Sun Records Studio
Beale Street
The Memphis Pyramid - Home of U of Memphis Hoops
More Beale StreetTuesday took us to Memphis, Tennessee. We decided to skip our intended stop at Branson a day earlier, and Memphis provided us the reason why. We decided to travel during the winter to see some sunshine. We saw lots of sun, but this is the time of the year that tourist areas are somewhat slow while artists get a little sun themselves. What that means to us is Memphis was a fairly dead town. We did the tourist things, wandering down Beale Street, around Peabody Place and going to Sun Studios, whose owner made one of the smartest financial moves of all times by selling the contract of a young singer for $50,000. How was he to know that young Elvis Aron Presley would have the career that he did? We did travel to Graceland and take some pictures from outside, but since neither of us are very big Elvis fans we decided against spending $55 for the tour.
Graceland
The biggest disappointment about Memphis was pulling into the parking lot to visit Mud Island and the Mississippi River Museum and being told that it was closed. Winter trip timing strikes again.
We left Memphis and headed for Little Rock, Arkansas where Ron attended the Quest for Authentic Manhood meeting at Fellowship Bible Church. Our church is hoping to start this men’s ministry and it was good to see how it is presented at the church where it started. Because it was done at 6:00 in the AM it left us plenty of time to get to our next destination, Kansas City, MO, and the Negro League Baseball Museum.
Because Ron is such a sports fan, and in particular a baseball fan, any trip to a hall of fame or sports museum is a must, therefore we headed north into the frigid Midwest. Unfortunately photography is forbidden in the museum so we do not have any pictures. It is a wonderful display of a time in our country that we did not adhere to the principle that all men are created equal. Black baseball players were forbidden from playing in the “Major” Leagues (i.e. white baseball) from the late 1880s until Jackie Robinson debited for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.
We left Memphis and headed for Little Rock, Arkansas where Ron attended the Quest for Authentic Manhood meeting at Fellowship Bible Church. Our church is hoping to start this men’s ministry and it was good to see how it is presented at the church where it started. Because it was done at 6:00 in the AM it left us plenty of time to get to our next destination, Kansas City, MO, and the Negro League Baseball Museum.
Because Ron is such a sports fan, and in particular a baseball fan, any trip to a hall of fame or sports museum is a must, therefore we headed north into the frigid Midwest. Unfortunately photography is forbidden in the museum so we do not have any pictures. It is a wonderful display of a time in our country that we did not adhere to the principle that all men are created equal. Black baseball players were forbidden from playing in the “Major” Leagues (i.e. white baseball) from the late 1880s until Jackie Robinson debited for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.
The first black man to coach in the majors was Buck On"Neil who was a tremendous ambassador for the sport and the face of the museum until his death in 2006. During that time they had their own professional leagues with teams mostly owned by black people. In the words of one player, the good thing about this league was that it created the second largest black owned business in the country. Also the places that they did business with were black owned. The bad side to this is that players like Josh Gibson, possibly the greatest home run hitter in the history of the game, did not get the chance to play against Babe Ruth or the great pitchers of the white leagues.
On the other side of the building was a jazz museum where we saw displays about mixing music in a sound studio and others devoted to the great jazz artists of yesteryear. Musicians like Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker were represented. It was an interesting contrast to the trip to the Country Music Museum.
On the other side of the building was a jazz museum where we saw displays about mixing music in a sound studio and others devoted to the great jazz artists of yesteryear. Musicians like Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker were represented. It was an interesting contrast to the trip to the Country Music Museum.
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