Horse-head tour july-aug 2011

[CRAZY-HORSE]

MH and myself got out Graceland tickets from a tourist centre somewhere between Nashville and Memphis...as i wrote previously, the Graceland tickets were $38 each, however for $55 each we had the choice of two other tours in Memphis of local attractions...MH and i decided on Sun Records without question, we then noticed Stax Records was also one of the choices, so we also opted for that also....
anyway, the tourist bureau gave us a map of Memphis with the touristy things highlighted...
so Graceland was a day long trip, the following morning we headed out to find Sun Records, either the maps werent current or MH was reading them wrong...LOL!, but we got lost ans drove around for at least half an hour, ended up in some real down and out part of town(the kind that you dont stop at red lights!...if you know what i mean?), any way, found our way back to some main road and still didnt have a clue where we were...we stopped at a set of lights and a car pulled up beside us in the next lane, the driver was a smartly dressed black lady,MH wound down his window and asked her if she knew where Sun Records was, she said she did and offered to take us there by following her vehicle, which we duly did...the whole time i was thinking, oh my God she could be taking us anywhere....after about five minutes of following her we saw the Sun sign just up ahead, we both pulled over, i got out and thanked her for assistance and gave her a few bucks for her time and generousity!...the road map ended up being wrong, and not MH's navigational skills...LOL!

first couple of photos here are of Sam Phillips Avenue sign and the external view of Sun Records...








great little place was The Sun Studios...to think that all that great music and great artists actually started their careers there...ie, Elvis,The Big "O", Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, John Cash. the only problem with the tour of the studio was that the vast majority of the information given by the guide was about Elvis Presley, with the other artists almost being treated as sidemen...which of course they were not...
Sun Records is once again an operational recording studio after being closed down in the mid 1970s, U2 recorded most of their "rattle and hum" album there back in 1988ish.








next photo is of the reception area in Sun Studios,the window towards the righthand side of the picture actually is the view to the studio, it was here that a receptionist first noticed a young Elvis recording an acetate of "my happiness" for his mums birthday...she advised Sam Phillips of this yound kid in the studio and the rest was history!

[CRAZY-HORSE]

luckily, Stax Records was only a couple of blocks away from Sun Records so we couldnt really have gotten lost....or could we?
being a "black" artists label it is situated in a real derelict part of Memphis,shops boarded up, foreclosure signs on homes,shops etc etc
i find it amazing that so many of the great musicians from the 1950s black or white came predominanty from around Memphis...unbelieveable IMO!

a short history of Stax from wikkipedia:

Stax Records is an American record label, originally based in Memphis, Tennessee.
Founded in 1957 as Satellite Records, the name Stax Records was adopted in 1961. The label was a major factor in the creation of the Southern soul and Memphis soul music styles, also releasing gospel, funk, jazz, and blues recordings. While Stax is renowned for its output of African-American music, the label was founded by two white businesspeople, Jim Stewart and his sister Estelle Axton (STewart/AXton = Stax) and featured several popular ethnically-integrated bands, including the label's house band, Booker T. & the MG's.
Following the death of Stax's biggest star, Otis Redding, in 1967 and the severance of the label's distribution deal with Atlantic Records in 1968, Stax continued primarily under the supervision of a new co-owner, Al Bell. Over the next five years, Bell expanded the label's operations significantly, in order to compete with Stax's main rival, Motown Records in Detroit. During the mid-1970s, a number of factors, including a problematic distribution deal with CBS Records, caused the label to slide into insolvency, resulting in its forced closure in late 1975.
In 1977, Fantasy Records acquired the post-1968 Stax catalog, as well as selected pre-1968 recordings. Beginning in 1978, Stax (now owned by Fantasy) began signing new acts and issuing new material, as well as re-issuing previously recorded Stax material. However, by the early 1980s no new material was being issued on the label, and for the next two decades, Stax was strictly a re-issue label.
After Concord Records acquired Fantasy in 2004, the Stax label was reactivated, and is today used to issue both the 1968–1975 catalog material and new recordings by current R&B/soul performers. Atlantic Records continues to hold the rights to the vast majority of the 1959–1968 Stax material.








the museum contained mainly outfits of stars from back in the day with little tit-bits of information..not really a good museum IMO but as it formed an essential part of American popular music history, it was good to actually see it, especially me being a big fan of people like Wilson Picket,Otis Redding etc etc..
next pic is of stage outfits of Ike And Tina Turner

...sorry for the slightly out of focus pic, but this sums up the museum well



just around the back of the museum,adjacent to the carpark there was an old derelict building...just like all the others in the area, but this one belonged to old Blues legend Memphis Slim

[Music Head]

that cracks me up
don't think they can renovate that

[gryphon]

Excellent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[SteveO]

Thanks very much CH for sharing the pics and dialogue on your infamous Horse Head Tour 2011 along with MH !!!!

