Minutes in Memphis
Why am I not in Memphis at least once a month?
I say this every time I go to Memphis: Why am I not here all the damn time? It’s less than 300 miles from my house, just over a four-hour drive straight down I-55. It’s affordable and it’s a whole city built on music and social justice. I spent my first few years in St. Louis trying to figure out how to move to Memphis.
And yet, I haven’t made a significant (more than a night) trip to Memphis since September, 2017. Granted, that was two weeks after I busted my knees, and relatively close to Covid, but still. I love Memphis.
That last long Memphis trip wasn't great, which is likely another reason why I’ve stayed away. I was limping through a gourmet shop in search of Benton’s country ham when I realized I had one knee twice its normal size, so there are associations with the whole knee saga. And I kept having panic attacks about my cat, Gordo, that turned out to be valid. Shortly after the trip he was diagnosed with the diabetes that would take him at the end of 2019.
Some of my lack of contemporary Memphis trips likely comes from taking my proximity to the city for granted. It was my first road trip, and from the mid-1990s until 2002 I spent quite a bit of time going to Memphis. Then CJ was born and I only went in 2007 with some girlfriends, 2011 with CJ, and that anxious 2017 trip.
I’ve spent two nights in Memphis since then, and I want more. Those nights were spent while either coming or going from New Orleans. One of these days I’d love to spend five days in Memphis, a couple of days driving through Mississippi, then a week in New Orleans. That’s a trip for a much richer woman than me.
Those two nights in Memphis have whetted my appetite for so much more. So on my way to New Orleans three weeks ago, I stopped by The Arcade for lunch. For all my trips to Memphis and my love of its history, I’d never dined at the city’s oldest café. But I’d seen it plenty, because it’s been in a lot of movies. I’m not a movie person but I’ve seen Great Balls of Fire, Walk the Line, and Mystery Train plenty of times, and they all had scenes shot at The Arcade.
I’ve been in the neighborhood with The Arcade. In fact, I wound up across the street having a beer and burger at Earnestine and Hazel’s the night of that 2017 Wilco show. With easy access to I-55, which I didn’t realize, I’ll be stopping there for lunch every time I drive to New Orleans
On my way home, I drove from New Orleans to Memphis, but I had such a hard time leaving New Orleans that I didn’t arrive until very late. By then I only had the energy to drag myself to my hotel room and into bed. But the next day was gorgeous, and with just four hours left to get home, I spent some time driving around Memphis.
First I filled a cooler with dinner for a few days at Central BBQ, because when you live within a day’s drive of Memphis, you’d be an idiot not to. However, I was an idiot for not slowing down to have a sausage and cheese plate for lunch. I honestly don’t know what I was thinking when I decided I shouldn’t. I must have been thinking I don’t require food. Skipping this traditional Memphis appetizer/precursor to the charcuterie board with slices of in-house smoked sausage, cubes of cheddar and pepper jack, pickles, sauces, and crackers meant an emergency stop in the Missouri bootheel for McNuggets. An adequate punishment. But I did have dry-rubbed ribs with potato salad, cracklings, beans, and banana pudding when I got home, so I’m not completely hopeless.
Next, I piddled around, enjoying a beautiful spring day because Memphis in March after a long winter is delicious. Ripe with tulips bursting open on the street medians and magnolias thinking about opening their buds, Memphis in March feels like better things are happening.
I swung by Otherlands, the classic 1990s coffeehouse with Big Star lyrics painted on one of the cornerstones, but there wasn’t a parking space to be had within a block. So I headed back towards Sun Studio and happened upon an outpost of French Truck, my favorite New Orleans coffee place that I never visit when I’m in New Orleans. I bought their coffee beans during a grocery run last year and they’re one of my favorite roasters now. Good thing I can order online.
Turns out, they have a big presence in Memphis! And even roast there! So I stopped for coffee for here and there.
My coffee stop was close enough to Sun Studio that I could almost see it. Or, at least envision it. I haven’t stopped there since I took CJ in 2011. I’ve wanted to stop for photos every time I’ve been in Memphis since, but there’s always at least one group tour bus parked in front of the studio door, blocking the original neon sign, which is what I want to photograph. And that was the case this time, except, for once, I remembered the little parking lot on the side.
