Good evening from St. Louis! Yep, I'm getting farther away, not closer. I found out that Bishop Salmon is hospitalized and near the end of his life. Being this close (280 miles away) I decided to come on up. Also, as I begin writing this tonight, I received word from Sylvia that the physicians have decided to go ahead and deliver Elizabeth's baby tonight. She'll be early, but they expect things to be just fine. I'll probably have more before this report is over.
Catch up time. Being rushed yesterday, I didn't get to give you much of a report on Saturday, so here goes. Pinckney and I spent Saturday morning teaching the leaders of Trinity in the fields. As I did mention previously, Pinckney did you proud. Having been a farmer, Pinckney just naturally related to the congregation.
The shots above were taken from the Trinity Facebook page. I owe you a couple more photos of the Trinity building, so here you go:
We finished up about 1:30 and Horace drove us into downtown Memphis. I wanted to visit the Stax/Volt museum on Macklemore avenue, which was the site where all the other great soul songs were recorded, if it wasn't Motown or Muscle Shoals.
It turns out there are two bridges going into and out of Memphis. This is the new bridge, as it's called.
The view from this bridge is so much better. From this vantage point, the Mighty Mississippi looks fairly impressive.
This is the world's largest Bass Pro Shops location in the world. It was the arena where the Memphis basketball team played, but the team made them build a bigger venue.
On the way to Macklemore Avenue. One block away. This is the "bad" section of Memphis, where a whole lot of murders happen in the evening hours. Mercy.
Welcome to Stax. Booker T. & the MG's were the house band here playing for folks like Otis Redding, Wilson Picket (Midnight Hour) Sam and Dave, Carla and Rufus Thomas, Eddie Floyd, and on and on. The Bar-Kays also backed Otis and recorded "Soul Finger" here. Issac Hayes wrote most of the songs for the Stax artists and also recorded here (remember "Shaft?") Dusty Springfield even recorded an album here (Remember Son of a Preacherman?)
The museum is really well done. they have a lot of stage costumes and clothing from the artists as well as a lot of the original master tapes, recording gear and master tapes.
The smaller of the two tape decks was used to mix down the multi-tracks into plain two-track stereo. I recorded commercials on an identical Scully two-track when I worked at WNOK in Columbia in the early 70's.
This is Al Jackson, Jr.'s Drum kit. You might not know the name, but you know him. He was the drummer for Booker T. & the MG's (remember "Green Onions"?). He was also Al Green's drummer. The drum kit at which you are looking was used on every Al Green song. Next time you hear one of his song's listen to the drumming. Al Jackson, Jr. was one of the best in the business.
This is Booker T. Jones' Hammond organ that was used on Green Onions and after that on just about every Stax record that Booker T. and the MG's played on in the 60's.
This is Issac Hayes' gangsta ride from the days when he wrote and sang "Shaft." It has fur for carpeting an a 5-inch black & white television. State-of-the-art in 1972.
Speaking of Al Green, Here's his yellow leather outfit he wore while singing in concerts. Oh my.
Al Green still lives in Memphis, and these days, he serves God as a preacher. No kidding.
From the Stax museum, we went to the heart of downtown, but first we drove by the famous Sun Studio where Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash first recorded.
Next, we went to the world famous Peabody Hotel. The home of the Peabody ducks. If you don't know the story behind the Peabody ducks, Click or Tap on THIS LINK and read about them. There's also some great pictures there. Better than mine :)
Here's my shots...
After we left the Peabody we walked over to Beale Street - the home of the blues. Two blocks of bars.
In-between two buildings a local band set up shop, playing for whomever passed by. As we passed by, they were singing "Le Chic"
The guitar player saw me taking their picture (I was at least 250 feet away) and he waved for the camera.
We capped off the afternoon with an early supper at the Majestic, a restaurant located in what was one of the great old movie theaters of the 30's and 40's. Great food!
One more shot of the Mississippi, taken on the way back to Marion.
This is rice. It turns out that Arkansas produces more rice than anywhere else in the United States.
And that was it for Saturday. It's getting very late, and I'll do Sunday for you tomorrow as well as Monday.
Monday, I'm going to try to drive to Greenville, South Carolina. Elizabeth just had her baby! Say hello to baby Sarah and her happy parents!
So goodnight from St. Louis. And thank you Lord, for a really great weekend and a safe delivery.
See you tomorrow!