Music City and another rather musical city

I guess I left off here, at which point we were heading back into Nashville to enjoy the evening music scene. Did we enjoy it? Oh yes we did!

Most of the music is located on Broadway. We had checked out some country music in the afternoon at a bar called The Stage. I'm not a huge fan of pop country but it was fun to be in the presence of live music and enjoy a decent beer (Yazoo Pale Ale) with my friends. We checked into the hotel to rest a while before heading back out for the evening, which was where I left off.

The biggest challenge was finding a place that would let us all in, as we did have one roadtrip team member who was under 21 (but of legal drinking age in his home country!). He knew better than to ignore that law, but the doormen still needed to follow it. We found a ribs place that didn't really seem to care who wandered in and enjoyed a pair of guitars while a few of us tried Yazoo Dos Perros Ale, a malty local brew.

After a while of cowboy music, we wandered around town in search of something different. As we walked past the BB King Blues Club, we slowed down to hear what was playing inside when the guy at the door said all ages. They even knocked the cover charge in half for us. We were sold. The music was phenomenal! I realize that there is more than one BB King Blues Club and that it's kinda touristy, but I didn't care. The music was so good. The house band, the BB King All Stars, were playing some mighty blues with a little bit of funk mixed in. We had an absolute blast, staying out quite a bit later than planned but not regretting it at all.

The next day we traveled to Memphis. Heading eastbound, there was an overturned tractor trailer, and the interstate was shut down in two entirely different places besides that. We certainly had some traveling mercies. We had lunch at a Waffle House in Horn Lake, Mississippi, mostly for the sake of crossing the border into MS, but also because we are all huge fans of Waffle House (this was our second one). Then, on to our afternoon plans-- I left Jozef, Timi and Michael at Graceland while Jakub, Maciej and I explored a few music shops and other places on our own. We went to a drum shop that Maciej, a percussionist, had been talking about nonstop, and quickly understood why. Never have I seen such a collection of percussion. There was a cymbal vault. There was also a collection of famous sets, most notably to me was Ringo Starr's from the Ed Sullivan show.

We later wandered around Sun Records and the Victorian district until our friends were done touring Elvis's estate. Together we parked at a visitors center on the Mississippi River closer to the downtown area and wandered around for a while, deciding where to spend our evening. The answer became clear: Beale Street. Late in the afternoon, police were already blocking off the avenue and awesome blues were coming out of every shop, restaurant and bar. We listened for a while before wandering down Main Street and eventually having a peanut butter and jelly picnic in Confederate Park, overlooking the sunset on the Mississippi.

Then we returned to Beale Street. Holy blues. So so good. I tried Lazy Magnolia's Southern Pecan beer (brewed in Memphis), which I expected to taste like pie but it was actually quite plain. Who cares. The music was anything but, and we could sit on a curb outside of a club and listen for free. We spent some time in this little plaza with a statue of W.C. Handy enjoying a great blues band there. I really enjoyed the tons of amazing live music.

Like I said, not so crazy about whiny cowboy music, so I think I liked Memphis more because I LOVE the blues. However, I really enjoyed both cities just for the fact that music was omnipresent. You could walk twenty feet and hear something totally different. So good.