November 4, 2023
We arrived in Memphis from Hilton Head Island, via Delta on November 3rd in the evening in time to check-in at the famous Peabody Hotel then proceed to join the rest of the group at Itta Beno restaurant. The restaurant is within the B.B. King Blues Club which fits one of the themes of the trip.
First, a little bit about the group which was organized by Wendy Pangburn who puts together top end trips. This trip was for the YPO organization mostly the Southern California, chapter. We had done a trip with Wendy and this group to Egypt which was excellent. The trip was great and the people were too, so when the chance to tour the Mississippi came along we jumped at it. The group had toured the Civil Rights Museum and the Withers Collection in the afternoon and it was great seeing many familiar faces from the Egypt trip when we met for dinner.
What evolved during the trip fell into four categories, Music specifically the Blues, Cotton and Sugarcane antebellum wealth made possible by slavery, Civil Rights, and the World War II Museum in New Orleans.
Our journey started the next day when we were bused to Elvis Presley’s Graceland. What a great way to start our exploring by being emersed in the career of the performer given credit for catapulting the uniquely American form of Music, ELVIS.
Elvis purchased Graceland when he was 22 years old and is now a center piece to the museum. By todays standards modest for a superstar who generated enormous wealth. No flash photo’s were allowed but the rec room gives you a little taste of Elvis’s style.
Across the street, Elvis Presley Blvd. , is the main museum complex consisting of at least a dozen large buildings plus outdoor exhibits. These exhibits range from his Airplanes, fleet of cars and other vehicles, to his costumes, and numerous awards and other performers who carried on his genre and themes. Two things that stuck with me, John Lennon, the Beatle, was quoted “Until Elvis there was nothing”. In terms of success Elvis sold more records than, Frank Sinatra or the Beatle’s by a huge margin. He sold more records that any other performer in fact. He was an incredible money generating success with 400 Gold records, selling 212 million vinyl albums and another 135 million singles.
After a bar-b-que lunch at Vernon’s Smoke House we boarded our bus to travel to Clarkdale, MS, which was featured in a CBS 60 Minuets program and is called the “Birthplace of the Blues”. If you didn’t see the program I strongly recommend it. This link will take you there: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/blues-lives-on-in-mississippi-as-cultural-inheritance-60-minutes-transcript/ you will have to turn off your ad blocker but its worth suffering through some commercials.
As the 60 Minuets program indicated Clarksville’s run of cotton wealth is gone but the Blues is alive and going strong. We then reboarded our bus for Rosedale, MS where we board our river boat the Viking Mississippi.