Not that I remembered how to access the parking lot. A little traversing the parking lots of the neighboring medical buildings eventually got me where I wanted to be: a lot where I wouldn’t get another parking ticket. I already had one of those from Tattoo Day in the French Quarter.
I held the front door for the last of the elderly Christian group who were on their way back to the bus parked out front as I walked into the café and gift shop. No matter how many years pass, whenever I’m in that room I want a fried banana pie. They used to serve them in the café where Sam Phillips cut record deals with some of the greatest voices the South produced in the 20th century. My first visit in 1994 included a fried banana pie with napalm-hot filling that burned the roof of my mouth but I still want another even though they haven’t sold them in many years.
Instead, I grabbed some goodies, including another bag of French Truck coffee beans, since they do a special roast just for Sun.
Since locally-relevant coffee beans are my souvenir of choice—I’m going to buy coffee beans at home anyway, so why not buy them when I travel, then save the bags from the special ones?—I added another bag to my stash along with a copy of Devil’s Music, Holy Rollers, and Hillbillies: How America Gave Birth to Rock and Roll. Because books about local music history are second on my souvenir list, and I’ve wanted to read this one for quite a while.
There were four kids, probably a little older than I was when I first walked in those doors at age 21, working. One was enthusiastic to give me a tour, but I passed. In retrospect, since I was the only visitor, I wonder if I missed a second opportunity to get an off-script Sun tour. They were all fine with me lingering in the shop with my goods, just soaking up the atmosphere and spirits.
Because that building is loaded with ghosts. Good ghosts, redeemed for earthly errors, who were happy to see me. Being in that building makes my nervous system still, then zap to life from the sound of rollicking piano, high-step drum beats, thumping bass, and beautiful jangly distortion paired with angel voices.
And it hit me that just being in Sun Studio makes me feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be. Where I belong.
“He reached in his pocket and he flashed a quart and hollered, ‘Rave on, children, I’m with you! Rave on, cats!’ he cried. It’s almost dawn and the cops are gone. Let’s all get dixie fried!”
I don’t know why a part of me lives in one of the most problematic eras of American history. Some of it’s likely because my parents were fans of the music so I heard it growing up and latched on. Along with growing up in the 1950s pop culture revival of the 1970s. “Laverne and Shirley” was my jam. And yet I’m old enough and educated enough to know better than to romanticize the 1950s.
But there’s something that feels so right in my soul in Memphis, and at Sun. And Stax, too, although I haven’t been there in 15 years, either.
The title of the book I bought, though … devil’s music, holy rollers, hillbillies … They all were part of my upbringing and in determining who I have become. As a kid I’d go to the Pentecostal Church of God with Granny Viv, just for the live music and five-piece electric band.
But it was like, “Here’s this music that will light your soul on fire. Don’t you dare let it do so.”
And yet, I did. Thank god.
Rave on, Children.
Post-script: Halfway through writing this on March 31, I got a message I’d been dreading. My friend Dr. Mark Fernandez, an acclaimed history professor at Loyola University in New Orleans and renown Woody Guthrie scholar, had passed. I was afraid this was happening, as I texted him right before my trip and didn’t hear back. He’d been quiet for some time about the progression of the brain cancer he’d been fighting for years. I feared his silence meant the worst.
Mark was not only a professor who touched an astounding number of lives through his work in the classroom, but also a beloved husband, dad, grandfather, musician, and one of my biggest cheerleaders. I wouldn’t be trying to sell my Woody book right now had it not been for Mark taking a shine to me almost a decade ago. Mark was also a Big Spender—a 6 Days paid subscriber. He embodied the spirit of New Orleans and Woody with the enormous amount of love he left in his wake. I will never not miss him. Thank you, Mark.
Sorry you lost a gem like Mark. Sounds like the planet was a warmer, worthier place with him around 💔
One can learn a lot about American history, in all its tragedy, majesty and resilience, on a road trip through Mississippi. At least that’s what I got out of it.