Memphis day II

The disaster stories about the Mississippi flooding proved to be largely exaggerated. Some low-lying neighborhoods got flooded, which is of course disaster for the people who live there, but downtown was not affected. After Graceland, Sun Record Company was the other must see in Memphis. On Saturday July 18 1953, Elvis recorded the first of two double sided demo acetates. Since parking is relatively scare around the Sun Studios, we decided to be at Sun when the opened up at 9am.



The museum has an interesting collections of music memorabilia from the 20th century, like this chair used by B.B. King.


For the afternoon, we took a city tour to get a taste of the city. Interesting was the music scene in Beale street. In the early 1900s, Beale Street was filled with clubs, restaurants and shops, many of them owned by African-Americans. It was not until the 1980s that Beale Street was redeveloped which led to an economic revitalization with new clubs and attractions opening.



For a photographer luckily some of the old attractions are preserved.