Wheelin' and Rockin' with DIanE

It wasn’t intentional at the beginning of planning this trip but once we started it became apparent that the second half of the trip would have a ton of music related stuff and Memphis just enhanced the whole leg.

For those that have known me a long time, you know I have always been an Elvis fan, in particular his early stuff. As most of you know I am also a big Stones fan and I traded the first record I ever bought, Through the Past Darkly by the Stones for a very bad Elvis record.

We only hit two places in Memphis, Sun Studios and Graceland.

The Sun Studio visit was great. This is where Elvis first recorded a song for his mothers birthday and the woman who worked there with Sam Philips mentioned to Sam to listen to this kid. The rest is history. Elvis’s first recording’s were here and his first hit Blue Moon of Kentucky was one of them. The place is still an active studio and our guide also is a musician and he had a session recently with Wynnona Judd. Walking through this place was very cool…thinking of the Million Dollar Quartet(Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis) plus all the others that recorded here.

Scotty Moore’s Gibson guitar. He was Elvis’ guitarist early on.

You could actually get a pic with a Mike that was used by all those greats.

The next stop was Graceland and I actually didn’t take many pictures here. There were a couple exhibits…Elvis’s planes, his cars, motorcylces and carts, his time in the army, a Lisa exhibit and then Graceland itself. It was cool to get a sense of what he called home.

It was really a good place to visit. Next up Nashville!