Memphis

Day five of MS immersion trip 2013 was mainly spent out of MS and in Memphis.  We crammed 3 museums into the day, which is a personal record.

On our way up, we stopped at Clarksdale, MS, which was the main transportation hub out of the Delta.  The old bus station is being restored, but without the designation of white/black bathrooms (but the two sets are still there and make for an interesting and obvious comparison (white = comfy, black = tiny)).

 

The riverside hotel is in Clarksdale and was a well-known residence for most famous blues artists at some point in their travelling lives.  Ike Turner stayed here a lot.  Clarksdale also happens to be where Morgan Freeman lives on a more permanent basis and owns a local blues bar called Ground Zero (you can rent rooms there as well—idea for future visit and/or living?).

 

It looks like a dump from the outside, but is supposedly very different inside (not luxury, but not as bad as the outside looks, so book at your own peril).

Our first museum was the cotton museum, which is housed in the old cotton exchange.  It’s where plantation owners would bring their cotton to market, staying at the nearby Peabody.  There were only two rooms in this museum, one apparently funded by Monsanto, as they were heralded as being a company for the small farmer (what?!!).

 After the cotton museum we went to the old Stax recording studio (now a phenomenal soul/funk/music museum).  We only got to spend 1 hour there, but I could have easily spent 6.  It was so well done--listening stations,  artifacts (like Tina Turner's stage costumes and Isaac Hayes' gold rimmed Cadillac), a disco floor/ball for museum dancing!  I bought the Stax Records 50th anniversary collection, which I highly recommend.  We listened to it all summer (Who's Makin' Love by Johnnie Taylor was our favorite.  I love singing it to Theo because of the absurdity of the lyrics when sung to a baby.  Cheap fun!  Here's a link.  You will not be disappointed.).

All soul originated in the church.  This is a Delta church (Baptist I guess?) that was transported up to the museum.

 A chance to blow off a little steam, mid-museum.

 The record art was amazing--lots of soft lighting and colors.

 Isaac Hayes' gold caddy (with fur interior).

TINA! (and Ike, who despite being the father of Rock n' Roll, was such a horrible human being. ugh.)

We ate lunch at the Four Way Grill, which was the last restaurant that Martin Luther King Jr. ate at before he was assassinated. As a pescatarian, I ate fried catfish, mashed potatoes and drank a mixture of sweet tea/lemonade (their specialty).  I was worried that fried chicken was going to be the only option, but it seems like catfish is on every menu in the south.  

We followed up lunch with a visit to the Civil Rights Museum, which is across the street from the Lorraine Motel (where MLK was killed).  They are renovating the motel so that it will house the museum and during the construction tourists are allowed up on the balcony.  Previously, only the Dalai Lama, Oprah and Bill Clinton had been allowed to walk on the balcony.  The room he stayed in (including the cars downstairs) has been untouched since he died.  It didn't take a picture of the room, but it was very modest.

We ended the day at the Peabody, where I saw the ducks for the second time in one week.