The crown jewel.

I would travel to. Asheville again just to experience it. This museum is SO well done.

It starts with a great 10 minute film overview.

You then exit into a large hallway with massive screen topped tables.

There are icons floating by , you touch the icon and it takes you to a period of American history and the music associated with that time period. Which inevitably is African American in origin.

Your right the European based forms do not directly apply here.

Very clear explanations of the African music culture, how it is carried across despite the slavery. How the music helped the people endure.

Then the evolution of the music from the African culture into Spirituals, jazz, R and B.,soul, rap hip hop into the present day. Each artist has a playlist and each area has a playlist. So I got to check out India Arie, who I had heard of but never listened to.

Then there are various rooms each dealing with a different type of music. Each room has displays AND each has a screen table. So let’s say you’re in one of the jazz period rooms.

The table has a circle of names. So I click on Miles Davis. I can click on a link and go in depth to his history. Or

There is a pie shaped diagram surrounding his name broken into people who influenced him, who he influenced and who his contemporaries are. So now I click on one of his influencers, Billie Holiday or maybe the classic Spanish composer Rodrigo, Now I get to learn how they influenced him. I then click on John Baptiste and learn what influence Miles had on him. As you can see you could spend years going down various rabbit holes. I was enthralled! Talk about no man is an island. Think about work songs being improvised in the fields, Ella Fitzgerald sing scat, Be bop improvisation, to Rapping over turn tables at house parties.

Now here’s the kicker, For 5 dollars you buy a wristband . You can download the playlists NO LIMIT. Best museum of the trip

The technology is state of the art( At least as far as this 72 year old knows)

After leaving Nashville we headed to Chattanooga. In South Pittsburg we found the Lodge factory, as in cast iron skillets etc

Until next time. Paul

In Nashville earlier this week, we went to two music museums

The first was the musicians hall of fame.

It has an extensive collection of instruments, personal items, and stories.

It is a free form organization in that you can wander from room to room depending on on your interest

The first 3 pictures are at the entrance.

There were a few good detailed biographies. Notable were the ones for Glen Campbell and Johnny Cash.

Glen had a very impoverished childhood. He helped his family by picking cotton. $1.50 for 100 lbs. if you worked fast and continuously you might pick 80-90 lbs in a day.

He loved music and played well on his homemade instruments. His father realized that his son had a gift, scrimped and saved.

3hundred and 34 lbs of cotton late he was able to buy him a Sears Roebuck acoustic guitar for $5.00. When he was 13 he left school to try a make a career in music.

He was an amazing guitarist. As a minor with his Uncle Boo was playing gigs in Montana at night and digging ditches during the day. He was so good that competing club owners would turn him in to authorities.

Recently I heard his rendition of Gentle on My Mind. Just wonderful!

Galveston is a song I thought I had heard too much of. As I was listening wit this AM I just love how at the start he is playing higher notes and then towards the end the full throated bass tuned come in. I don’t know what it is that the change strikes such a warmth in me.

The sunglasses.

He had vision problems since childhood, so he wore thick glasses all the time.

While on tour with the Beatles he forge them on a plane. So he wore his prescription singly, decided he preferred them and never looked back.

Speaking of women. Below are pictures of Sam Phillips Office manager. Elvis said she was the most important person at Sun Records. He appreciated how well she took care of him

Next time the National

Museum ofAfrican American Music is a jewel

Paul

After leaving Tupelo we got on the Natchez Trace Parkway. This was originally a game trail, the Native Americans used it as a major migratory route, then the settlers made it into a roadway and finally the ParkService have made it into a National Park

Graves of 7 unknown confederate soldiers on an old part of the Trace.

The Trace starts in Natchez Miss. and ends just south of Nashville Tennessee. It is a neat 2 lane road with gentle hills and lazy curves. 50 MPH MAX. Very enjoyable if you’re not in a hurry.

Throughout the centuries there have been many enterprise’s including a steel mill. Someone dug a millrace 250 feet long 15 feet wide and 5 feet deep by hand. That close to 700 cubic yards.

There are lovely little waterfalls emerging from the sandstone.

I hiked down some “unimproved “ trails to see them.

Future Bicycle trip?

We arrived in Nashville to a cacophony of truck traffic that is unremitting days later.

Things were not going according to plan. The first day in Nashville. So we decided to check out the farmers market.

It is on a nice site at the base of a hill the state capital sits on.

In 1996 the state celebrated their bicentennial. Part of the celebration was this marble wall celebrating significant people and events in the state history.

It is made up of these segments

I could have spent many hours there reading The first 10 or so panels deal with prehistoric times.

