“I’ll meet you within the foyer at 4:30,” my pal mentioned after we’d checked into our rooms on the fabled Peabody Resort in Memphis. “We are able to see the geese after which get dinner.”
I gave him a puzzled look. “The geese?”
He smiled. “You’ll see.”
After I got here again downstairs, an extended purple carpet was rolled out in entrance of the elevator. On both facet of the purple carpet, velvet ropes hung from metallic stands. I used to be astute sufficient to know that each one this fuss wasn’t for me. I spied my pal standing behind one of many ropes and walked over to him. By then, a crowd had began to collect.
“What is that this?” I requested.
He smiled. “You’ll see.”
A couple of minutes later, exactly at 5 o’clock, the parade started. I watched as 5 geese (North American mallards, to be exact) climbed one after the other out of the large fountain and, with appreciable pomp and circumstance, shaped right into a line and waddled single file to the elevator. After which into the elevator. The doorways closed they usually have been gone, all to applause and laughs of pleasure from everybody who had gathered to observe.
It was one of many craziest issues I’ve ever seen: geese getting the red-carpet therapy within the foyer of a luxurious lodge. “It’s a well-known Memphis custom,” my pal defined. “They’re headed as much as a coop on the roof for the night time. Then they’ll come again down tomorrow at 11 and swim within the fountain all afternoon.”
Not solely did they’ve soft jobs, they obtained to sleep in daily. Good work if you may get it.
The following morning after breakfast, we watched the start leg of the geese’ every day journey. We had a gathering at 2 p.m., and till then our day was free. “Graceland or Solar?” my pal requested.
I needed to ponder that one for a second. “Solar,” I lastly replied.
We drove a number of blocks and reached one of the vital hallowed addresses of my life: 706 Union Avenue, Solar Studio. I might nearly see a youthful Elvis Presley nervously hanging round outdoors, making an attempt to get the braveness to go in and report a ballad to present to his mom.
A tour information took us up the steps, and once we reached the door main into the studio, I stood there for a second to soak all of it in. I used to be struck by how tiny it was—barely giant sufficient to squeeze in a band with a full drum package. But this was the room the place Elvis had recorded “That’s All Proper” with Scotty Moore on guitar and Invoice Black on bass on a steamy July night time in 1954. That second, within the eyes of many, marked the invention of rock ‘n’ roll.
To my proper was a stand that held a classic microphone. “That is the place Elvis stood at his first recording session, and that is the precise mic he used,” the tour information mentioned.
In a nook, a darkish acoustic guitar sat on a stand. Close to the nut, excessive up on the neck, a taking part in card was threaded by means of each different string. It was a duplicate of the guitar Johnny Money used when he recorded at Solar. “Should you hearken to ‘I Stroll The Line,’ you assume there’s a drummer on that report,” the information mentioned. “There was no drummer. That was Johnny taking part in the ‘boom-chicka-boom’ rhythm together with his guitar. That’s why he put a taking part in card by means of the strings, to mute them so he might get that sound.”
The three of us stood in that room for almost an hour, asking questions and swapping tales about Elvis, Money, Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison, all music heroes who discovered their sound in that one little recording studio. It was non secular.
Solar Studio is a part of this month’s “Should-Do South” characteristic story, wherein we share a few of our favourite spring journey locations throughout the Southeast. We hope it evokes you to get out and discover the states round us.
And the geese. By all means, you’ve obtained to see the geese.
This text seems in our March 2025 challenge.
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