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!!!

On to Memphis

It’s with a touch of sadness we leave Nashville and our lovely riverside

Beale treet

urban home for the last 3 days and travel south to Memphis. The journey is slow probably due to the Memorial Day weekend traffic, everyone’s making an early start. In Memphis, we find our next apartment, which is larger than the last and beautifully decorated in a more southern style and with references to Elvis and BB King.

The walk to Beale street is short but hot and sweaty, so a drink in the Irish bar is very refreshing, but their pints are more like buckets. Another strange thing are the plastic palm trees, 2 large teddy bear statues and live goats which according to the sign jump from the tree house in their enclosure! Only in an Irish pub! The 2 artists sing and play their way through a good selection of acoustic blues music until they receive a request for “Sweet Caroline”, they oblige with the singer looking up the lyrics on his phone and reading them as he sings and the guitarist manfully strums away in time.

"The King"

The area round the apartment is lovely, as is the restaurant Spindini, a modern Italian which serves us up a wonderful pizza and Italian sausage and beef stuffed pasta. Unfortunately, the place is so dark it is like “dining in the dark” and we couldn’t see what else was on offer. The stroll back takes us past a cigar shop with 6 black men smoking the most enormous tree trunk sized cigars, nite y’all they say, and you we reply.

Nashville

The Pub

After all that music, last night it’s hard to get moving this morning and eventually we walk to the Riverside Park and catch the free “music city” bus to tour the city and end up at The Gulch There really isn’t a great deal here but there is a bar, called originally “The Bar” and it’s supposed to be a British Pub, well it even has cheesy bollocks on the menu, just like we find at home? After lunch, the bus takes us to the footbridge which claims to be one of the longest foot bridges in the world, it isn’t as long as the Louisville Big Four and there’s no nice little town at the other side only the Nissan Stadium.

For the last week or so we’ve been trying to buy just a few staples from a supermarket or corner shop, trouble is we can’t seem to find either in the cities. We have come to the conclusion that the Americans must send out for everything or buy it on line because even milk is hard to find!

Tonight, we’re going to use the services of uber again to find a restaurant called “Demos”, and once we arrive we’re pleased to realise we only have 15 minutes to wait for a table. Now, the barmaid decides I look under 21 and will only serve me a lemonade, hmmm, not going quite so well. Fortunately, the waiter decides I do look over 21 and serves a bottle of wine with 2 glasses plus a very good pot roast and a steak. For desert, it’s another helping of live music courtesy of AJ’s and The Stage. The latter is playing more country music tonight and everyone seems to sway, foot tap and sing along in perfect time, we’ve never heard most of these songs before but they’re obviously really popular here.

The Nissan Stadium from the pedestrian bridge

Nashville, The Music City

Oh, no rain again it’s running rivers through the car park. Rain has stopped play this morning, so it’s time to catch up with the washing! Thank goodness by the afternoon it’s cleared up. We lunch at The Perch, not the best experience but then the guy does want to shut in 30 minutes. The Music Hall of Fame across the road is our destination, it has an amazing collection of artist’s musical instruments and memorabilia, interactive displays that allow you to produce your own hit record – well may be Dave could, I’m more than a bit out of my depth with all these knobs and dials. Afterwards a refreshing drink and some music in Honkey Tonk Central. Why is the drummer behind a Perspex screen Dave, I ask, is he expecting trouble, no apparently, it deadens the sound of his drums!

Dave on drums!

This evening we’re eating at B.A.D no its not awful, it’s the Back Alley Diner. The small door and no windows don’t make it look very appealing however inside it’s comfortable booths and tables. We order drinks, then a burger with Texan toast for me and pulled pork with hush puppies for Dave. Now the last time I looked hush puppies were suede, lace up shoes! The waitress nearly falls over laughing when I tell her this and she assures us, hush puppies are a southern thing and they’re actually fried dough! The meal is good, but we’re still not sure about the hush puppies…

Outside Musician's Hall of Fame

After this we go to the Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie club to hear Stacy Mitchhart his band. They are a 6 piece band with a brass section of sax and trumpet, a Hammond organ (Dave’s impressed I’ve noticed this), bass, drummer plus Stacy on guitar and vocals. What a treat to hear such a talented blues/funky band. So many notable songs and solos, it was so good we had to buy a CD.

The Stacy Mitchhart Band at The Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie Club

Louisville to Honkey Tonk Central!

As we’re packing up today we pause to watch the squirrels playing chase over the rooves of the houses opposite, it’s a heart-warming sight. The drive to Nashville goes smoothly, so smoothly that we need to slow down a bit to delay our arrival, I re-programme the sat nav to go to Oprey Mills an outlet centre on the site of the Grand Old Oprey. The outlet is huge but we make a beeline for the Levi store and soon all 3 boys have jeans, I don’t miss out but it does take several more shops for me to find what I want. The food court in the centre of the shops is enormous with every type of food imaginable and lots of OAP’s with lanyards, presumably so we can return them if they get lost!

