Day 26 - 10th November

Our first full day in Memphis and today on the schedule was the almost obligatory tour of Graceland, Elvis’ home and now a shrine to the entertainer.

We’d booked a V.I.P tour the night before which sounds flash but just allows access to more of the exhibits dotted around the plaza as well as access to the Graceland mansion.

We’d booked a 09:30am tour as we figured it’d be better to get things underway earlier, and thought we’d have breakfast out there to save time. So after picking up our car from the valet (another tip) we drove out to Graceland, alternately using the google maps on our phones as well as the recalcitrant GPS system which had chosen that moment to lock up again. However getting to the venue was simplicity as we only had to negotiate a couple of the freeway roads, and we were there in about 10 minutes.

The area (on Elvis Presley Boulevard) takes up a big chunk of real estate. On one side of the road is Graceland itself, and on the other side is a long plaza made up of the car parking, various museum exhibits including Elvis’ cars and his two aeroplanes, gift shops, restaurants & café’s. We didn’t really know what to expect, but we thought the appearance of the buildings and grounds wasn’t quite as “flash” as we thought it might be and in some places looked pretty tired and in need of a spruce up.

Unfortunately the breakfast place we wanted to go hadn’t opened yet, so we went through to the ticketing area, picked up our tickets and found an open diner in the plaza area to have breakfast. It was all short order stuff so we had a couple of fried bread sandwiches (egg, bacon, cheese) and coffee. The place also offered a fried peanut butter & banana sandwich (“the kings favourite!”) so that would have to be a lunch stop as well.

We scoffed down breakfast and then went to our pick up stop to start our tour. It’s a very slick operation with staff everywhere taking you each step of the way and handing you off to the next person. We climbed into a small bus that was to take us a cross to road to Graceland to start our tour. There is a crossing which allows foot traffic to go across but as we were on that V.I.P tour we went on the bus. Just before we alighted we were given an iPad and headphones as that would be the guide through the house.

We got dropped off and were guided around (by yet another staff member) to the front of the house to start.
The tour of Graceland takes you through the lower floors, kitchen, entertainment and “jungle” room, then through part of the ground and outbuildings. The upper floors are all closed off for both privacy & respect reasons. As you tour the house, you flick the iPad between the rooms as you go and there’s both narration as well as interview & music tracks. It’s really well done, and the house itself is quite amazing.  Fortunately, the crowds of people were quite small as it was a self-guided tour, you could take your time and often did not have to cope with lots of other people. The furnishings in the house are quite stunning, and there are T.V’s everywhere, but at least three rooms are worthy of mention.

The first is his “entertainment” room (today it would be a “cinema room”) – decked out in shades of yellow & blue, mirrors & glass, with big couches, three T.V’s, a bar and a retractable movie screen. It’s a stunning space and is quite striking. The next room is the pool room. This has 350 yards of fabric across the walls and fanning out across the ceiling and again is just an amazing space to be in. The third is the famous ( or infamous) “Jungle Room” , a long room decked out in wooden furniture with a very African feel, a small indoor water feature and green carpet on the floors and ceiling. The latter apparently improved acoustics in the room and he did some recording and jamming sessions in there.

There’s a trophy room which contains all his recording awards and achievements (and there are a LOT of them!) as well as various costumes he wore and more information on his later career, and the racquetball court has been converted into an awards room celebrating all the things that Elvis achieved either for himself or for the others he tried to help (for example he put on a benefit concert to help raise funds for the U.S.S Arizona memorial in Hawaii). Outside is a huge area for horses and today there are four horses still there, three rescue horses and one horse that’s a descendant of one of Elvis’ herd.

Outside in the meditation garden he set up are the graves of Elvis, his parents and a marker to his stillborn twin brother.

We had access to an extra room (part of the V.I.P package) that celebrated Elvis’ movie career ( 31 films!) and had some of the costumes as well as some more info about each of the films he starred in. He desired to be a more serious actor, but alas with his looks and singing ability was typecast in the romantic comedy roles (with singing).

We both came away from the house with a fresh appreciation for the man as well as his talents and abilities. It seemed to me (Joe) at least that he was a guy who at his core was still a pretty simple and straightforward guy who always wanted to do the right thing, yet just had made so much money it would have been hard to reign in any excess, but the excess he indulged in was not due to any malevolence or narcissism.

After we’d finished at Graceland, we were picked up by the tour bus after a small wait and after an extra tour of the grounds (which contains a chapel still available for weddings, and they stop tours so that the married could can get their Graceland pictures) we then went back across to the plaza to carry on our tour. We looked at the two aircraft that Elvis had, and to get to the aircraft we had to go through an “Elvis Fan detector”, so as you walked through it said “Thank you for being an Elvis fan. Thank you, thank you very much”. The two aircraft (a large four-engine Convair 880, and a smaller Lockheed Jetstar) look a bit weather-beaten, but you can walk through the Convair and see how it had been fitted out (complete with bedroom at the end). It was always available, and on one of the video loops, a story recounted how that after Elvis had realised his daughter had never seen snow, they jumped in the plane, flew to Colorado where she played in snow for several minutes, and then flew back.  The smaller Jetstar was used to go ahead of the Convair and entourage and make sure things were set up before Elvis’ arrival.

