Sun Studios and BBQ

As we arrived and checked in to our hotel in Memphis I was amazed at how beautiful a city Memphis is. In many ways I keep having flashbacks to Atlanta. I see Memphis as Atlanta with a nice waterfront or riverfront. However, as I spent more than a few hours in Memphis I have come to see it as not as nice as Atlanta. There are a number of vacant buildings in the downtown area. Someone I know has asked me for my input on whether Memphis would be a good place to move. Initially I would have said yes without hesitation. The more I think about it though the more I am skeptical as I see so many vacant buildings, a downtown rampant with agressive panhandling, and isolated downtown areas that can easily make one feel unsafe. It's interesting coming from San Francisco where we are not at all new to the idea of panhandling the main difference though is that our panhandlers don't follow you down the street harrassing you. Or maybe they do and they reserve that for tourists which is what I am here.

After checking in we went to the Sun Studios to see where it all started. One of the most interesting things that I have learned on this trip is that so many of the classic songs that we associate with one artist or another were not originally written by who we think they were. Blue Suede Shoes...not Elvis...Carl Perkins. R-E-S-P-E-C-T...not Aretha...Otis Redding. At Sun it was interesting to see how excited these 50-60 year old women would get when listening to the hits of their teenage years. In the initial part of the tour we saw the upstairs museum and the digital cameras were in full effect. As the tour guide pointed out Elvis' jacket, high school diploma, guitar, and even social security card the camera snapping would not stop. Once we moved downstairs to the actual live room in which many historic sessions took place with Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and countless others the real straining of the imagination started taking place. By some miracle Sam Phillips recollected (prior to his death) where Elvis stood when he recorded while still under contract with Sun and there is now a black X in that spot. Again everyone lined up to hold the actual microphone that was used and pose in that exact spot. With my particular interest being the engineers' skills and work I was taking photos of the old gear (which is still useable today) and was very interested in the control room (though we couldn't go in there). It was an amazing feeling thinking of all the visionary artists that had walked through the door and made such magic take place in that little room.

To work up an appetite prior to eating dinner I went for a run and what a great idea that was. For dinner we went to Central BBQ. As we walked in we decided it would be nice to have a beer outside on the deck and then go back and order dinner. By the time finished our beer there was a line out the door. I cannot begin to do the meal justice in a description so I will end here. Hopefully tomorrow I will update this post or do another post with photos of the meal and Sun.