10 Places To See and Things To Do In: Memphis

From time-to-time I plan publish lists of 10 places to see and things to do in a place I have visited. Today’s list is from my adopted hometown of Memphis:

1. Eat ribs – Regardless of what Chicago, North Carolina, and Texas think we have the best barbecue ribs in the world. For starters they’re pork and not beef. Secondly we don’t put vinegar or cole slaw in our sauce. Third, we order them dry and then add the sauce. With that said, we usually send tourists downtown to The Rendezvous or out east to the original Corky’s to eat ribs. Locals, however will go to either Interstate Barbecue or to the Germantown Commissary.
2. Visit Sun Studios – It’s overplayed, but it’s also ground zero in the history of rock and roll. Sam Phillips owned the place back during the day. If you have a chance you should watch two movies before going on the tour: (a) Forty Shades Of Blue which was directed and co-written by Memphian Ira Sachs. This movie won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Dramatic Film at the 2005 Sundance Film Fesitval. The protagonist is loosely based on Sam Phillips. (b) Good Rockin’ Tonight: The Legacy Of Sun Records assumes you are somewhat familiar with the history of Sun Records and some of the characters from the early days. Historically, this is an important documentary although It wasn’t as well made as it should have been. Sun Studios was where Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins all made their first studio recordings. Since then U2, Beck, Tom Petty, Ringo, and Def Leppard have all recorded there.
3. Beale Street is the home of the blues. Almost every worthwhile blues musician has lived within 100 miles of Beale Street at some point and most have performed there at some point. The list includes: Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, James Cotton, and Albert King. Today, Beale Street has a lot of fun nightclubs. If you’re here in May you can attend the Beale Street Music Festival.
4. Graceland – There’s just no way around it. The “mansion” is kewl — especially the trophy room and everybody’s favorite the jungle room. The automobile museum is also great. Elvister is August 16th and Elvismas is January 8th if you happen to be in town.
5. Stax Museum Of American Soul Music – Although the importance of Motown cannot be understated in the history of R&B music, Stax was every bit as important and is often totally overlooked. Motown represented formulaic music with its lush orchestral arrangements. Don’t get me wrong it was a great formula and The Funk Brothers are one of the all time great house bands, but are you always certain you’re listening to a Four Tops record and not a Temptations tune? Stax, on the other hand, was the music of the street. It was because of this that Atlantic Records sent Otis Redding and “Wicked” Wilson Pickett to Stax to record with their house band, Booker T and the MGs, while Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin were sent elsewhere to record their albums complete with lush orchestral arrangements that sounded just like they came from Motown. Before visiting you might want to watch the documentary movies The Stax Records Story and Wattstax. Both are very well made.
6. Autozone Ballpark or the FedEx Forum – Memphis actually has a baseball stadium that is as nice as any major league baseball stadium. There isn’t a bad seat in the house. It is home to the Memphis Redbirds who are the triple-a affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. If it’s not baseball season then take in a Memphis Grizzlies basketball game at The FedEx Forum which is located at the east end of Beale St. As long as the Lakers aren’t in town you can usually buy a 5 to 10 dollar ticket and then sneak and sit downstairs in the nice seats.
7. The Memphis Zoo – This really is the nicest small zoo in the U.S. The zoo is a very easy walk from one end to the other. It has some great natural habitat exhibits including the China exhibit which houses the pandas and the Northwest Passage exhibit where on most days you can watch one of the polar bears swimming up close to the glass sides of their pool.
8. Mud Island – You can see the several blocks long scale model of the Mississippi River. Afterward you can have lunch and sit on the banks of the river and watch the barges go by.
9. The world famous Peabody Ducks. They reside up on the roof. Each morning they get on the elevator and ride down to the lobby where they hop into the lobby fountain for the day. Late afternoon they march ’em back up to the roof. In the interim there is a great bar out in the lobby where you can sit around and watch all forms of humanity.
10. Ride the downtown trolleys. From there you can see our Pyramid, Main Street, the River, the Orpheum Theatre, and Beale Street. There are lots of stops where you can shop or eat.

Of course there are plenty of other worthwhile places to go and activities to partake in (the Orpheum Theatre, Shelby Farms, etc.), but if you can do everything on this list you will have outdone at least half of all lifelong Memphians. 

Some other movies you may want to see before visiting Memphis include: Great Balls Of Fire!, U2: Rattle and Hum, Mystery Train, Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan, and Elvis: The Miniseries.

We really do have a great city, we just don’t know it.