After these, it was through the gift shops (anything and everything Elvis related) and then off to the automobile collection where several of Elvis cars were stored; Two Rolls-Royces, a Ferrari Dino, Mercedes-Benz 280 SL Roadster, the famous “Pink Cadillac”, Cadillac El Dorado, Stutz Blackhawk and Mercedes 600 Limousine. Quite an impressive collection. Additionally there were several smaller vehicles (like a snowmobile converted to land use) that he liked to use around Graceland. He almost seemed like a big kid that never quite grew up.

After this it as down to the diner we’d been to for breakfast to get some lunch and a fried peanut butter & banana sandwich. Well, this was nicer that it sounds and is basically bread with peanut butter & banana inside and buttered on the outside, then fried in a pan, pretty much a toasted sandwich. Delish I thought J

We then did a circuit of a few more of the museums and gift shops (where you can buy a replica Elvis jumpsuit starting from $1700 USD to $2600 USD!) and marvelled at what you could buy that was Elvis related ( Elvis Coffee even). One of the staff we spoke to said that this was a pretty quiet time for tourism (which ties in with what we’ve seen in town) however in the few hours that we’d been there the numbers of people had grown considerably, and we were grateful we’d done our tour earlier in the morning when there were less people around.

By about 1pm, we were ready to go, and all up had spent about 4 hours at Graceland. We came away very happy that we’d done the tour and with a better appreciation of Elvis’ achievements as a singer and as someone who just wanted to make life better for those around him.

So it was back into town and our hotel, retracing our steps and getting back in short order. Wondering what to do with our afternoon, we decided to go to the Gibson guitar factory just a few blocks away from our hotel. Gibson are a famous manufacturer of electric guitars so the chance to see how they were made was too good to pass up. There are a couple of factories, one in Nashville and this one in Memphis that does the tours. We were a bit early for the next scheduled tour but only had a few minutes to wait before we went through.

Our guide was a very young fella with a most endearing Mississippi drawl and very dry and witty sense of humour.  It would be hard to repeat the comments he made (as you almost need to hear them in the original accent) but he was a great tour guide. Sadly we were not allowed to take any photos for proprietary reasons.

The tour started where the ‘side’ and the top of the guitar is made. The raw wood is kept in a temperature & humidity controlled room to ensure that the wood will be malleable enough to be worked on. The top is made from three laminations of wood with the top being of a type that has the grain visible to have the nice ‘wood’ look to the body. The side is one piece of wood stamped and formed in a press that gives it the curve, and they then slice the wood length wise to get as many sides for the type/model of guitar they are making.

Then the sides are clamped and glued together over the base, and then the top is glued on and then binding is applied to the edges of the guitar and bound with cloth following a specific binding process that has to be unique for each guitar type so that the curves and bends are catered for.

The necks are formed from shaped but spare wood, and are then cut to allow the frets and tuning necks to be added.

Nickel fret bars are added, and then are glued to the base, which is a source of pride here as bolted necks can eventually fray over time. So each neck has to be shaped and checked for a secure fit before it is glued into place. The guitar is then put into a machine and checked to ensure the fret bars are all exactly correct, to prevent irregularities from affecting the sound.

The guitars are then tweaked and then taken to the paint room. Painting is all done by hand and essentially by one operator. So every guitar that features a shaded paint job is all unique and no two will be alike. They are then coated in nitro cellulose to ensure longevity and protection over time. No polyurethane here! The only masking that’s done is to the neck to protect the fret, thus the lovely edge binding is painted over. However the next stage, and this bit really impressed me, is to pass the guitar to one of six women who sit down and with scrapers and razor blades, remove the paint from the binding in such a manner that it looks perfectly straight. Incredible seeing how they do it.

The guitar is then polished up to a perfect shine using three polishing machines, and then has the strings and electrics added, getting through the two smallish sound holes at the front of the body to add the electrics. It is then quality checked (again by one person on the line). If it passes muster it’s put into a box ready for sale, and if any aspect is not good, it’s sent back to the part of the factory to be re-worked.

The process with a few exceptions is very hand crafted and it’s an amazing process to watch. Around 60 guitars a day are produced with each guitar talking about four to five weeks to make (and that even has to allow for a great diversity of models as well). We both came away with a real appreciation for the craftsmanship involved.

There is a mist continually being pumped into the factory to keep the ambient temp & humidity correct (1000 litres of water per day) and the guitar has a lifetime warranty. One of our tour asked the guide where these skills come from. He replied that across the south is a generational woodworking skill, to the point where some furniture manufacturers can trace their origin back to before the civil war. He also pointed out that the number of people in the factor under 40 can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and many of the skilled workers have been there almost two decades.

There’s a small Gibson shop attached to the factory and it was very tempting to buy one and take it home after seeing how they are crafted, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to see the binding edges on a Gibson guitar without thinking of those six women gently scraping away paint with a keen eye and steady hand.

After that tour it was time to go back to the hotel room, freshen up and go out for dinner. We decided to try and pick a place on Beale St, the famous street in Memphis where many of the blues bars are located. It was a cold night and for the first time we were both wearing jackets (it’s a bit more like Wellington temps now). Beale St was not very lively, as we are well out of season now so there’s very little foot traffic around. However most of the food is all the same (BBQ or Fried this & that, Catfish, Po Boy sandwiches, and huge portions of everything) so we eventually picked a very quiet place called “Wet Willies” whose claim to fame was frozen margarita slushies. We duly had those and Deb had what was basically a Nacho mountain, and I had a fried chicken sandwich with a mountain of fries. The portion sizes were huge though and after our Graceland meals, were almost too much.

So sated and happy we wandered back to our hotel room, and will see what tomorrow brings.