Memphis: Wed 3rd April

Memphis: we are booked in at Graceland RV Campground, on the Elvis complex. The campsite sectors are all named after Elvis songs. We’re in Hound Dog Street. We approached the campsite along Lonely Street, past Heartbreak Hotel, which is a real hotel.

We start with Elvis’ house, Graceland. It was built in 1939 and bought by Elvis in 1957. This is it, an impressive 23 room posh house, but it’s not the fabulous vast mansion you’d anticipate from possibly the world’s most successful singer (i.e. one billion record sales). He stayed on there because he liked it.

The décor in the rooms was all chosen by Elvis. A selection of photos tells the story. This is the lounge & music room.

Billiard room next. Walls & ceiling are covered in pleated material.

The Jungle Room, another lounge. Waterfall running down opposite wall, off camera.  Shagpile carpet on floor and ceiling.

TV room, in cellar, next to billiard room. On being told that President Johnson watched three tv’s at once, so he didn’t miss anything important, Elvis did the same, hence the 3 sets, all on.

There are many more rooms, all done out in similar top-of-the-range 70’s style bling. Other commentators have been less than kind to Elvis’ furnishing taste and said it was typical rags-to-riches white trash glitzy tat. Depends on whether you’re an Elvis fan, I suppose!

But there can be no argument about his success: a billion records sold. This is just one side of his gold disc gallery, for the USA.

But back to the glitz. There were numerous (say, 30) white jumpsuits on display from his Las Vegas years, 1969-1976. It’s always these that Elvis impersonators wear, which usually turn him into more of a comic caricature than the charismatic professional that he had become by that time.

More glitz! The pink Cadillac. The car museum held about 20 of Elvis’ vehicles, mostly OTT cars like the one in the photo, but also included buggy types and even a digger that he loved to use on the estate.

Planes goes with the lifestyle, and Elvis had two: a Convair 880 converted passenger jet and a Lockheed Jetstar executive jet. Both were part of the exhibits. Here’s the bigger one, the Convair.

More glitz. Inside were real gold trimmed fittings, like taps and sinks, and seat belt clasps. This is the dining room with Jane taking the part of honoured guest.

This blog's been rather lengthy, but it’s a big exhibition and very visual. It was all very well presented and  enjoyable. We finish with the Musical Gates through which you enter Graceland.

Jane & I wouldn’t have said we were great Elvis fans before this visit, but he emerged as a much more talented artiste than we thought. We saw videos of performances throughout his career demonstrating a greater range of material and ability than we had given him credit for. His films excepted. These were pretty dire, but then Elvis himself thought so too. So we now we’ll close the (musical) gates on Elvis, and move on.

Laura Slave Plantation

The house was built in 1804 by slaves. These were no ordinary slaves. They came from French Senegal/Gambia and were highly prized for their construction skills. Their West African customs had a strong influence in shaping Creole culture. Even their folk tales filtered into our civilisation, for example some of these noted down from the Laura Plantation where eventually published as the Br’er Rabbit stories.

The house is built on pillars, sunk eight feet below ground level because of the soft soil. The pillars raised it above the Mississippi flood level: in the early days there were no levees and the house stood on the banks of the river.

 The owners lived here only during the summer months, to conduct business such as meeting merchants and negotiating sales contracts. The day to day plantation and slave matters was the job of the plantation manager who was in residence 24/7 . For the rest of the year the owners lived in New Orleans.

The balcony doors and the avenue of trees are designed to funnel air through the premises during the sultry, stifling summer heat. I can’t imagine it, but everybody here says the humidity is totally debilitating particularly if you aren’t used to it. No air-con then either.

The slaves were required to work long hours in all weathers but weren’t badly treated here by comparison. The cabins they lived in were very overcrowded but not dissimilar to poor whites’ accommodation throughout the South then and for a very long time afterwards, well into my lifetime. The next photo shows two of the slave cabins. They were used as dwellings here until 1976.

This was a sugar cane plantation and this is one of the cauldrons used for processing the cane into sugar. We could have done with more detail on the tour on how the processes operated and what the slaves did, and less on the owners’ family hierarchy. The hierarchy was so detailed that I’m not sure which French family had the place built and then who ran it for many years before selling out to an equally forgotten German family. Less is more, in these potted histories. But I'm forgetting the cauldron…

After the Civil War ended in 1865 the slaves were declared free. But free to go- where, and do what? So they mostly stayed and carried on as before, becoming share croppers instead of slaves. In this system they work for a proportion of the crops they tend, and that translates into a meagre income. As slaves, their wherewithal was provided. They now didn’t suffer the indignity of being “owned”, and could leave if they wanted, but in practical terms not much changed. Here’s an atmospheric picture of one of their workers.

