Football, Ducks and Blues

Wow, this morning I’m treated to breakfast in bed! Is this because we have a big day ahead? We set off for The Brass Door, why, well this is the place that the Memphis Gooners meet and today is a very important day, Cup Final Day and Arsenal v Chelsea at that. There’s only a couple of gooners there when we arrive but the place soon starts to fill up. There are old Arsenal shirts, new Arsenal shirts, Arsenal T shirts even one guy wearing a kilt with an Arsenal tie and long red Arsenal socks! It’s fortunately the right result for all us gooners and as the trophy is lifted the whole pub toast Arsenal’s success with shots of the best Jamieson’s whiskey.

Dave & The Memphis Gooners

Dave floats out of the pub and I steer him to the Memphis Rock & Soul Museum for a self-guided tour. The museum is not huge but it is well put together and all the exhibits give a real insight into the development of the blues music and civil rights. We’re both ready for some live music now, but how do you choose when there is so much available, there’s a couple of guys playing acoustic blues in a park, bar after bar with full bands or solo artists. We eventually settle on Bar 152 on Beale Street and listen to Skyelor Anderson, a local 22year old musician and so talented.

The Duck Parade at The Peabody Hotel

As it gets towards 4.30 in the afternoon, Dave notices I’m getting a little fidgety, the reason – well I’d like to go to The Peabody Hotel. I want to see the march of the ducks as they exit the hotel fountain and waddle to the elevator to go to their Duck House on the roof. And it appears lots of other people want to see the same thing, we manage to find a space on the mezzanine floor and listen to the story told by the Duck Master, before in a couple of seconds the ducks climb out of the water and run to the elevator. We’re both very happy now, Dave because of Arsenal’s win and the music, me because of 5 little ducks!

Two happy people shower and get ready for a night out in downtown Memphis, I haven’t seen the Mississippi yet so we walk the 2 blocks towards the river. As we get nearer we can hear music and once we reach the high level walkway overlooking the river we can see there’s a festival going on, there’s blues, country, rapping and an introducing stage but we can’t work out how to get down there so we walk on by to main street. The restaurant that catches our eye is Agave Maria It’s decorated in black and red but even so it’s not as dark as last night. The food is Mexican, chicken empanada’s, shrimp quesadillas and short rib ropa vieja, all gorgeous.

Now, we set off for the delights of Beale Street, but it is Memorial Day weekend and there’s traffic control on the crowds, enormous queue’s and full body searches going on, not for us, we retreat to The Flying Saucer and listen to a very young but good Nashville band before leaving for another try to get to Beale Street. Big mistake, the promised storm hits as we cross the street to join the queue. Sudden everyone, cops as well are running for cover. The storm is violent, rubbish spiralling high into the air, wind we can hardly walk against, Dave manages to drag me to cover in a covered car park where we shelter for half an hour as the worst of the storm passes. The thunder and lightning is spectacular and the rain sheets down as you see in old black and white movies, eventually it eases to just heavy rain and we make a run for it, 4 blocks later and resembling Mr & Mrs wet T shirt we arrive home. Wow what a day!!!