Memphis.

This is a fairly epic saga with a word count of 1825 apparently, so yeah, happy reading.

Memphis was a surreal experience. I’m not sure where to begin, so I guess I’ll start at the beginning.

At first I wasn’t all that impressed with Memphis after coming from Nashville. My hostel was actually just a motel in disguise and it had taken me ages to find it. From this I learned the lesson of writing down the addresses and directions of the places i’m meant to be staying at. But slowly the city grew on me and I ended having so much of a good time that I ended up staying an extra night.

The main street that everyone parties on in Memphis is Beale Street. It’s not a whole lot different to Broadway in Nashville, every bar does live music and it’s busy at just about any time of the day or night (up to 3am when there’s a curfew on Beale). The difference is the type of music. Nashville does country, but Memphis is all blues. The great B. B. King was in town when I was about, doing a gig at his club (it’s called B. B. King’s). I was tempted to get a ticket and see the legend perform in the flesh but we were talking $200 a ticket here. You’re good BB, but not $200 good, especially when you’re playing what is just essentially a big bar where I can listen to you for free by ogling through the window.

Memphis is famous for someone else of course. A certain young man from Tupelo, Mississippi made Memphis his home in the 50’s where he forged a bit of a career for himself as a singer. His name was Mr Elvis Presley and he approached Sam Philips, owner of Sun Records and Sun Studios, Memphis wanting to record a song for his mother in 1954. It was a ballad and Sam didn’t think ballads were particularly good so it was the ‘no’ pile for Elvis and that was the end of that.

I jest of course, the man has sold over a billion records worldwide. It was Sam that did soon after discover him and Sun Studios where he recorded the song that got him noticed by everyone else ‘That’s All Right’. Being a musical person I felt I should pay a visit to Sun Studios. It was all rather interesting. Turns out Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis recorded a lot of their hits there too released on Sun Records so it was inspiring to see the place and the instruments that these songs were recorded on. The piano in the studio has a great big burn on one of the keys where Jerry Lee Lewis stubbed out a cigar once.

Next on the list of Memphis tourist destinations was Elvis’ house that he bought when he was in his 20s, Graceland. Now Graceland is pretty much Mecca for Elvis fans around the globe and dozens of Elvis related exhibits have sprung up over the road from the mansion. You can go see his cars, his planes, his clothes etc. It really is a pretty comprehensive collection of memorabilia.

Graceland is the piece de resistance though, kept the way it was when the king reigned over Memphis you get a good idea of his personality and sense of style. I won’t go into too much detail as every room is completely different from the previous one. But he did have some pretty extravagant taste, and something of a penchant for putting brightly coloured shag pile carpet on the ceilings and walls, as well as the floor.

Outside you can visit his gravesite, surrounded by hundreds of floral and homemade tributes sent in from Elvis fan clubs around the world. People were weeping and muttering sweet somethings to his final resting place. I however, could only think of Spinal Tap and ended letting out a small chuckle to myself. It was quite inappropriate given the location.

David: Well this is thoroughly depressing..

Nigel: It really puts perspective on things, though, doesn’t it?

David: Too much, there’s too much fucking perspective now..

Gotta watch that film when get I back. Anyway I digress..

So time goes fast when you’re Indiana Jones-ing it around the world like me and before I knew it I’d come to my last night in the city. A traveller in Nashville told me I should check out this bar, Ernestine and Hazels which was quite far from Beale Street. Lonely Planet recommended it too so I set off into the hot Tennessee night (such nights are not exclusive to Tennessee, i’d be quite grateful for a grey day to be honest, maybe even half an hour of rain, it’s just too hot down here) in search of this mysterious bar.

The bar is a bit of a dive to be honest. In it’s previous life before it was a bar it was a brothel. Blues greats such as B. B. King and Muddy Waters used to ‘hang out’ here and soul legend Ray Charles had an apartment on one of the floors where he used to shoot up during his heroin days. It’s fine though, gives the place character.

It was Tuesday so I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised to walk through the door and be greeted by two people at the bar and a bartender. “Well this is happenin'” I thought. Thinking i’d probably have a drink, then leave. I sat myself next to the older of the two gentlemen and at first we drank in silence. Then he went off to smoke or something and it was just me and this young guy.