Verdict on visit: interesting, but could have been a better insight into how their sugar plantation operated through the years. They’re growing bananas there today!

New Orleans: The Garden District

The French sold Louisiana to the USA in 1803. The increasing American presence thereafter was resented by the culturally French original inhabitants, so the wealthy Americans decided to establish a new area two miles to the west of the French quarter. This has come to be known as the Garden District due to the extensive gardens and mansions built there in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Here are three photos just to give and idea of what they built.

 

 

The next one is unusual because it has two entrance stairs. This is down to 19^th century modesty where the men used one staircase and the ladies the other so that the men wouldn’t catch a glimpse of a bare ankle. However, ladies at that time wore low-cut dresses. Race you to the top of the stairs, chaps!

More modest in a different way is the next home. It’s called a shotgun house and these are found all over the south eastern States, ranging in size from quite large to very small. Why shotgun?   Well, if you fired a shotgun through the front door, the blast would go straight out of the back door without hitting anything- apart from the doors, that is. In other words there was a passage running from front to back in order to funnel air through the house during the humid, very hot summer months (May through October).

There were hundreds of magnificent houses, mostly beautifully manicured. This area also avoided the flooding that affected 80% of the city following Katrina: it's a few feet above sea level, just enough to matter.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Dead Centre of New Orleans

St Louis Cemetery is the most famous New Orleans graveyard. None contain any conventional graves, only above-ground vaults of all shapes and sizes, because the city is below sea level and any hole immediately fills with water. It is a Catholic burial ground, the religion of its French heritage, with a non-Catholic area.
The Catholic part contains the tomb of New Orleans’ most celebrated voodoo queen, Marie Laveau. This is her tomb. Voodoo offerings are still being left in front of the tomb, with marks on the walls (XXX) to ensure favourable acceptance.

Voodoo originated from the Haitian slaves and applied charms and spells, also holy entities to grant wishes. Apparently many found they could accommodate Catholicism and Voodoo at the same time, as both creeds used rituals, sacred objects and holy men to influence events when petitioned in the appropriate way.
The vaults are placed higgledy-piggledy, no straight lines, and in parts are quite dilapidated. This gives a general idea.

Here is the magnificent mausoleum of the Italian Mutual Benevolent Association, built in 1857. It’s a group effort, ensuring costs and upkeep can be met. Jane in front gives an idea of its size.

Who can remember the Lonnie Donnegan hit, the Battle of New Orleans?  It’s the story of how the Americans won this final battle of the 1812 to 1815 war against the British. This tombstone records the death of one Oliver ***, who “died in the defence of the city of New Orleans in the battle with the British Army December 23^rd 1814”. I always thought that Lonnie was singing about the battle of New Orleans because we’d won it.

Film actor Brad Pitt had several houses in the city, some of which he needed to sell to pay taxes. He is increasingly involved in social issues and in particular has spearheaded reconstruction projects in the deprived Ninth Ward that was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. We were told that he has reserved a space here in the cemetery, in the shape of this pyramid (indicated with a white arrow). It’s maybe his money stash- the last place the taxman would look.

So burials are still on-going. In this sort of arrangement you can keep going upwards. It was an interesting visit. There was also a musicians vault, and the first World Champion chess player is interred here: he finally got check-mated.

We must now hop on our hop-on hop-off bus tour and hop off at another destination.

The Big Easy

New Orleans is known as the “Big Easy” because of its laid-back inhabitants. It refers to itself more frequently as the “Crescent City” from the way the Mississippi curves around the city.

Everyone initially heads for the old town, the French Quarter, established in 1718. First impressions are of a tourist town: masses of souvenir shops, restaurants and bars, street vendors and performers, horse-drawn carriages and tours. A splendid example of tacky trinketry is this voodoo gift shop (voodoo has a history here), with nodding zombie figure at the entrance. Remind you of anyone you know?

 

The right attitude is to treat it all as fun; above all N.O. is a place of party. Some excellent street bands add to this impression, and here’s one motley crew performing in the square in front of the cathedral with a great sound.

The densest nightclub concentration is in Bourbon Street. The most readable sign is for Chris Owens’ Night Club. It’s the most famous one here. Chris Owens is a female entertainer who seemingly hosts a stunning cabaret show- not, as I first thought, a drag artist.

There is a more classy side to the old town. Jackson Square with the cathedral behind is quite scenic, even though my “Rough Guide” says it looks like a two dimensional façade from a film set.

