Deep South Road Trip 2018 - Memphis, TN

Saturday Afternoon 27 January - Tupelo, TN to Memphis, TN

We set off south west from Nashville through endless sprawling suburbs, via Spring Hill and Columbia. Near Summertown, we travelled through a poor white neighbourhood, with grubby decaying cabins surrounded by trash and clapped out vehicles, and into poor farming country, attractive with bare trees, vultures and hawks circling overhead.

On reaching the Natchez Trace Parkway, we paused at the site where Meriwether Lewis was buried, now a park with trees and birdsong. The park has a memorial to Meriwether Lewis as well as the reconstructed "Grinder's Stand" where he met his violent, unexplained end.

Reconstructed "Grinder's Stand" where Meriwhether Lewis met his unexplained end

Lewis was personal secretary to Thomas Jefferson, for whom he volunteered to explore the northwest, looking for a continuous water route from the Missouri River to the Pacific. The expedition of more than two years didn't achieve its primary purpose, but succeeded in accumulating geographical, cultural and biological information familiar to resident American Indians and French and British trappers. After the expedition, Lewis became governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory. When the presidency changed, the Department of War questioned several bills submitted by Lewis for payment, leaving him personally liable. He set off for Washington to defend the bills. While travelling along the Natchez Trace, Lewis spent the night at Grinder's Stand. There, he died of gunshot wounds in the early morning. Many believed he committed suicide, although some think he may have been murdered.

We set off along the Natchez Trace, once an ancient Indian track. It has a beautiful dreamlike quality, protected from development and free from litter, a contrast with Summertown. The almost empty road winds along, with gentle undulations and curves, lined by a diversity of handsome winter trees.

Natchez Trace

Natchez Trace

A committee of black vultures in the trees allowed us to watch them from the car. We came across a small King Charles type of dog walking briskly down the road with an orange playbone in its mouth, after we'd passed a sign that it's against the law to abandon animals on the Highway.

In Tupelo, we stopped for tea and biscuits, and to see Elvis Presley’s birthplace, a tiny but solid white cabin.

Elvis Presley's birthplace in Tupelo 

From Tupelo we took Highway 22 to Memphis, driving through heavy rain and mist. Google navigated us to the other end of the street from our Airbnb. Confused, we stopped in a forbidding neighbourhood with rubble and litter. While I tried to figure out where we were, Nige encouraged me to drive on. We were being watched by men sitting on the steps of a blackened apartment on the dimly lit street.

After driving around to the correct end of the street, we still had trouble finding our apartment in 128 Stonewall, Midtown. First we couldn't figure out the street numbering, then a big dog bounded out from the bushes as we were walking up various pathways to check house numbers. When at last we were inside our apartment, I couldn't switch the heating on and succeeded only in extinguishing the pilot light. Our host responded promptly to our call. While I played dumb about the pilot light, he fussed around with the ancient heating system, reassuring us that mostly it was reliable.

Heating system in our Memphis apartment

Reassured, we were left to unwind awhile before heading out towards the bars and restaurants of Madison Avenue, which we reached by walking through a seeming combat zone of empty houses and broken windows. At the door of the Casablanca Restaurant, the friendly young waitress warned us they served no alcohol, so we forewent cold beers, in return for unconvincing Mediterranean food.

Afterwards, we crossed the street to Zinnie’s Bar, run by husband and wife team, Matt and Emily. "How d’you find Nashville ... Underwhelming?" Matt and Emily explained Tennessee’s tobacco laws. Bars can permit indoor smoking, which Zinnie’s did, as long as patrons are over 21 and they also serve food. Matt and Emily were both smokers. Matt checked our IDs thoroughly, also to see they hadn’t expired, as secret shoppers come into bars.

Patrons of Zinnie’s joined Matt and Emily in giving us recommendations for what to do in Memphis. Emily used to live in the same condos we’d just left in Nashville. She described anonymously reporting a sex act she’d observed from her condo on the banks of the Cumberland River, which she also captured with her telephoto lens. Emily said Memphis is mainly Democrat, but not when you get further out.

Tim Sampson, Communications Director of Soul/Stax Foundation and just returned from touring the UK, came to sit with us. Matt and Emily introduced him as the expert on music in Memphis. He told us about his time in the UK. He'd stayed in Hitchin, was tempted to move there. He’s met Robert Plant, who has a place near Clarksdale. Tim's Stax choir comprises black children from mainly deprived backgrounds.

Having hit my drinking limit, I left Zinnie's first and walked back to the apartment, briefly pausing at a bar called Murphy’s to listen to live music. Nige later got a lift back with Tim, who was surprised I'd chosen to walk. In 2016, Memphis recorded 228 homicides, although the rate has since reduced.

