Music tour
I arrived in Nashville after a 12 hour journey from London. Minus my sleeping bag, which had gotten lost in transit, I believe in London. I mention this now as it will be significant later on. The Americans do love their air travel and the airlines accommodate all routes. My flight to Memphis was on one of the smallest, oldest planes that I have ever been on. There was a row of one seats and a row of two seats and was incredibly noisy.
I took a taxi to meet up with Rose who was already at the youth hostel. She was flustered, her bag was too heavy, so was mine, so we both set upon sorting out what we did and didn’t need for the trip. The plan was to send it to her friend in San Diego.
After a much needed shower, we jumped in a cab towards downtown Nashville, looking for one of the best restaurants in town Demo’s. The food was delicious. We gave up looking for a bar called Tootsies – famous for the people that have been discovered there – as it poured with rain, not helping the already humid weather. We did encounter the “red light district” of Nashville, advertising “Nude Kareoke”. Although we were beckoned to come and join, we headed back for a good nights sleep. We did try to find it the next night, but alas, Nude karioke wasn’t on.
Next morning, after we discovered that time had gone back an hour, we headed towards the bus stop when a fellow South African living in the States and the hostel at the time, drove past and offered us a lift into town. Our first stop was tourist information and then Fedex to sort out our excess baggage.
We booked ourselves on a complete package tour. This included a walking tour, trolley tour and entrance into the Music Museum. Our walking tour guide was lovely. She was one of 43 cousins in Nashville, married to the local policeman and has about 300 plus family members in Nashville. This makes it sound like a hillbilly town but it wasn’t really. She regaled us of her stories of the stars, I think that there are so many who live there that locals get quite blase about it. Our first stop was the hatch poster shop, now these are the older type posters that were printed before a performers concert. Only 200 per show are ever printed so you can imagine the prices. Elvis, Johnny Cash – all had hatch posters made.
The next stop was the Ryman, probably made more famous after the movie Johnny Cash’s “Walk the Line”. I stood on the stage where Elvis played, interestingly enough, the Ryman management at the time told him that he wasn’t very good. Other majors to play there, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Minnie Pearl, Jim Reeves, Glen Campbell, Everly Brothers and Dolly Parton. There are plenty and newer groups want to play here because the greats did and there is good karma. A few years ago, this building steeped with history, was going to be pulled down until Dolly Parton had a few words with the owners. The Ryman have very strict performing rules, the first being, that under no circumstances can you be a minute late for your performance. If you are late twice, you never get to play there again. Madonna would struggle. Johnny Cash had his temper tantrum here and was forbidden to play after smashing up his dressing room. He bought the glass windows in the Ryman and was then only allowed to play there again.
The torrential downpour outside, almost put an end to our tour but we soldiered on. A quick walk through Tootsies (famous for the artists discovered there). The walls were covered with pictures of artists. A quick stop at a CD shop turned into a longer one while we waited for the rain to stop and Rose extended her CD collection to now include some country and western. Also handy having your tour guide married to a local policeman, meant that running across roads madly in the rain was okay.
Onto the trolley tour ride which wasn’t much to talk about. Our driver had about as many teeth as fingers as I have on my left hand. Still he was entertaining and the only place we were allowed to stop was at America’s version of the Parthenon. I don’t understand but it is a complete replica. By this time we had made friends with the other travellers in the hostel and the five of us headed off for a barbeque lunch of pork shoulder, corn and green beans…. And of course as much fizzy drink as you want.
Rose and I headed back to the Ryman to record a CD. We tried for “Islands in a Stream# but settled on “Crazy” by Patsy Cline. We are selling copies to recoup travel expenses, it sounds pretty good. Let me know. The Museum and Hall of Fame were interesting but we raced through it to make it to the Wild Horse Saloon for some free line dancing. I think that we got the basics and it looked quite good. A bar crawl followed, my energy had waned by now and I headed home with another of the permanent hostel dwellers. The music scene is fantastic though. Some real talent playing in every bar in the street, hoping to be discovered.