At last we reach our apartment in Nashville, now if the apartment in Louisville was a large airy country house loft conversion, this one could not be more different. It is a compact urban apartment all dark wood flooring, chrome and modern furnishings with a small balcony overlooking the Cumberland River. We’re both eager to explore the music of Nashville so we walk into town past 2 or 3 bail bond companies and yet another enormous courthouse, what more naughty people! We stroll through Printers Alley, along Broadway spoilt for choice by so many bars playing every type of country music from acoustic, to blues and rock. It’s so hard to make a choice but we’re lured into Nudies Honkey Tonk Bar and are soon foot tapping in time to the music being played including The Spice Girls! What an amazing venue, there’s a white Cadillac on the wall above the band, complete with leopard skin seats, horns on the front and a rifle mounted on the back.

Nudies Honky Tonk Bar

Later after a quick shower, we hit the strip again. First stop, Whiskey Bent Saloon, the band are playing great blues style music, then Layla’s where the female band are definitely country, not our style but the talent of these ladies is obvious with some amazing guitaring and fiddle playing. And finally, The Stage, the guy on the door makes a show of IDing us, I think he was just trying to make us feel good! The 8-piece band is brilliant, playing the audiences emotions as much as their instruments and in Chris they have a great front man. They play everything from Sweet Caroline to Shout.

Broadway

Chris Weaver live at The Stage

Louisville and the southern drawl

Coal barges under the Big Four Bridge

It is a beautiful day today as we set off to explore, a short drive brings us to Big Four Riverside park and bridge. The path to the park winds round in a circle getting higher and higher towards the Big Four Bridge. The bridge itself is an old railway bridge converted into a pedestrian walkway and park, across the middle area of the bridge there’s classical music playing and underneath on the Ohio river 2 huge tugs push 15 enormously long flat boats filled with coal upstream. This is the same river we first saw in Pittsburgh at Point Park and will continue its journey to meet the mighty Mississippi.

Water Playground in Big Four Park

On the far side of the bridge we cross the state line from Kentucky into Indiana and enter Jeffersonville. This town is very much southern American, there appears to be a much slower way of life here and slower speech with a southern drawl. At a stop in a coffee shop we’re be friended a local southern gentleman who extols the best bits of Indiana and America, it takes a while to end the conversation! A further stroll takes us past, clap board houses all raised up on steps and front porches with rocking chairs on them, very gone with the Wind.

Back over the other side we attempt to find the town of Louisville and after parking the car in a dodgy looking car park and inserting coins into a parking meter (strange individual slot numbered affair) and wander into town. The court house we pass is enormous, there must be a lot of naughty people here, Dave says. We finally find the restaurant area and enjoy Sliders and a salad at Gordon Biersch then walk back to the car, mmm if only the blocks didn’t look all the same!

Restaurants on Forth Street

On our drive, back we stop to collect a bottle of wine and are nearly part of the set of the black version of EastEnders, a black woman is screaming her displeasure at a tow truck driver. I’m waiting for the guns to appear! Dave hurries me to the car and we make a quick exit to find Walmart which seems to be a safer option, however, Dave’s not happy to be spending money in Stan Kroenke’s store due to his dodgy Arsenal connections. Phew! After all this excitement, a night in with wine seems the best choice.

A blast from the Past

If last night was strewn with contrasts, so is this morning, bright sunshine, blue skies and when we step outside, warmth. Chicago looks so different dressed in her summer clothes this morning. The drive to Louisville is fairly uncomplicated apart from a stop to get fuel and coffee, we have a couple of hiccups trying to get back to the right Interstate, shame there are no service areas on this road!

The apartment at Louisville proves easy to find and after we’ve puffed our way up several sets of outside steps we’re delighted to find such a comfortable, large attic conversion as our home for the next couple of days. Tonight, we have tickets for “Tears for Fears” concert in The Louisville Palace Theatre, only a mile walk away. The Palace has been restored, from the outside, yes there are some glitzy light bulbs and a sign but nothing to prepare you for the opulent grandeur inside. It’s described as Spanish baroque, I can only manage wow, wow, wow. There’s intricate carving painted in bold colours on the foyer entrance and the main theatre, well it’s like the inside of a very grand castle, all carved figurines and bold colours. But that’s not the most impressive bit, the ceiling and backdrop are azure blue and with the lighting it feels like an outside concert. Then there’s the concert, Tears for Fears have lost none of their vocal power, the band are amazing and the hits we recognise just keep on coming, Everyone wants to rule the world, It’s a mad world, Sowing the seeds of love, Shout. The whole evening has taken us back to when we first lived in London together, a real trip down memory lane.

Louisville Palace Theatre