My wife and I enjoyed it immensely, she is sort of an Elvis encyclopedia so she could really relate to the Graceland pictures and added some extra comments as I showed them to her !!!....lol..unfortunately she's never been to Graceland.

[CRAZY-HORSE]

i have many more pics of Graceland SteveO...of the grounds,other romms in the mansion ie: pool room,green room, jungle room, tv room,kitchen...if your wife is interested in seeing them i can probably email them to you if you PM me your email address, also othe pics of the museums???

also, thanks for your comments thus so far

[CRAZY-HORSE]

i had mentioned to MH that i'd like to visit New Orleans whilst heading down south...he was initially unsure as to whether we should go there for various reasons, but towards the end of our time in Memphis he said "lets do it" with a warning that it ws a good seven hour drive from Memphis....but Memphis was also around the same distance from Hotel Paint Lick so i didnt see the problem with it,especially when i still had two and a half weeks left on my trip....and i'd always been interested in seeing the birthplace of Jazz,Bourbon Street and trying some good Cajun food...
so we left the exessive heat of Memphis for New Orleans....and its exessive heat with the added bonus of almost 100% humidity!...
just to add to the commentry, i drove most of the time as the rental car was in my name, but MH did take over when i got tired or needed a rest from the stress of driving on the wrong side of the road..we usually stopped every so often...early in the morning for donuts,coffee and a few supplies for the road, we would usually then stop later for bathroom breaks/refuelling the car and maybe something decent to eat...
so off we went, through Tennessee,Mississippi and on down to New Orleans..."ont he road again, just cant wait to get on the road again...." and finally "riding to the city of New Orleans".
after hundreds of miles of wide open fields and the tar-line stretching out in front of us we finally saw a sight for sore eyes.....THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS

[CRAZY-HORSE]

luckily, the map we puchased of New Orleans also included a detailed map of the infamous French Quarter in New Orleans downtown, we managed to get lost here also,taking the wrong exit off the interstate highway, got back on,got lost again and back on again...finally made it though and found a good little motel on the outskirts of the city for a well deserved overnight rest!
unfortunately MH got the standard Rock Star attitude and decided to trash our hotel room the following morning...so obviously, we left rather quickly to avoid the impending visit from the Police... we were now the Band On The Run!
finally made it to the French Quarter where Bourbon Street is but there were a lot of roadworks happening and every street we attempted to turn down was either blocked off or was converted to a oneway road...obviously the one way was not the way we hoped for...fianlly got parked just around the corner from Bourbon Street...so at least we were close to where we wanted to be!

[CRAZY-HORSE]

Bourbon Street...street of excitement,partying,dancing,jazz bands, maybe bars and strip joints....these are images that obviously immediately spring to mind, and that may be the case once the sun sets, but MH and myself went there during the day, not much happening at all except the constant smell of stale alcohol,vonit and urine in every breath you breathe, old black guys with hoses, hosing down the sidewalks, ocviously cleaning up from the night before.....not a pretty place to venture in, but had to go there just to say "ive been to bourbon street"!, later on when we got to Florida, MH's son-in-law told us of some stories of his friends who had some pretty scary times there at night time, so we ended up being glad we only saw the daylight of New Orleans and in particular The French Quarter!

this first pic is of the typical layout of the facade of buildings on and around Bourbon Street, most of these buildings tend to have shops,bars/clubs on the street level and people live in the upper floor appartments.



also, loved the look of this quaint little place on Bourbon Street...has lots of character IMO



notice the top item on this list from outside a bar on Bourbon Street...further down the road there was another bar that sold "huge ass beers"..guess they tried to outdo eachother!



a hotdog vendor out on the streets at 9am in the morning,love the colours of the hotdog stand!
also, to put in perspective the disaster that was Hurricane Katrina...i asked some guy on the street how high the waters got at their peak and he said to the tops of the doors, now visualise high high they were in the following picture...utter destruction! New Orleans still hasnt recovered from that disaster as over half the premises in the French Quarter are still either closed down or undergoing renovational work, almost a decade after the event!




found this quaint little cafe type eatery on Bourbon Street where we both had fried Catfish with Cajun spices....guess we went in there primarily because of a bronze Fats Domino statue at its entrance...so we ate our food,drank a couple of drinks and listened to the sounds of a jazz guitarist and female singer seranading us under the air conditioning system!








wanted to see the mighty Mississippi River so we took a walk down to the banks, on the way there, outside a Catholic Cathederal we saw these two black dudes playing and singing "when the saints go marchin' in"...absolutely fantastic, think we were both shocked not to see more of this in this great city of music!


finally, a view of the mighty Mississippi River whose levee's broke under the intense storm that was Katrina, interesting to note that New Orleans,even though a coastal city actually sits several feet below sea level, which didnt help when the floods hit!

[Music Head]

This is a test
Beware of the following pics

some Aussie dude I met on my summer vacation