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The Beale Street Music Festival Photos

 I finally figured out how to load these pictures (or maybe just my computer decided to co-operate today!)  The first, of course, is of Jerry Lee Lewis.  Old but can still rock!

 The crowds and a few of the many portapotties.  Note that everyone is well prepared for the elements.

 We left the festival to explore Beale Street itself.  It is steeped in music tradition, and as I said earlier, the music in the restaurants and bars was as good as that at the festival.

 Here are the crazy but good ZZ Top.  They are very strange!

 And yes, the mud.  I think this is Day 2.  By the end of Day 3, the mud was oozing overtop of sneakers.  So glad I had my yellow boots!  Best $20 I ever spent.

This is Davy Knowles from the Isle of Man.  He was my favourite.  Check him out!

We took a side trip to Graceland of course.  What we noticed was that Elvis' middle name is now spelled with 2 As, unlike twenty years ago.  There is controversy over which is correct.

Lead singer for The Wallflowers (and Bob Dylan's son).  They will be in Winnipeg at the Concert Hall in July, with Counting Crows.

Best slogan of the trip.  Found at the Civil Rights Museum, which is found at the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was assassinated.

Next task is to get some videos on this blog. Stay tuned.  You do want to see Jerry Lee play!

Memphis in Mud

Sometime in March, I saw a short piece in the Winnipeg Free Press about the Beale Street Music Festival in Memphis, May 2-4.  Sounds like a good idea, I thought.  Sounds like it will be nice and warm, I thought.  Maybe we should take our camper, I thought!  All good ideas.

The first problem presented itself when we realized that in order to take our camper, we would have to dig it out of the snow!  So one frosty Sunday, I shovelled, and the next day, early in the morning so the ground was still frozen we backed the car over the snow-covered lawn to the trailer and hauled it out of there, narrowly missing our neighbour's tree (I didn't realize that the trailer was wider than was the car).

So April 30 we set off, and immediately (well by noon) found warmth.  Council Bluffs - 28 degrees - St. Louis - 29 degrees, nice and warm for our stays in the hotels.  Then, Memphis and 26 degrees the first day.  We set up our camper, dusted off the counters, unpacked the sleeping bags and set off wandering around to scope out where the music festival was.

May 2nd it rained.  We went shopping.  May 3rd, the first day of the festival, it rained and was COLD. The festival didn't start until 6 so we went to the Civil Rights Museum, the Rock 'n Soul Museum (both excellent), had supper on Beale Street along with all the others there to see the Grizzlies' game, and headed off to the festival.  The rain stopped thankfully, but it continued to be cold and windy.  We saw Sheryl Crow and the Wallflowers, and realized that we needed boots, as already Tom Lee park was getting muddy.  (We later learned that locals call the "Memphis in May" events "Memphis in Mud").  That night the temperature plunged to 6 degrees.  In the morning we dug out the ancient heater buried under the seats in the camper, anything to take to chill off.

May 4th we shopped for boots.  None to be found anywhere in Memphis!  Off we went to the festival again and glory be!  They were selling boots!  I got myself a snazzy yellow pair and proceeded to see the hit of the show (for me anyway)  Jerry Lee Lewis.  Old, his band is older I think, can't sing much anymore, but boy can he play!  He's 77 and on his 7th wife (no wonder he looks old!), but it was worth the trip, the cold, and the expense to see him.  I can't imagine he will be performing much any more.  We also saw ZZ Top (they are strange guys) and some really good artists we didn't know (Will Tucker for one)

May 5th we went to Graceland in the morning, and the sun was shining for our Elvis tribute.  Expensive to park and enter Graceland, but hey, we probably won't be back.  Graceland hasn't changed much since we were there about 20 years ago, and we both wondered how long it will be an attraction, given that two generations have been born since he rocked.  We went to the festival for one last day, wearing boots, two sweatshirts, a jacket and a poncho.  I parked myself in the tent and saw Davy Knowles (fantastic) and Royal Southern Brotherhood (ok and loud).  Ross headed off to see The Black Crowes and Flaming Lips, both interesting experiences.  A young girl asked him if he was a cop, and said he looked like a cop.  She said she was going to believe he was a cop, because then her mom would be happy if she said she stood with a cop!

May 6th when we woke up it wasn't raining, so we got the camper down before we even got out of our pjs. By the time we had showered it had started to rain.  However as we drove north, then west, then north again, it stopped raining and was lovely and warm.  So, of course, we stayed in hotels!

All in all it was an adventure.  This was the first music festival we had ever attended (I know, we have several in Manitoba!), and I would go again.  Great music, great food, great people watching, great fun!

I am having some issues loading pictures, but will do so once I solve the problem.