Sunday 28 January - Memphis, TN

In the news, Jay-Z called Trump a "Superbug", while the Washington Post's Margaret Sullivan referred to "Fox New’s conspiracy-mongering Trump toady Sean Hannity". It was sunny after the previous day's rain. For breakfast, we went to CK’s, where at first we were the only whites. It shouldn't matter, but we also didn't want to be an imposition. It didn't seem we were. Our waitresses were friendly if reserved. We enjoyed our generous traditional US breakfasts.

Breakfast at CK's Coffee Shop

On the way to Memphis Cash Saver for milk and biscuits, a man with a wispy beard proudly showing us his 1970's Ford.

A mockingbird, as good as it gets with our phones

We drove downtown and parked near the Peabody Hotel, magnificent and elegant with famous ducks in the fountain of the lobby.

Outside the Peabody

Ducks in the Peabody's fountain

We wandered on foot to the Mississippi River and along the foreshore past winter laid up steamboats. A Kestrel was sitting on the wires. Across on Mud Island beyond the footbridge is the landing slip where Jeff Buckley went for his fatal swim.

View towards Mud Island

We continued to Beale Street, where we popped into A. Schwab, a nice old building filled with trinkets. Beale Street is similar to tourist areas in other cities we visited: garish, tacky, superficial. We headed back to the car, stopping on the way for coffee in the huge, wood-rich Tamp & Tap.

Beale Street

Beale Street

Over to Mud Island. Our destination was Mud Island River Park, which turned out to be closed for the season. We parked nearby to see what we could. The partially waterlogged grass where people were walking their dogs was full of robins and mocking birds.

We headed to the Stax Museum, mentioned by Tim the day before, where we watched an exhilarating and sad 20 min film, followed by a comprehensive exhibition featuring Otis & The Stax Revue, Al Green, Martha Staples, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Booker T & the MGs - a time of rich interweaving of musical influences and racially mixed bands.

Photo in Stax of makeshift headstones

Stax then

Stax now

To the Lorraine Motel at dusk. A former resident of the motel has been demonstrating outside for 30 years. Her ramshackle stand of posters surrounding a table with fliers held down by a brick can be found at the far end of the street. She wants the Civil Rights Museum to be moved and to keep the motel as a living, working concern, aimed at helping the homeless and drug addicts. "It’s what Dr King would have wanted." Nearby, a Segway tour stopped for a group photo.

A Segway tour being photographed, near the 30 year old demonstration against the Civil Rights Museum

Back to see the sun going down over the Arkansas side, then home for tea. For dinner we ate at Frida's Restaurante Mexicano in Madison Avenue, named after Frida Kahlo, before returning to Zinnie’s for another Corona and to enjoy the ambience, arty decor and eclectic juke box playing Patti Smith - Smells like Teen Spirit, Martha Wainwright - Ball & Chain, and Rolling Stones tracks from Exile on Main Street.

Zinnie's

Sadly, Zinnie's closed in November 2018, having served its community for 45 years.

Monday Morning 29 January - Memphis, TN

We looked at Jeff Buckley’s house, then drove to Crosstown Concourse and had breakfast at French Truck. Crosstown Concourse was a Sears Distribution Centre and Store before it became vacant in the early 1990s. It was renovated into a mixed use development in 2015. It was Tim’s suggestion we see it.

Outside our apartment

Jeff Buckley's house

Sears Distribution Centre before its conversion into the Crosstown Concourse

Sears Distribution Centre before its conversion into the Crosstown Concourse

Crosstown Concourse today

After breakfast, we visited Crosstown Arts upstairs in the Concourse and spoke to Porsche Stevens, community relations coordinator. She told us Memphis has a population of about 1 million. She’s from Memphis but has lived in other cities, including Chicago and Nashville.

We drove across the Mississippi River on the I55 into Arkansas and back into Memphis on the I40, then south to Graceland. For $10, we parked in the visitor carpark and headed to the ticketing area, where we spoke to an assistant called Arlene, who looked not unlike Dolly Parton. Tickets started at $44 each, with buses taking visitors across the Elvis Presley Boulevard into Graceland. Arlene confided that if we'd arrived before 8am, we could have entered the grounds for free on foot, but not the mansion.

We walked past Elvis’s old jet airplane and across Elvis Presley Boulevard to look at his mansion in the distance. The sidewalk and stone wall alongside the grounds are covered with handwritten messages from fans.

Nige outside Graceland grounds

As close as we got to Graceland

Fans' messages on the sidewalk of Elvis Presley Boulevard