Next day was a greyhound bus trip to Memphis. I have plenty of things to say about public transport outside of big towns in the US, and not much of it is good. Definitely not first world when it comes to transport. But then scenes at Victoria Coach Station are just as chaotic. The locals are a lot more interesting, one lady travelling in her curlers, another weirdo wanting to preach religion and religious values to me. The bus was dirty, the stations didn’t really sell freshly prepared food, microwaveable vending machine burgers and pizza didn’t appeal. We held out for Memphis.
Julie recommended our accommodation in Memphis. It was at an RV park behind the Heartbreak Hotel in the cutest little cabins. First though, we needed to get there and Rose and I have bad luck with shuttle services. We waited about an hour before we were picked up. Lunch was at the hotel in the Jungle Room (Elvis’ home has a jungle room) and there are Elvis movies playing 24 hours.
We headed downtown to meet up with Jo, Christene and Jaylee who also moved to Memphis on the same bus. Dinner was at a place called Rendevouz, famous for it’s ribs. They were coated in crumbs, not like the barbeque sauce ribs we are used to. Rose and I shared a meal, we did this quite often as the meals were too large for each of us and we were wasting food. Beale Street was next, again famous for the music scene. Jo and Jaylee tried the bucking bronco and both did well. We bar hopped again until they started charging us when we decided to stay in BB Kings. The music was fantastic and we stayed until it closed at 2am. I had a bad nights sleep. The ma tresses were plastic and all I had was my inner sheet lining and the temperatures dropped. I was cold.
An early morning start, a 5dollar breakfast of bagels at the Jungle Room before we walked the 5 minutes to the Graceland travel centre. We opted for the platinum tour which gave us an additional couple of Elvis exhibitions, access to his car collection and the planes that he used. I didn’t think that we would be there as long as we were. We spent about 5 hours there. The tour starts with a 5 minute drive across the road and up the drive way before we disembark and follow an audio tour through the house. Some of the rooms are eccentric to say the least. A yellow bar, a pool room covered in material and a sitting room decorated african style complete with waterfall. Elvis had an extensive singing and movie career memorabilia collection. Elvis and his family are laid to rest at Graceland. Looking at the gravestones was sad, his grandmother outlived her famous grandson and his parents.
We looked for the tackiest souvenir and we could have hunted for days. There are so many, however, worth mentioning was the yellow see through plastic guitar, about as long as my arm, and filled with popcorn. An Elvis candy dispenser and Elvis lamp shades also made it near the top of the list. I am sure that Elvis is turning in his grave. There are some Elvis eccentrics out there, our limo driver (I’ll explain below) moved to be near Graceland, has a season pass and has been to Graceland 342 times, every spare chance he gets. He assures us that he notices something different each time he goes and that they do change the exhibits. Freak.
We headed off to Sun King studios after Graceland, not only to make use of their free shuttle but there was some good music recorded there. Elvis initially, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, BB King, Roy Orbison. The studio makes its money by recording during the night and giving tours during the day. After a posed photo with the microphone that Elvis potentially may have used, we headed towards the Civil Rights museum. I opted to watch the ducks at The Peabody instead. I didn’t feel that I had enough time to do the museum justice if I went. (This museum is infamous as the hotel where Martin Luther King Jr was shot).
The Peabody ducks swim around a fountain in the lobby of this 5 star hotel all day. At 5pm in the afternoon, music is played and the ducks march through the lobby, into an elevator and into their “palace” on the roof. It really isn’t a palace but a fenced in pond. The views from the top of the hotel were worth the effort of elbowing my way through hordes of pushy children to see the ducks. It was my first view of the Mississippi River.
Rose and I raced back to our little cabin and waited for the courtesy pink limo to fetch us to take us for dinner at a restaurant down the road. All I am going to say about dinner is that it was fried, as is most stuff in the south and both Rose and I were craving some normal food. The limo ride was fun, a dated limo but we have some awesome pictures.
We tried Beale Street for the music again but the group was exhausted and the cover charges put us off so we headed back for an earliesh night. I borrowed a blanket from the campsite and had a much better nights sleep.
