When I was in my early 20’s, I sought to save the world. This desire was probably a direct result of a Ten Years After song as it appeared Alvin Lee wanted to do it but had no clue and left it up to me. So, I became a Business Agent for Local 282 of the United Furniture Workers in Memphis and spent 2 or 3 years fighting the good fight.
When I was there, Beale Street was an area of disinvestment with homeless and drunkards sleeping in the out coves of the stores. The one thing that brought attention to the blues heritage was a 45-rpm record embedded in a wall covered with plexiglass that was very scratched, and above the record was “Birth of the Blues,” written in block-style letters. So, I wanted to check and see if it was still there.
I first stopped in Fraser, where I had lived when I was there, and the entire area had gone from a nice neighborhood to an area of disinvestment with random burned-out cars and the like dotting the landscape.
I drove into town, found the Moxy Hotel, and spent the next two days walking around. The first day was checking out the city center, and I encountered bad weather as the rain was coming down very hard. However, by the time it got dark, the rain had broken, and I walked down to Gus’s Fried Chicken which I would highly recommend.
The second day the rain was spotty, and I walked Beale Street. There was no 45 mounted on a wall anywhere to be found. Instead, there was an effort to save the façade of a building by using a procedure called a facadeomy (not my term), where you keep the front and take the building from behind. They attempted to keep the original look of the street, and many of the buildings were restored.
They had a Walk of Fame, and I saw some names there I knew. I hit the clubs to see the old blues entertainers many nights when I was there. I had a friend, George Pappas, that came and stayed with me in Memphis, and he played the Blues Harp. Too many adventures and not enough space and time to recount.