Many of the buildings have wrought iron balconies that look really lovely when decked out with ferns and flowers. You can happily wander the quieter streets looking at the different styles of picturesque old buildings.The next photo is a good example, with the carriage thrown in for extra olde worlde atmosphere. Just ignore the two cars in the background!

 

New Orleans has figured in many songs, with particular streets or buildings mentioned. We decided to trace two of these:

Basin Street

Basin Street Blues is a Dixieland Jazz Band classic, written in 1926 and a hit for Louis Armstrong in 1928, performed since by countless others. So where’s Basin Street? The hop-on hop-off bus supplied us with the answer when we alighted at the old railway terminus, now a museum.

“There is a house in New Orleans, they call the Rising Sun” etc.

Anyone who lived through the 60’s will be familiar with the Animal’s hit record, but there are many other recordings too. Surprisingly, its location doesn’t appear in any of the tourist publicity or on any walking tours’ agendas. Some research on the internet reveals that its identity was indeed uncertain for many years, until the late 1980’s when semi-derelict premises was being renovated: 

Workmen at the site discovered risque postcards of half-dressed women from the 1800s behind a wall and uncovered fancy fluted columns and a ceiling mural of a golden rising sun surrounded by three cherubs. Levy says the house was a bordello operated by a succession of different madams for many years before her husband bought the building. 

This is now generally accepted as the true House of the Rising Sun. Oddly, no attempt has been made to capitalise on its past and the building is today an estate agent. But perhaps that’s an appropriate change, from one notorious commercial operation to another!

Keeping with the party atmosphere, there were three parades on Easter Sunday. The theme of all three was Easter Bonnets, so here’s a few photos just to give a flavour. It was crowded and hectic, so almost impossible to take a decent snap. The gay parade was the best. Here’s a fairy coach, which is entirely appropriate.

 

 

Now some gay hats.

And here’s the tooth fairy, as he told us, with his gold teeth!

 

The floats in all parades threw huge quantities of beads into the crowd which we all wore and gave us a feeling of participating in the merriment. Bands, too, and majorettes, but how many more photos can you take? It was all party, what New Orleans seems to do best.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday March 24th: New Orleans

We motorhomers formed a little group in a corner of Walmart Pensacola car park. But not in a circle, covered-wagon style, against the marauding Indians, in case you were wondering. It’s now just 200 miles to New Orleans and we arrive by early afternoon.

The first thing we notice is the huge levee across the road from the campsite, holding back the waters of the mighty Mississippi. Later on we climbed up the bank to find a tarmac footpath/cycle track on the top that runs all 12 miles into the centre. Great idea.

We walked along the path and from that elevation could appreciate the size of the Mississippi and its importance for shipping. It is navigable for 1,800 miles, as far as Minneapolis. The port of New Orleans claims to be the centre of the world’s biggest port complex. The airport is right here too and the next photo catches a landing plane in the evening light with some shipping on the river. It’s a bit dark, so you’ll have to use your imagination!

A programme on TV just before coming to the States linked the two previous photos. A commercial passenger aircraft heading for New Orleans developed engine problems and the pilot realised he wouldn’t quite make it to the runway. What do you do in an area of swamps and marshy lakes? He spotted a flat area on a levee, like the area to the right of the tarmac path in the first photo but without the power cable pylons. He then made a perfect landing: all passengers unharmed. The landing site was quickly located and the passengers bussed away to onward destinations. Job done, you might think. But now we have a plane with wheels slowly sinking into the soft riverside soil. So a quick-fix repair was made to the engines and the pilot took off again while it was still possible, and flew the short distance to the airport. Round of applause for that man! 

Staying with the Mississippi, on our first day in the city centre we took a Steamboat trip. The Natchez is an old style stern-paddle wheeler. It’s a replica, but looks convincing.

There’s an informative commentary on the 10 mile trip downriver, with lunch and a jazz band, so a pleasant two hours. You can see the brown muddy colour of the Mississippi waters. Before the boat sets off, an organist plays a steam organ located on the top deck. This echoes loudly over the whole dock area in ice-cream-van quality tones. Here's the organist & organ emitting steam, looking like more like a hog roast barbie than a musical instrument.  

Still with the Mississippi as our theme, just down from the campsite on the riverbank is a bronze statue of two bare-knuckle prizefighters. It commemorates the first heavyweight boxing championship of the world, in 1870, on that exact spot. “Gypsy” Jem Mace of Beeston, Norfolk beat Tom Allen, another Brit, for a purse of $2,500. In 1870 bare-knuckle fighting was illegal in the UK but still flourished in the USA, particularly in New Orleans. “Gypsy” Jem had been a talented violinist, of all things, but was a big-time gambler so had nothing left from his very sucessful boxing career.