Memphis Rock & Soul Museum
- May 5, 2006
- Rated 4 of 5 by
globetrots from Nashville, Tennessee
The Stax Soulsville Museum and Sun Studio are more authentic, but this is the place to go if you can only visit one museum. It provides a good, thorough overview of the city's musical heritage and has listening stations where you can hear whole songs that you choose and listen to through earphones. It runs the gamut from old gospel and blues songs all the way through Stax, Al Green, Elvis, Alex Chilton, and all the stars who have recorded at Ardent Studios.
From journal Music and Meals in Memphis
Editor Pick
The Smithsonian Memphis Rock & Soul Museum
- March 17, 2001
- Rated 4 of 5 by
Soulsearcher from Inglewood, California
As the only museum associated with the Smithsonian outside of Washington, DC, this is a must see. We have all heard the saying the soundtrack to our lives, well this museum is the sountrack to the history not only of the Memphis music scene but of the history of Memphis itself. It is a place that lets the music take you on a journey of a people who let music breakdown the racial divides that existed in Memphis throughout the years. It is a tour that combines some of the most incredible audio, visual and rare artifacts that you begin to feel as if you were a part of it all. You are given a cd player and a headset that will act as a musical tour guide for you. It also has narrative, so you can follow along at your own pace. You will view a brief film that interviews artist about the rock & the soul music of Memphis and then you are on your way. The tour takes you from the early beginnings of music in the Memphis area, you begin with the slaves and the white sharecroppers who both sang in the fields and how they came together and melted their two styles together. To hear the chants that they sang is an awe inspiring thing. You see the bareboned instruments that they created out of spoons, pails, washboards,and buckets, and better yet you are allowed to give them a try. You trace the history of gospel, bluegrass, rythmn & blues, soul, rock & roll and country music. The musical journey is set up chronologically, so as you progress through the years you see how it all developed into the sounds we here today. It brings you close to those rebels of music, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, Rufus Thomas, and even Ike Turner. You are introduced to the first all female radio station. You are taken right up until the end of the tour were we hear the rebellious soul music of the sixties, it ties such songs as James Brown's, 'Black & I'm Proud' and intertwines it with the boycott's and marches. It actually goes further than the sixties because it also explores how the Memhis sound has inspired today's music legends such as U2, Robert Cray, Stevie Ray Vaughn, R.E.M., ZZ Top and many more. It is the history of Memphis music that includes Sun Studio, Stax Records, Beale St. and Graceland. You should stop here before going to any of the forementioned places because it will give you a better insight to those tours. My friend, Brenda and I were able to get a sneak peek at the Patsy Cline exhibit that was to open the following Tues. and meet the authors of the book that inspired the exhibit and two leading authorities on Elvis. The authors are the people who now own and live in the house Elvis owned before moving to Graceland.
From journal I Left My Heart In Memphis ( It's more than BBQ, B