I like the hope that despite this trail going to one side people came to their senses and created these first panels.

. Well Done

Remember our single knuckle heads that are doing to lead? I give you William Walker

Till next time

Paul

1st I just published 2 drafts That I thought I had already posted. Some of the context will be mixed up.

A couple more thoughts on the Stax visit.

My friend Cameron has told me the story of Otis Redding writing “ Sittin On The Dock Of The Bay” at the Sausalito House boats. When I read the book about Stax and Otis Redding more details were filled in.

He had been booked for 4 nights at The Fillmore. Bill Graham had access to a household that he would let performers stay at. Otis was staying there.

At this point Otis was a superstar.

He was trying to figure out where he wanted his career to go. He was in a very introspective state of mind. He starts to write. He has a few choruses and he heads back to Stax in Memphis.

Steve Cropper picks up the story. They start to work on it in an acoustic version. It’s Friday, Steve says, Otis we just signed the Staple singers to Stax, let’s have them contribute. Otis thinks this is a great idea. He’s flying out to do a weekend concert. Tells Steve I’ll see you Monday.

Otis dies in a place crash that weekend.

The record executives tell Steve “we have to get that song out quick” Forcing him and the band to finish it quickly. He recalls, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Otis never heard the version we know and of course the Staples were never involved. We were left with a treasure.

This morning we are driving toward Tupelo, Miss.

Marlina asks do we want To go to Elvis’s birthplace? I said sure.

There is a city park dedicated to to his birthplace in Tupelo. Very nicely laid out with numerous panels of quotes of people who knew him as a boy. He moved to Memphis when he was 13.

He got a guitar on his 11th birthday. He didn’t want it. He wanted a gun or a bicycle instead. His mother was afraid he would get hurt with either of those gifts. He grudgingly took the guitar. As they say…..

Story after story of what a nice kid he was and the strict upbringing he was raised under.

I know very little about him, but came away with much more respect. It would have been fun to have known him. We can get so caught up in the hoopla that it’s easy to forget the fragile human who underlies that persona.

The house and immediate grounds were created by the local garden club and waves of volunteers.

Trips often have these little gems of surprise.

Keep looking for the good in each other , and you’ll find it , when you least expect it to

Paul

Today is the 30 th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing

Marlina had sent me a very good article from The Guardian looking at an HBO SPECIAL that premiered 3 days ago. An American Bombing.

At first I didn’t want to see it, but after being at the site, I feel the need to understand that event in more detail.

The authors emphasize that McVeigh was sane and in full control of his actions. It speaks to his deep seated anger and the myriad of events that contributed to it. To the fact that he was far from a lone wolf and how mainstream extremism is in our society.

My thoughts as I walked around the site were “ This is what happens when when one man decides he will solve a problem.“

That points out a major problem with democracy, no one gets everything they want.

More importantly that it takes lots of work, cooperation, and sacrifice to get things done, usually quite Inefficiently

Anytime someone says “they will take care of it”, my antenna go up. When they don’t go up I get blindsided. Be it a co worker, friend or politician, BE AWARE

On the other hand when people work together…

I take you to the Stax Record museum in Memphis Tenn

We visited yesterday and had a great self guided tour. Many of you know my favorite music is R and B / funk.

This is the St Peter’s in Rome of R and B

Booker T and the MG’s, Sam and Dave, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas (The Funky Chicken) Wilson Pickett, Al Green, Otis Redding,, Issac Hayes,Need I I say more?

His rendition of The Jimmy Webb song “By the Time I Get To Phoenix “ is right there with Aretha’s ’ reworking Otis Redding’s RESPECT.

For a deep dive you can read “Dreams to Remember “. I thought it was a fun read and my appreciation of Otis Redding went through the roof.

What made it so successful was the camaraderie that infused the place.

It was about making good music and the fun of playing together.

After the assassination of Dr King it went into decline. There were a number of factors that contributed to to the decline.

Can you guess what one of them was?

One man had control of the company. Like I said it was NOT the only one.

For decades all that was there was a shell and a historical marker.

The museum resurrected byyyyyy…

AGROUP OF PEOPLE WORKING TOGETHER to

form a foundation .

Have a good night and Do Your Funky Chicken Now!

We have been in Memphis for the last couple of days, touring Beale St and downtown Memphis

FUN FACTS

Sits on the East bank of the Mississippi River

Major Cotton shipping port.

Flooding farm lands near river make for excellent soil in which to grow Cotton.

City won by Union during the Civil War after a 94 minute navel battle of Iron Clads vs , and I’m not kidding, cotton clads.

Southern naval strategist figured the cotton bales would absorb the artillery impact. Didn’t factor in the little issue of flammability.

