To start with, you get taken upstairs to a small one-room museum that charts the history of Sun Studios from the very beginning. The displays are both imaginative and informative and include dozens of rarities that are worth making a trip for on their own. Such items include the original guitar and jacket worn by Elvis on his very first TV appearance.

After this, you get taken inside the world-famous recording studios, which is virtually the same as when it was set up in 1952. The fact that it is still used as a recording studio and contains all the original insulation and floor tiles gives the place an incredible nostalgic atmosphere. There are also crosses marked on the floor where musicians such as Elvis, Johnny Cash, and Carl Perkins stood when they recorded their music. It certainly gives you some strange sensations.

The tour was of exceptional quality. This was thanks to the tour guide. I am sure he had given the same tour thousands of times previously, but you would have never thought this with the amount of enthusiasm that oozed out of every sentence. It makes an experience so much better when the tour guide is obviously doing the job because of love rather than money. Once the tour is over there is plenty of time to take a walk around the gift shop that houses a large collection of Sun Studios music and posters that I doubt you will be able to find in many of your high street record shops.

As I already mentioned, the studio is still open for recording, and for $25 you can record a one-off, one-time song and have it printed with the Sun Studio logo. I doubt many places can offer a better souvenir than this!

Tours run approximately every hour daily between 10am and 6pm and cost $8.50, with the last tour starting at 5:30pm. For more information, you can access the Sun Studios by website at http://www.sunstudio.com, by phone at (901) 521-0664, or by email at info@sunstudio.com. There is plenty of parking in front and at the side. This is a must-stop attraction for anyone with a musical interest.

So all these founding fathers of rock’n’roll recorded some of their earliest songs here, including Elvis (natch), Roy Orbison, and Jerry Lee Lewis for example-and many contemporary masters like U2 have recorded here as well, ever since some local musician had the genius idea to open it up again as part museum/part studio.

I didn't have the chutzpah, but my friend Emma grabbed the famous microphone that Elvis probably sang into at one time or another and belted out, "It's All Right Mamma!" All the grayhairs who were on the tour with us loved that one (I snapped the picture).

Oh, and since we are, after all, two women on the loose, I will mention that our tour guide was super cute in that rockabilly kind of way. I think he called himself Dakota or something equally earnest/ironic.

The food in the café isn't bad either. We had milkshakes as we waited for the tour to start, and you know we had to buy the Sun Studio shot glasses!