Rosie and The Operator are up early, we are off to Graceland, it is a 15 min drive out of town and we want to get there early, to hopefully beat the crowds and the heat. We arrive at 8.45, well we have beaten the heat, but as for the crowds….there are plenty.
We get our tickets and out tour time is not until 10.30 as the earlier slots must have been pre booked ….oh well, we can go visit Elvis car collection first.
This is a Dino Ferrari, Elvis bought it back in the mid 70s for $25,000, todays worth…about $240,000. He had alot of toys….apparently Elvis liked to hoon around his property in golf carts and on motorbikes. He even had a snowmobile for when it snowed….
We wandered back over to the bus collection point, the ticket lady said we might as well hop on…score we were away.
A busload is taken across the highway, (Health and Safety First) through the gates of Graceland, up the driveway and stops at the front door of the house. Rosie was surprised how modest a size the house appeared, she expected it to be bigger….The Operator said, ‘for a 22 year old to have bought this, its pretty flash and big. Indeed.
We had an audio tour each, it was attached to an ipad that hung around our neck, as well as an audio narration of what we were looking at, additional pictures and movies popped up of Elvis and his family enjoying the area of the house they were talking about. The right commentary automatically started when we approached certain areas….Rosie believes the ipads also track all visitors on the site…..serious, I think it does.
Unbelievably, our tour starts by walking you straight through the front door of Graceland into the formal living room (left) followed by the dining room (below right).
They say that the china on the dining table was a wedding gift to Elvis and Priscilla. The family, when they visit Memphis, still have dinner around this table. Elvis sat at the top right of the table, so he could see the TV that was in the corner, all in all their are 14 TVs in Graceland.
This is Elvis’ parents room (left), he was bought up in a tiny shack as a kid, dirt poor, they never had anything extra, Elvis had his parents living with him as he said he would always look after them and give them everything they wanted.
This is the stairwell (above right) that leads to the upper story bedrooms. It is off limits to the public as per the families wishes. Love the chandelier though….Rosie’s hairs on her arms are already standing on edge….this house is set up so you would think at any moment that they will come down the stairs…..
Through the kitchen we go (left), Lisa Marie on the commentary said there was always some one in there and always something being cooked any time of the day or night as they had visitors and guests around all the time. Down a crazy mirrored staircase (below right)……
….we enter the media room (left), there was a movie projector for watching films in here and at least 4 TVs set up, there was a bar as well, across the hall was the billiard room…
…this den like room had pleated material covering the walls and ceiling. The felt is ripped on the billiard table as one of Elvis’s friends was practicing a trick shot that didn’t work.
Then up a flight of stairs we went to enter the famous Jungle Room…this was the main room where family and friends hung out, Elvis also did a bit of recording in this room…the carpet was cutting edge, green shag pile on the ceiling and floor.
The back of the house had a huge carport where Elvis stored the cars, and through you went to an office where Elvis father and staff answered all the fan mail and saw to his business (below).
Elvis always managed himself primarily as he was adamant, ‘ I know what I like and how I want to be seen, I don’t want anyone else telling me how to be me’.
A round the corner was a racket ball court which now houses his awards and show costumes.
So far the tour has been great…there are alot of people here but you kind of shuffle through at a nice slow single file so you can take all the photos you want….for awhile we got trapped in a hot, slow moving jam of bodies in the record corridor…..then out we popped into the bright light again and before us was the memorial garden.
The final resting place of Elvis Presley. Next to him lies his mother and father and there is a small memorial to his twin brother Jesse who died at birth.
There were about fifty people all gathered in a line to file past the grave, there was complete reverent silence. The only noise was the roar of the distant motorway and the trickling of the fountain……
Till a Ginger, short pom with a camera round his neck declared rather loudly how crap and bright the light was and he wouldn’t get a decent photo after coming all this way….then he bypassed the que by walking around the fountain and standing next to the person who was at the head of the grave and started to take photos at their shoulder. A ripple of indignation swelled in the silence…..Ginger and his wife were oblivious, off they tramped to the bus line ready to leave.
This whole tour of the house and grounds has been very eerie, the house is a perfect time capsule which seems so intimate and ordinarily normal, the fact that this nearly fifty year old snapshot of a mans life is still so polarizing to me and all these visitors….is amazing too.
We left the Garden and that was the end of the tour….we were waiting for a bus to drive us out of the grounds and back to the ticket centre.
The photo above (right) is a section of the street wall in front in Graceland, it stretches for a good two hundred meters…every inch of that wall is covered in names of fans and declarations of love to the King
Following on from Graceland and keeping true to the Rock and Roll theme we bopped over to the legendary Sun Studio for a visit.
This small studio has recorded a lot of great singers, a young Elvis Presley went there straight out of school and cut a demo for $4….he sung a ballad and the producer, when he heard it, said ballad singers were a dime dozen and he wasn’t interested, he was looking for something different.
