soul.
Memphis Downtown is going through a revival. Photo / Getty Images
Memphis is a music lover’s paradise. You can’t escape it. Trolley Night is held on the last Friday of every month, and along South Main the bars throw open their doors and live music’s on tap.
I was in Memphis to interview Kiwi basketball star Steven Adams for Sky Sport and The Crowd Goes Wild. Adams is 7-foot-tall and is often mistaken for actor Jason Momoa of Game of Thrones and Aquaman fame. Many of the locals call Adams “Aquamane”, factoring in the Southern accent.
Adams himself doesn’t seem to mind the nickname. “Yep it’s still a thing. They’re trying to make it stick, mate,” he says with a smile.
I tell him he’s not helping matters with his long-hair-plus-beard combo.
Adams is a big fan of Memphis — “the city itself has got some really cool stuff” — and he recommends the National Civil Rights Museum. “That thing is amazing, they did such a good job there. Then you’ve got your Beale streets, your tourist stuff, but there are little pockets outside of downtown that are really nice.”
Adams lives out east, near the University of Memphis, whose alumni include noted Egyptologist Peter J Brand, which is appropriate because the original Memphis is the old capital of Egypt on the River Nile. (please excuse the segue).
This Memphis is on the Mississippi River and you can walk the mile across on the Big River Crossing. It’s not far from the Pyramid. It used to be an indoor sports venue but now the ground floor is a Bass Pro Shop – the Kiwi equivalent would be a Hunting & Fishing store with a Torpedo 7, boat and motorbike shop attached. I’d never seen so many varieties of gumboots in my life
Look, let’s just accept that if you go to Memphis you will at some point visit Beale St, with its live music and takeaway tall cocktails. I went there late at night after a Grizzlies game and even with just a smattering of people watching, every house band seemed incredible and in the zone. So here are five other things to do in Memphis.
Blues Clubs on historic Beale Street in Memphis. Photo / 123rf
5. Memphis Grizzlies game
It’s one of the best tickets in the NBA. They’re dynamic on offense and defence. They’re a young team on the rise, and they have a bona fide superstar in Ja Morant - a high-flying point guard who’s a human highlight reel. In many ways, Adams is his bodyguard.
4. Sun Studio
The history is palpable in the place where rock’n’roll was born (allegedly!). That’s if you believe Elvis Presley’s 1954 hit That’s All Right was the genre’s origin moment. Presley, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis all recorded there. Sun Studio is the place that converted Elvis from truck driver to King. There’s a cafe in the front but it’s a museum with great tour guides. You get to stand in the studio, and have your picture taken with Elvis’s mic (yes you can touch it). It’s really a cathedral to music and it’s the first time I’ve seen Leigh Hart emotional on TV (in episode 5 of Hartland).
Sun Studio is where rock’n’roll was allegedly born. Photo / 123rf
3. National Civil Rights Museum
A confronting and compelling journey through the history of the civil rights movement in America. At 6.01pm on April 4 1968, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr was shot dead in Memphis on the balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel, which is the site of this museum. He was only 39. The city still grieves and remembers the most influential American of the 20th century.
2. Reverend Al Green’s Full Gospel Tabernacle Church
I hadn’t been to church for a while and the back of the congregation was populated with tourists from around the world – Norway, Switzerland, South Africa, Australia… I discovered all of this while Reverend Al was on the mic doing some “crowd work”.
The routine is: the choir sings for the first 30 minutes and it’s impressive. Then Al Green emerges. He’s quite squat and cuddly and still has the voice of an angel. I’m praying for him to sing Let’s Stay Together or How Can You Mend a Broken Heart. He doesn’t. But the gospel songs still showcase his legendary pipes and when the Reverend stretches his vocal range and power, it’s a religious experience. Then he asks people (the tourists) to approach the altar and make a donation. The Swiss family wander up, hand over their money and keep walking out the door. After my donation, I think “what the hell, let’s stay together” and sit back down. But as I’m filming on my phone, Al gives me a telling off. It’s thrilling for me and quite clever on his part. I’ve already made my donation – there’s no going back on the deal.
Speaking of religious experiences, Graceland delivers that too. It’s not far from Al’s church – a huge compound that contains museum and store, where visitors congregate before taking a bus across the road to Elvis Presley’s home, Graceland
Amazingly to me, we’re all allowed inside. It’s not the biggest house but the ‘70s kitsch decor and the Jungle Room in particular are impressive.
Once inside, the visiting hordes are quiet. It’s reverential hush for the original American idol. For me, this was better than advertised. I mean, for one it’s got a racquetball court. Yes, Elvis played American squash! The final part of the tour is a walk past Presley’s grave. He was only 42 when he died. His daughter and only child, Lisa Marie, was buried alongside him last month.
James McOnie outside Graceland Mansion in Memphis. Photo / Supplied
Apart from those places, I also enjoyed the dive bar Alex’s Tavern where I played table shuffle board. In short, Memphis was inspiring, illuminating, intriguing. And I know that song isn’t everyone’s cup of sweet tea, but it’s been listened to 220 million times for a reason… (and that’s only since Spotify began in 2006).
Anyway, it inspired me to write an Auckland-centric parody version called Walking In Remmers. So instead of “Put on my blue suede shoes, and I boarded the plane” it’s “Put on my blue boat shoes and I ordered champagne.” It’s a work in progress.
But to Memphis, I’d just like to say, in a deep southern drawl: Thank you, thank you very much.
American Airlines’ direct service from Auckland to Dallas Forth Worth runs until March 28 then resumes on October 29. Connections to Memphis are available from DFW. aa.com