I wonder which cotton agent was a brother in law to that strategist .

Perhaps you have heard this one before. When the 19rh amendment was up for a vote it was a razor thin margin. There was a congressman from Tennessee named Joseph Hanover whose family had immigrated from Poland when he was young. He was clear that he was voting against it.

He then got a telephone call from his mother.

She asked him, Do you think I am smart enough to know how to vote?

He voted for it.

The 19rh amendment passed.

He was voted out of office the next election.

He served a much more valuable term than 99% of the current members of the Federal Legislative branch.

We then went to the National Civil Rights museum Formerly The Lorraine Motel where Dr King was assassinated.

.

The museum has hundreds of of great stories, and traces the civil rights struggle from the beginnings of slavery in Africa.

This is a map of Birmingham,Alabama, that became known as Bombingham.

“ You have to be prepared for die, before you can begin to live”

That’s Brass!

Dr King goes to Memphis to support the sanitation workers strike.

This was the famous slogan of the protestors.

It goes on for 60+ days.

It is finally settled after Dr King is assassinated.

One of the issues was a pay increase.

Here’s the story of how that was settled.

New hero, Abe Ploughing

Rest well Oh yea, Suffs

This term replaces suffragettes. There was nothing little about the women who battled for the right to vote. Enjoy your new word.

Paul

The impetus for this trip was a program we had seen on CBS SUNDAY MORNING, that was showing in Washington DC. It featured an exhibit glasswork that had been created by a man named Preston Singletery. Work that was cast, carved, and blown. Marlina looked at the schedule only to find that it was only going to the Oaklahoma City museum of art and no further . It wasn’t coming to us.

The exhibit tells the story of Yeil or raven who is a trickster character in Tlingit culture.

It’s the story of how he brings light into the world.It is a creation story

You start learning the back ground story of everything is in darkness. Yeil is going to go into the darkness to see about a rumor he heard about a divine place.

You turn and start around a corner and are presented with this

Done with material, projection and sound.

Knowing he’ll be recognized, before he gains entrance, he becomes a speck of dirt, floating on a feather he hopes the princess will dip her cup and drink him. He is recognized and cast out.

He changes form ,this time he is undiscovered, and she becomes pregnant) Immaculate Conception) The story proceeds but you can check it out as you choose

story proceeds all illustrated with this magnificent glass work.

I found this so enjoyable. The concepts employed to tell a creation story are very inventive and draw you in to learn more. As is stated at the beginning of this show, the similarities with this story and other cultures are numerous reflect our common humanity.

From there we were on our way back to the hotel and visited the OKC bombing site that was perpetrated by Timothy Mc Veigh.

The latter time being that every thing has changed forever.

Until next time

Paul

Follow your 7 P’s.

Prior

Proper

Planning

Prevents

Piss

Poor

Performance

The day before we leave I get my RSV AND Covid booster vaccinations.

I had not had a reaction after my last one.

I wake up on Friday at 12:35 AM shaking with chill, a fever, my feet are freezing and aching all over.

I get up a few hours later to leave for the airport at 4:50 AM.

A little better, but very wiped out.

Off we go to the airport,hoping no one notices.

1st leg of trip I slept the whole way. We transfer

and I sleep again.

We get to the hotel in OKC(Oklahoma City) and I sleep again for another hour and a half, go to dinner,return, sleep for another 10 hours.Saturday we’re back in fighting shape

On the agenda for today Saturday is Myraid Botanical Park and the Oklahoma Museum of Art.

This park is an oasis in the middle of a windy dry, flat environment.

This is an example of one of the small areas inside this park .

There are numerous water features, ramps , stairs ,paths ,sidewalks, places for kids, a misting and spouting water play area numerous plant varieties etc. They use Corten steel for great effect in borders and for retaining walls. Several waterfalls and numerous streams of varying velocities. Then in the middle an excellent arboretum, that wasn’t real excited to go into. Snapped my head right around. The multiple levels, the excellent signage and explanations kept your attention and lit up your curiosity

Hats off to all that have created this oasis.

Next the Preston Singletary exhibit at the OKC art museum

Let’s start with a video of the Hockney exhibit

Today we took the Tube to Battersey Power station.

This was built in the Victorian Era, was coal fired and finally shut down in1983.

It was about this time that the train came off the track and the back pain worsened. Within a few days we decided to return home and cut our trip short The health care I received in London was excellent.

I had used both the private and public systems.

I understand that I used them in a very limited manner. The care I received was through,empathetic and well thought out..

Pretty scary not having much control over the pain. There is a lot more to learn about prevent and treatment based on what I can do.

We’ll see what happens next time.