As we’ve come South, it’s got warmer and today I decided to stop wearing shoes & socks, & go for fitflops & linen trousers. And the heavens opened. It sure knows how to rain here, and as the Gracelands visit is housed in 5 separate buildings, & his own graveyard ( yes, really! ), it did put a dampener on the morning’s events. To be fair, I like a lot of Elvis’s music, but this was just a bit too tacky for me. It’s all about the money.
And it probably has a finite life now in that we were the youngest people there. You should have seen the rush by the men for the restroom. It’s not often the queue for the gents is longer than for the ladies. As the 60’s generation dies out, it’s hard to see much of the nostalgia tourism continuing.
The Stax visit was more enjoyable, and informative. When the label started, there was no colour walked through the doors, just musicians. And what musicians, many of them living within walking distance. They couldn’t eat or drink in the same places in Memphis because of segregation, but at Stax they were all the same colour. The only place that they could mix was at the Lorraine Motel, which was black owned. And ironically, which was the site of Dr Martin Luther King’s murder, which changed the whole mood in Stax and which was one of the catalysts for its demise. A white owned and run record label, with a black roster of artists, and with studio musicians from all races.
Things that we Europeans on the whole don’t even think about.
One little erratum. Elvis was never one of their artists. He was at Sun records, where we’re going tomorrow.
New home at Ribatou