On the road. Day four. Part two. The spot where he stood
Get link
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
Where were we?
We'd ordered an Uber. J dropped Jules a line (swapped numbers in the queue for Graceland, me and Paul didn't get round to it until the last day in New Orleans), let her know we'd ordered. They were just about to order. We sat, waited for ours, watched them get into theirs. Which seems the wrong order.
That light rain that fell as we stood at the graves? By 4, while we were in the Uber. it was a monsoon. Our driver was lovely. Her profile said she liked to meet new people, liked to chat. She missed our turn off for Sun Studio because we were having a gab. So we got to see a lot of Memphis. An incredible hospital built by an incredibly famous actor. I didn't want to ruin the conversation by pointing out that his fame hadn't actually translated to England. But that's sound, they probably haven't heard of Ken Barlow.
We park up. I start to step out. Point out to J that she should watch the puddle (which is massive). Our driver's not having this, she's not letting us get out until she finds a spot where we won't get soaked in some way. She's brilliant. Five stars and a nice tip, obviously.
The photo's taken later. After the rain. The thing you need to know is:
I didn't look up. Not going in (when we were concentrating on getting out of the rain) or coming out (when we were talking to the lovely Australian lad who took the photo for us). I didn't look up. At the bloody massive guitar hanging over our heads, which just happens to be one of THE landmarks in the history of music.
Sun is everything. The upstairs with the complete rebuild of Dewey Phillips' (no relation to Sam, the legendary owner of the Memphis Recording Company) radio studio. The downstairs with Marion Kaiser's desk, the desk where she greeted a seventeen year old trucker who wanted to record a song for his mother. Marion's own copy of 'That's Alright' sitting on the turntable where Dewey first played out the new sound of this absolute unknown local kid. The amp from the recording of Rocket 88 (which, as we all know, is THE first rock'n'roll single). The torn amp with the paper stuffed in it that gave us distortion for the first time.
Down to Marion's office, where Elvis entered. Where Johnny entered, where Jerry Lee entered. Where The Big O entered. Where Howlin' Wolf entered. Where everyone entered. And we're into what J's cousin Tony described as 'the Bethlehem of Rock'n'Roll.
The studio itself. The spot where Scotty Moore stood marked with an X. The spot where Bill Black stood, marked with an X. The sweet spot for every vocalist. The spot where Elvis stood on the day that the three of them messed round during a break and invented the rest of history. Two pieces of black gaffs tape crossed over shouldn't be enough. But it is.
The original floor, original wall tiles, ceiling tiles. 1954 incarnate. Preserved perfectly in what is still a working studio. You can feel it. You can feel everything.
Photographing guitars (with J's phone, my battery's gone). Photographing pianos, keys, the 68 Ludwig (I think) kit that Larry Mullen Jnr left behind when they recorded When Love Comes To Town and Angel Of Harlem in the room.
Then, after the guide has taken us through everything, he talks about the real treasure. The treasure that's been hiding in full sight all along. He reaches to the right. To the mic stand that he's been stood by for nearly ten minutes, places it in front of him.
This. Is the mic. The actual mic. The one that everyone used. Sam Phillips kept it. And when he was coming to the end of his life, he left it to the studio/museum. With one proviso. That it not sit in a glass case, that it not be treated as sacred. That people be allowed to touch. That everyone be allowed to touch it.
So, for the next ten minutes we do. All of us, one at time, two at a time. As many photos as we want.
Unique. Incredible.
(Tea in the hotel - a 'Night With Jack' for me: Shrimp, Pork, Steak, all in various Jack Daniel's sauces and a rather fantastic - and not inexpensive - bottle of Primitivo. And as we're eating this very wonderful meal, we're talking about all the little coincidences that brought us to meet Paul and Jules and how amazing the links were between us. And they walked right past the window at that exact point)
Bed by 10, up at 7.
Nothing from J today in the book, I have a feeling I may find a revisit on some of these points from J's perspective in the next few days - look forward to them, they'll be like this but with actual emotion attached)
On the 23rd of October ten years ago, I was supposed to write here for the final time. I was writing up until my 50th birthday then stopping. Job done. The task I'd set myself at the start of 2013 complete. Obviously that didn't happen. I enjoyed it too much, had too much to say. But, in time, it dwindled. I didn't feel the need to write here as I had so many other things to write elsewhere - - aside: I intended to write a 'What Happened Next' piece here for my 60th. Started it, semi-planned it, was going to talk about everything that had happened after the blog/partly because of the blog. But other things came up and I wasn't convinced people would be that interested. So I didn't. And none of that is the point. None of it's the reason I'm back here for this one. J's cousin, Paula, bought us a book: a notebook, lined empty pages and a pocket at the back for memorabilia (of the paper kind, snow globes would have been an issue), nicely bound, impr
Note to self: yesterday was about a single, it played at 45rpm, change the speed. Full on John Peel "this one plays at 33" moment there. Which didn't benefit Michael Stipe in any way at all. "We're REM, from Athens Georgia. This one's new." They were all new, we knew nothing about them other than the whispers that were coming out in the music papers. (Aside: J's on a video call in the living room, Daisy's in with me; she's currently hiding either under the banjo on its stand or behind the Rickenbacker in its case. Both are worrying me. i am, quite ironically, having kittens here. See what I did there? Dad jokes all over the place.) REM were one of the groups that made me want to own a Rickenbacker. These and The Church more than The Jam or The Beatles strangely enough. Back to the point. The radio wasn't playing REM in 83. Not that I recall. (Another aside, I'm writing this while watching/listening to PMQs - we've just had a Tor
Sunday morning. Nothing opening at breakfast time, lots of things not opening all day as it turned out, so we went for a walk. A long walk. A long walk to another state. Down to the Mississippi, along the Mississippi, to the 'Big River Crossing'. A bridge over the river. A one mile long bridge from Memphis in Nashville to West Memphis in Arkansas. Jumped over the state line, mid-river. Got to the other side, put our feet on the soil of Arkansas, turned round, walked a mile back. Genuinely brilliant and worth every second. Found ourselves in an Exxon station, in the middle of very little, waiting for an Uber. An Uber to take us out to McLemore Avenue and the Stax Museum. Which was, and I hate to say this because it's Stax and everything that came out on Stax is brilliant, massively disappointing. It's on the site of Stax, in the way that the Cavern is on the site (almost) of the Cavern. It looks like Stax. In the way the Cavern looks like the Cavern. But it's no
Comments
Post a Comment