The Music State

Hello Everyone!!

The last time we saw you, we were in New Orleans. We are now in Chapel Hill, a stones throw away from home (never thought id say that a 10 hour drive was a stones throw, but thats what a three month road trip will do to you). Due to our delayed blogging, I will be blogging on Memphis and Nashville, while Chris will be blogging on Atlanta and Charleston.

After New Orleans, we mosied up the Great River Road/Blues Highway up the Mississippi Delta to Memphis, Tennessee, home of the blues. Going up through the Delta was a very cool experience for me because my senior thesis was written about events of the Civil Rights Movement in the Mississippi. To actually see the terrain and the areas that I wrote about was a very visceral experience. I couldnt help but look back at the events that I wrote about.

Fittingly, our first stop in Memphis was the Civil Rights Museum, which is very well put together and really informative. I was worried that because it is located in the hotel that Martin Luther King was shot that it would just be totally MLK centric, and not give credit where credit is due to other smaller organizations that had as large or larger an impact on the movement. However, this was not the case and the museum really gives a very full treatment to all aspects of the movement. Definitely a must see in Memphis.

However, the big draw to Memphis is the music. We went down to the famed blues clubs on Beale St. both nights, seeing two very good blues acts. We also got great barbecues while we were in Memphis as well. What is it about blues and barbecue that always seem to go together? I dont know, but i sure enjoy the combination (probably up there with chicken and waffles for best combination).

Our second day in town, we went to the Stax Records Studio and Museum, which was heaven for me, a big fan of the whole catolog. There we had our first celebrity experience since Christian Slater followed us around LA. We got to the museum early and were basically the only people there, other than Chris Tucker, the guy from Rush Hour. We struck up a conversation and walked through the museum together for a bit, talking about the music and our road trip. You know that youre doing something cool when you meet a celebrity and hes the one that is impressed. Anyway, Chris Tucker is very chill and cool guy, nothing like his character in the movies.

From Memphis we followed the music highway up to Nashville, home of Country music. We happened to get there the night of the Country Music Awards, and went straight to the red carpet for some stargazing, even though we wouldn't be able to recognize probably 90% of the people there. We did see Reba McEntire though, which was very cool. (No Taylor Swift though, which is what everyone who has asked about it wanted to know) My parents, who came to Nashville a couple of years ago, hooked us up with some great recommendations, including a great songwriters circle the first night and an amazing family style restaurant where we ate soul food to our hearts content on the second night, capping Chris' birthday with a bang.

We also checked out the downtown strip, which was full of honky tonks blaring incredible live country music. My mom told me to expect everyone down there to have incredible voices, and on our first night we were walking down the strip and heard this girl with incredible pipes. Thinking this was a great band, we went in for a closer look, and lo and behold, it was a kareoke bar! What a city!

Thanks to our new friend Anthony for showing us great hospitality in Memphis, and thanks to Megan for letting us stay with her and allowing us to sleep in even though she had to leave at 8 am. Very clutch for some road weary trippers.

Keep it real

Nick