Our first night in Memphis was fantastic, we took the Trolley (tram) downtown to Beale Street, which is the street made famous by it's music. The street was originally a 'Black Only' street, when Memphis was racially segregated and was home to black music such as the Blues, Jazz and Soul. Many of the greats originally started performing in clubs on Beale Street.

Nowadays the streets are lit with neon lights and becomes the main nightlife area of Memphis at night, with many pubs and clubs all playing live music. We went to watch a guy singing at the Irish bar, with a couple of French Martinis (in Memphis?), he dedicated an Oasis song for us English girls! Thankfully we realised that Holly's ID makes her 21 in the USA as they put the month first and date second making Holly's birthday the 12th January, so we've had no problems having a good time! (don't read that bit Dad!). After a couple of drinks we headed to the famous Blues City Cafe for Smoked Ribs, which were yummy!

The next day we headed back into the centre to visit the Peabody Hotel, at precisely 11am. The hotel is a 1930's, very swish, hotel that has a quirky tradition; at 11am every day the hotel's ducks are bought down from the penthouse in the elevator and follow a red carpet to the hotel's fountain where they stay until 5pm! Very strange, but very popular, as the lobby was filled with camera wielding tourists, luckily Laura crawled under the ropes, with the children, to get some good photos!

We then visited the Rock and Soul Museum where we heard songs and read about the origins of Rock 'n Roll, Soul, Blues and Rockabilly music! The tour was great as we each had a headset that talked us through the exhibition and we were able to choose different songs from each era to listen to.

After lunch at the Hard Rock Memphis we looked around the unusual shops of Beale Street, where we visited A Schwab's, which had three floors of the most strange things for sale like voodoo potions, big dungarees, novelty hats, old lady knickers and many other tacky souvenirs. There was also old artifacts that you could look and touch, like old cash registers, old clothes and yearbooks from the 50's where we saw the girls taking sewing lessons and the boys taking mechanics lessons!

Afterwards we headed to the Sun Studios on Union Avenue. The studios were started in the 1950's by Sam Phillips who recorded Blues artists like Howlin' Wolf, BB King and Ike Turner and also Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and the one and only Elvis Presley! It is a really small building and still has a lot of the original features. We first learnt about the story of how it all began and we heard original recordings from the studios and saw the original master record of Rocket 88, which is considered to be the first Rock 'n Roll song ever! We then went into the recording studio, which is still used today, where there are still original light fittings, acoustic tiles and is covered in photos of past clients. This is the very room where Elvis recorded. We heard original footage of him recording a song and messing up the lines, because Carl Perkins was pulling faces at him. We also saw the picture dubbed the 'Million dollar quartet'; Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins. Elvis was RCA at the time (Sam Phillips had sold his contract to pay of his debts), but had dropped in to visit his old friends. Sam recognised a good photo opportunity, called the newspaper and the photo was seen on the front covers of newspapers all over the world. After the photo was taken, a jam session broke out, which Sam Phillips recorded and we got to hear the original recording of the 'Million Dollor Quartet'!! After the tour we had a famous 'shake' at the studios, which were 'OH MY GOD' gorgeous! That night we headed back to Beale street for a couple of Wet Willies frozen cocktails and dinner at the King Cafe.