Laid-back, eccentric Memphis is a city built by music, where the streets can often feel like a throwback to another era.
Whether you’re strolling the brick-lined byways of downtown or sliding into a booth at a Midtown dive bar, there’s often a whiff of the past lingering in the alleyways and between the stage curtains here. In Memphis, it’s still easy to imagine a young BB King carrying his guitar along Beale Street, or a teenage Elvis Presley deploying the lessons he learned there to thrill a crowd at the Overton Park Shell. Little imagination is needed to envision Otis Redding and Isaac Hayes strolling beneath the studio signs at Stax Records, or to walk in the footsteps of Johnny Cash at Sun Studio.
Memphis has kept its music history alive. And while the city’s most popular tourist attraction, Graceland, can be seen as a kitschy shrine to the late King of Rock ’n’ Roll, other corners of this soulful, Southern city invite travelers to cut a rug and help its sounds continue to thrive.
Here are the best ways to get to know Memphis.
1. Reflect at the National Civil Rights Museum
Anchoring downtown Memphis, the National Civil Rights Museum is a solemn reminder of the price paid for progress. The institution encompasses the former Lorraine Motel, whose balconies became known globally as the site where civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr was gunned down by an assassin in 1968.
A wreath marks the location of the tragedy outside; inside, an immersive story of America’s civil rights movement unfolds – a difficult but critical starting point that no visitor to Memphis should miss. The history here is grim, defiant and powerful. And it’s impossible to truly appreciate the city’s connection to the nation without exploring that past in depth.
2. Find bonafide blues on Beale Street
Beale Street in downtown Memphis is impossible to miss. This famous street rose to fame as a magnet for the city’s Black-owned businesses – from a newspaper edited by Ida B Wells to department stores owned by Robert Church, the South’s first Black millionaire. In the early 20th century, musicians ranging from jazz maestros WC Handy and Louis Armstrong to blues legends like Muddy Waters and BB King cut their teeth on Beale. Their music,…
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