Young guy asks me where i’m from, and hey up, all of a sudden we’re in a conversation and I order another Red Stripe. Young guy, we’ll call him SM to protect his identity, is actually for once very interested where i’m from and I point out Gloucestershire on his iphone as well as show him where other various UK landmarks were. I ask SM what he does.

“I’m a reporter”

“Ah nice, working for a paper or magazine?”

“No, on the tv, working for Fox News..”

Awesome. He denies it, but it sounds like his day to day life, is pretty much the plot of Anchorman and he’s Ron Burgundy. He’s literally a Memphis celeb. Wears a baseball cap when he goes so he’s not constantly recognised and there I am, having a beer with him, friends on facebook, his business card in my wallet. He’s an awesome guy, took me out for a night on the town the next day, picked up more than his fair share of the tabs and had a genuine interest in travelling to the UK. SM if you do cross the pond, hit me up.

Older guy returns to the bar and joins in the conversation. We’ll call him JD. Turns out he’s a detective for the Memphis Police Department. Pretty sure the stereotypical american cop that we see in films was partly based on this guy. He’s been shot too many times to be healthy, been in the force for a long time, doesn’t like crime, does like the death penalty and carries a gun even when off duty. I know this because he got it out and placed it on the bar. You don’t get that so much in England I find.

JD was a hoot, full of insane stories from his years in the force. The way he told them, you knew he wasn’t making this stuff up. Some of it was pretty scary, most of it pretty hilarious. Turns out police departments out here really do let off steam by shooting out street lamps, I kid you not.

Anyway JD takes a liking to me (who couldn’t?) and gives me his number. Asks me to give him a call tomorrow. With SM’s promise of a night on the town, and JD’s offer i’m straight on the phone to the hostel booking another night in Memphis.

So the next day i’ve got some time to kill before JD starts work. I take a trip to the Civil Rights museum. Not brilliant in terms of museums as there’s too much reading to be done. But it’s actually built in the motel where civil rights activist Martin Luther King was fatally shot in 1968. That part of the museum was pretty interesting and the balcony comes right at the end of the museum after you’ve become pretty clued up on the enormous struggle for racial equality that’s been happening in America since the slave trade.

Four a clock came around JD says he’ll send someone round to pick me up. A few minutes later a car pulls up to where i’m waiting and i’m beckoned over by a guy in a suit with a big gold detective’s shield hanging from his neck. I introduce myself and away we go, I have no idea what to expect.

“Can’t take you take to the station man.” he says “Gotta go to the hospital first, we got a case”. Sure, i’ll just tag along.

Half an hour later and there I am, sitting in an A&E ward in a Memphis hospital, sitting in on an interview with a gunshot victim.

“Who’s he?” the doctors and nurses ask the detective

“Oh he’s with me, he’s a cop”..

Yep, sure am.. I’ve never interviewed a gunshot victim before but for some reason she was talking to me, even though the real detective was asking the questions.

Don’t talk to me love, i’m not getting any of what you’re saying down, talk to the guy with the shield.. It all sounds very interesting though, i’d probably break it off with him though if I were you. Especially if he’s going to keep shooting you. She was ‘ok’ though, I mean, there was a hole going through her thigh, but they were looking at releasing her later that day.

Post interview and we head to the station downtown where I meet up with JD. JD is great. He shows me around, introduces me to the chiefs, takes me out in one of the cars (Memphis cop cars, are much more badass looking than ours), buys me a steak sandwich and huge iced sweet tea and explains that in Memphis, shootings are a daily occurence. A little later and he’s showing me around HQ, we turn a corner in the station..

“And this..is the guy that shot his lady this morning”. A drunk looking black guy is sat forlornly in his cell. He possible hasn’t realised the gravity of the situation. “They’re transferring him to the jail across the street so we’ll ride the elevator down with them.”

And there I am, me, JD the stereotypical detective, two heavily armed police officers and a guy who likes to shoot people, riding the elevator. Gotta love Memphis.