Walkin', Sittin' and Sippin' in Memphis

Got an e-mail yesterday from a friend who wrote "took your advice, I'm sitting on Beale Street sipping a cool one." He's in Memphis. 

A few years back I had just started my vacation.  It was a Friday night, I was listening to some music. "Walking in Memphis" came up and I thought I'd like to see Memphis one day. I left the next morning at 9 am. 

Have you ever been somewhere you've never been before that just feels like home.  Like you've been there before but you haven't,  That's how it felt.  The game plan was to stay for a couple of days and being the history buff that I am I figured I'd wind my home through Civil War battle sites on my way home.  I booked into the hotel for 2 nights.  I stayed a week. 

The hotel was close to Beale Street where they say blues music was invented in the early 20th century by W.C. Handy who imortalized the street with the song "Beale Street Blues" which goes a little like this, "If Beale Street could talk, if Beale Street could talk married men would have to take their beds and walk. Except one or 2 who never drank that booze and the blind man on the corner with the Beale Street blues". 

It was an amazing place to be. In the evening they shut down the street and all the bars and and clubs set up out side. It turned into a party. The music was everywhere.  In the clubs, in the park, on the street.  There were groups playing on the curb that you'd pay a cover charge to hear in Toronto.  I went for lunch to a club and a couple of guys were playing Mississippi Delta blues.  They had a plastic sandpail just off the stage for donations.  They were playing for tips. I put in 10 bucks and bought their cd.

I took a boat ride on the Mississippi River, visited the site where Martin Luther King was assassinated, went to the Civil War museum but never once did I go to Graceland.  I've never been much of an Elvis fan.  I used to kid Roger Ashby (a huge Elvis fan) that all Elvis did was steal the black man's music.  Actually he was alot more than that.  Memphis is in that part of the US where you get gospel music, hillybilly music, blues and country all fusing in one place.  Elvis had all of that in him.  The Sun Studios where he cut his first recordings was an eye opener.  It wasn't all about Elvis.  Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Johnny Rivers all recorded there.  What they think is the first rock and roll record "Rocket 88" featuring Ike Turner was recoreded there.

But for me it all came back to Beale Street.  Every bar and every club had various forms of Blues music going on all night.  You could see a band then duck into the various museums to check the history of the music.  There was one thing missing. With all that music I noticed that there wasn't a record store anywhere on Beale Street.  On my drive back to Canada I convinved myself that I was going to sell my house take the money and open a record stone on Beale Street.  That little dream faded over time although I wonder now and again, what if what if I was walkin', sittin', sippin' and sellin' on Beale Street?