Heading South At Last

Sunday 12^th. February was a very cold day in Nashville so we spent it mainly in the RV reading and catching up on our emails. I did go for a long walk along the river near the RV place in Music Valley and came across some old houses that appeared to be abandoned.

Monday 13^th. Off in to town in a taxi to the Country Music Hall of Fame, a huge building behind Broadway which also includes a tour of RCA Studio B where many of the classic country and rock n roll was recorded in the 50's. Here Elvis went when he left Sun Studio. From 'Its Now Or Never', 'A big Hunk O Love', Mess Of Blues etc through to 1971. Also Roy Orbison and the Everly Brothers and many of the country stars including Dolly Parton, Jim Reeves and Hank Snow used this studio to record. The tour was not very good as there was not much to see except an empty room and a few old tape machines, but it was a place that made music history so worth going. The guide played excerpts from the hits on an ipod balenced on one of the original tape decks, which I found profoundly ironic.

The museum itself was a lot more interesting until we got about half way through and then it was a succesion of fancy jackets and old guitars. The best things were two amazing cars, one a gold decorated Cadillac given by Elvis and a white one that was Webb Pierces, decked out with crome guns for door handles and bonnet mascot with a rifle on the back. The interior was red leather all over studded with silver dollers and a saddle for the gear lever. At $33 dollers for the tour we found it expensive. However Broadway was jumping at 4 oclock on a Monday afternoon with at least a dozen bands to choose from so we did the strip once more and could not believe how good it was on a drizzly Monday night.

 Everly Brothers recording Cathy's Clown

 RCA Studio B

 In RCA Studio B

 Inside the car

Webb Pierce's car from the front

Tuesday14th.

Moving on. We packed up in slightly less cold weather and hit the road to the Delta. We had hoped to visit The Grand Ole Opry before we left but when we found it was $18 to park the bus for half an hour we moved onMiles drove like a hero back to Memphis and on South to Clarkesdale in weak sunshine.

At Tunica we took a detour to find the grave of Memphis Minnie, which was not eady but the Satnav did it again and we found the New Hope Baptist church at Walls where she is buried. 

Later we chanced upon a Blues tourist office at Tunica  on highway 61 which was inside an old railway shed with speakers out side and two lovely women inside and lots of brochure.