Five Ways To Get To Memphis
Part One
Technically, the first time I was in Memphis was a single night in December 2018, when I took a road trip with my girlfriend, Katie, to her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. At the end of the visit, we left her parents’ home late in the evening and decided to get a hotel just four hours north in Memphis, saving the bulk of the drive home to Kansas City for the next day. It occurred to me then that it was strange I didn’t hear more about Memphis, given its musical history and my life in music. Why hadn’t I thought of coming here before? Why hadn't I been routed here on tour?
It was raining as I pulled into the quiet downtown, and Katie told me we could get a standard, corporate hotel, or we could stay at the Peabody, a hotel she grew up visiting with her family — though it would be more expensive. Despite the fact that it was already getting late and we’d have little time in whatever hotel we chose, I encouraged her to book a room at the Peabody, no matter the cost. Once inside I was taken by the hotel's grandeur. Katie and I sat in the downstairs lobby and ordered drinks for the remaining hours that the bar was open. I drank pints of beer as she drank Shirley Temples, and she told me that each morning and early evening there was a procession of ducks, led by a duckmaster, from the rooftop where the ducks lived to the lobby's marble fountain - the focal point of the hotel. “I’ve been watching the procession my whole life,” she explained. The Peabody felt like what I imagine the Plaza Hotel in New York City would feel like with a southern makeover, and we felt like underdressed runaways. As Katie and I walked the empty streets of downtown Memphis after our drinks, the whole city seemed to be lit just by the light coming off of the radiant red neon sign of the Peabody.
The next morning, on our way to check out of the hotel, our elevator doors opened at the lobby floor to hundreds of faces, all anxious to see the procession of ducks soon to follow. Later that day I texted my booking agent from the road, requesting we play Memphis as soon as possible.
Sounds fabulous. So many good songs about Memphis - Tom T Hall’s ‘That’s How I Got To Memphis’ is my favourite.
Memphis was my first solo road trip when I was 21. Without a map or GPS I somehow navigated myself there from Columbia, MO. It was a wonderland of musical ghosts. It’s changed since the. (1994) but the beautiful ghosts remain.