It wasn’t till a year later that Elvis who hung around the studio, was in a session mucking around when he ad libbed a version of ‘That’s all Right Mama’…the producer heard it and asked him to do it again….he made a recording of it, asked Elvis what he called the singing style, Elvis replied ‘Rock n Roll’ coining this style.
The producer sent the recording to the local radio station where they played it….the phones went ballistic and they played that track 14 times in a row….in a later interview, the DJ asked Elvis who he sounded like, or was trying to copy….he answered, ‘ I don’t sound like anyone else, but myself, Elvis Presley’.
Sun Studio signed Elvis immediately…The rest is history. Elvis didnt make any huge hits whilst at Sun, 12 months later the studio sold Elvis record contract to RCA for $35,000, the highest transfer fee ever at the time. RCA had the capitol to be able to make Elvis into a superstar. Sun Studio was able to pay off its debts and invest in new recording equipment.
Whenever Elvis was in town, he used to come into the studio and say Hi. One day, Johnny Cash, Suns biggest star, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins were there when Elvis arrived, they all had a jam session and The Million Dollar Quartet recordings were made and this famous photo taken.
The studio itself is plain and small…so not what Rosie imagined it would be, the ghosts of past superstars are everywhere and it is still used today after hours for recordings as bands love the famous Sun Sound, this rather unimposing room has perfect acoustics and star making juju.
U2 recorded Rattle and Hum in here and this is the drum set they left behind after recording (above right)….plus, this is the actual microphone that Elvis recorded into. Serious, we all got opportunities to pose with it. This was an interesting tour, and one our own local Elvis, KD Wasley recommended as a must do in Memphis. Glad we did, great stories.
Leaving the music behind for a moment a giant pyramid looms over the city….do you get it…back in the day the city was named after the Egyptian city of Memphis which sits alongside the River Nile
….pyramid/Egypt, Nile/Mississippi….as you do, you build a giant pyramid, it was used as a concert venue for awhile but went broke.
Then a National Outdoor chain of stores brought it, Pro Bass built inside the pyramid their flagship store based on a Mississippi swamp.
This complex includes a motel, with rooms like log cabins, lakes that hold trout, catfish etc….and an alligator enclosure. In and amongst this ‘swamp’ is their store, boats they sell are moored on the lakes with fish swimming around them, mock hunters are fake shooting stuffed wildlife on craggy mountainsides, a bear rears up over you…it is an incredible place.
The Operator was in his element looking at all the hunting, fishing and BBQ smokers….he was happy Rosie was distracted taking photos to leave him be to browse….Rosie had never been happier to be in an Outdoors Store.
Inside the pyramid is also the worlds highest freestanding lift shaft which took you up to a viewing platform that had great views over the Mississippi into Arkansas, on the other side of the river.
In the river where the island is, was where the only naval battle of the Civil War was held, The Battle of Memphis in 1862. The whole town came out to watch and lined the Riverbanks. The North sailed their ironclad river boats down the river to invade Memphis, the south sailed their woeful wooden barges loaded with cotton bails to protect themselves against shell and gunfire, the south were annihilated in a flaming blaze of glory, the whole battle only lasting an hour and a half. Historical remnants of this battle still lie on the Riverbed today….so tantalising close….
Lets talk about the Peabody Ducks…a lunatic, tourist trap attraction that Rosie has openly mocked and scoffed at. Buuut, The Peabody Hotel is the next building along from where Rosie and The Operator are staying
The Ducks live at the Hotel in an enclosure on the roof, every morning they are herded from their enclosure into the hotel lift.
The lift arrives in the lobby and the ducks exit the lift and waddle along a red carpet to the fountain in the hotel lobby…..where they climb in and swim around and around the fountain all day……to repeat the exercise, in reverse at the end of the day.
Apparently the lobby is packed with people twice a day to witness this 1 minuet event. The Peabody advertises to come early and get a seat in the lobby, you must buy a drink though and we sell many duck themed expensive cocktails to get you in the mood.
Tripadvisor reviews say you must come at least an hour early to get a vantage point…..Rosie dragged The (grumbling) Operator along an hour before the ducks went to bed…it was true, the lobby was already fully seated, Rosie took a photo of the ducks in the fountain and left. Crazy.
Rosie and The Operator went for one last beer and a stroll down Beale Street as the sun was setting, the sound of the Blues was wafting out of the bar doors, the neon had just turned…and so had the magic of Memphis for another night.
Tomorrow we are leaving the cities behind and over nighting for the next few days in the smaller towns as we drive down the Mighty Mississippi on the way to New Orleans. Our first stop is in Clarkesdale where we have booked to stay in a tenant farmers shack (slave shack is politically incorrect) on a former cotton plantation.