Another early start, a shuttle to the catch the 8 hour train to New Orleans. It was a very pleasant journey. I sat in the lounge car, trying to write my diary but landed up talking to a variety of Americans. A lovely lady who was on her way home to her family after a disastrous girlie weekend in Chicago, complete with a cooler box of pizza from Chicago – the best I believe. She had interesting tales to tell about Hurricane Katrina. An eccentric ballroom dancing truck driver in cowboy boots and cowboy hat. He hated America, wanted to live in Australia, took a liking to me so I escaped. A young man on his way to complete 4 months air force training, looking at taking on an assignment to Guam. He probably thought I was a bimbo by the time we had struggled to find the bathrooms in the train station and he thought I was trying to draw cash from the Amtrak train ticket machine and pointed out the ATM next to it – I wasn’t. Lastly, two tourist representatives who were promoting New Orleans and National Parks. Jonathon was great and we had our own personal tour as we headed into New Orleans. Handy to have the locals and he was able to point out some of the destruction caused by Katrina that hasn’t been fixed yet.
We didn’t have accommodation booked so we jumped in a taxi to Jackson Square – the main square in the French Quarter. I headed towards Tourist Information who had cheap deals on accommodation. We were able to get a really good 3 star hotel for a good price.
My first impressions of New Orleans were very positive. We arrived on a Sunday afternoon and there were market stalls around the square, lots of big colourful umbrellas. My impression didn’t change too much. There is much to do and it is a very interesting city.
Our first exploration was of Point Algiers over the river. It was an incredibly hot day. We had to stop for refreshments along the way at a local pub, again with the live music that we had become spoilt with in Nashville and Memphis. Lots of beautiful houses, some of them quite old and when it got dark, victorian gas lamps lit up the verandas. An early night was called for and we felt better for it the next day.
Rose headed off for a city tour while I caught up with some admin and wandered through the French Quarter, which is and looks more spanish. The afternoon heralded a trip on a steamboat down the Mississippi. I could lie and tell you the views were amazing but I won’t. I have plenty of pictures of tankers, docks and a sugar factory. The captain did however point out where the levee broke in District 9, along the canal, which caused all the damage during hurricane Katrina and an old plantation house. It is quite easy to see how much New Orleans is below sea level from the River. Still it was a lovely trip, on a steamboat just like you see on TV.
A dinner of gumbo and jambalaya later and we were off to hit the music scene on Bourbon Street. We weren’t disappointed and found a cute bar with live music, after paying an extortionate amount of money for 2 bottles of water, we listened until closing.
Next morning was a self guided tram tour of the Garden District, beautiful large old homes…. Think plantation houses. I imagine the upkeep is quite expensive. The afternoon was set aside for a cemetery and voodoo tour. The cemeteries in New Orleans are quite interesting. People aren’t buried underground because of the water (remember New Orleans below sea level). Large vaults are built above ground, a body in a wooden coffin is placed in the vault. Temperatures inside the vault reach 300 Farenheit, pretty much cremating the body and coffin. After a year and a day, the ash is scooped into a bag and placed in a box at the bottom of the vault. Can’t afford your own fault – there were communal vaults. If you are unfortunate to die and there isn’t space for you in your fault, you timeshare in another until the obligatory one year and one day frees up some space in the family vault. Unfortunately, the vaults are mostly is a sad state of repair, much is being done to preserve them but there is still a long way to go. We stopped at the voodoo queen Miriam Lequeffes grave, vandalised by the 3 XXX’s made to the marble. Supposed to be good fortune if you do, but our guide almost got into a fight with another group of tourists who did.
We then headed off to the voodoo centre and to meet a voodoo priestess. Rose and I were both a little unnerved by the voodoo shops that we had been in. Movies have portrayed voodooism in a bad light, but it involves more counselling, listening and positive thinking. Still we were freaked out by some of the grotesque voodoo dolls we saw, which incidentally probably have more to do with the Day of the Dead than anything else. We spoke to the priestess but mostly about travel.
Before dinner we had a quick horse and carriage ride around New Orleans. I had seen most of the French Quarter on my own, but the driver pointed out Brangelina’s New Orleans home and the house that inspired “House of the Rising Sun” … there was a house in New Orleans, they called it the Rising Sun …. It was a brothel.
Our evening entertainment was at Pat O Brians. The tourist representative had mentioned this was good and it was. We sat in the piano lounge until it closed. Three pianists alternated playing any song requested, if they didn’t have the music, they googled it. It was a fantastic evening and so ended our stay in New Orleans.
