Beale Street--a Multicultural Tourist Destination With a Twist
by Bill Worley
Back in the 1930s, a Black politician named George Lee wrote a book about the main street in his part of Memphis. Beale Street: Where the Blues Was Born--he called it.

In the 1950s, variations of the Blues were still wafting up from Beale Street from folks like Ike Turner, Howliní Wolf, and Riley 'B.B.' King. By that time, two Memphis radio stations--WDIA by day and WHBQ at night--were broadcasting 'the sound' democratically throughout the otherwise segregated city.

White kids like Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis heard "the sound" from the radio. Then they bought 'the sound' at Goldman's and W.T. Grant's record departments. By 1954, Elvis was recording with Sam Phillips at Sun Records right where Beale Street jogged into Union Avenue.

Writer Robert Gordon says in It Came from Memphis that rock and roll was the product of White kids wanting to sound Black. If that's so, it happened in Memphis.

There's this photograph that publicity directors are fond of showing in Memphis these days. It has Elvis at the piano with Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins looking over his shoulder. These were the Sun Record years...and those four guys definitely had a bit to do with defining rock and roll (as well as rockabilly, country, and a few things even less palatable).

I know, when you go to Memphis--if you're into music--you go to Graceland, Graceland, Graceland. Even rhymin' Paul Simon did it, and wrote a song to boot. But believe me, if you want to get a little closer to the reality that was early rock and roll, go to Beale Street. Not to the hoked up fake 'Sun Studio' in the Old Daisy theater, not to the new 'Elvis in Memphis' or Hard Rock Cafe that are both opening on Beale Street this summer.

No, just go to the street. Listen. Walk. Absorb.

You see, Beale Street has been "urban renewed" and "urban removed" [nobody lives on Beale Street proper anymore], but it is still possible on Spring and Summer weekends to hear live musicians and singers hawk their wares on street corners and in Handy Park. Some of it may almost be Karaoke, but there are some real voices and skills that go on display.

One Sunday evening, I stood to listen to a young Black woman styling wonderful tunes at the corner of Hernando and Beale. Her backup was all electronic and none too sophisticated at that. But the singing was real, exciting, vibrant. There was a basket on one of the amps to remind us casual thrill seekers that even street corner singers need bread.

That morning I listened to a Black quartet belting Gospel sounds through the doorway to the Center for Southern Folklore, right across the corner from where the girl would hold forth that night. In this combination bookstore/museum/coffeeshop/beer parlor, singers like A.D. 'Gatemouth' Brown kept other old musical traditions alive. Brown, by the way, pioneered broadcasting Black Gospel on WDIA radio in the early 1950s. Well into his 80s, this A.M.E. preacher still cuts a suave figure as he sings or visits with the curious at the Center.

Throughout the week I spent on Beale Street, my multicultural vacation got another twist. If, as Lt. Lee said, Beale Street was 'where the Blues was born,' the most authentic Blues I heard all week [including at the Blues Festival itself] came from a white guy who called himself "King Daddy."

You see, the reality of Beale Street in the 1990s is that 'the music' is back, but you still have to look for it--sometimes in all the wrong places. Yes, I believe that the Blues [and Jazz--from Kansas City, Chicago, and New York] begat rock and roll. Beale Street certainly believes that. Rock and roll 'oldies but goodies' are prime fare in all the clubs from the Rum Boogie Cafe to B.B. King's joint to Silkie O'Sullivan's tavern [where two of the funniest, most profane, dual pianists put life in rock and roll six nights a week].

One other multicultural thing about Beale Street these days. Just like King Daddy, the White traditional Bluesman, most of the crowds are honkies. The bands and entertainers are much more representative of the music scene--racially mixed and emotionally charged.

The time I saw the greatest number of Blacks on Beale Street [which used to be their street] was on Sunday night again. Even more interesting, there were dozens of Black families with small children. Without a doubt, the presence of a carnival midway in Robert Church Park a couple of blocks east on Beale from Hernando Street brought most of the families out that evening.

But, here's the point. I had seen all kinds of White folks the previous couple of days, but no children [at least under the age of sixteen or so, and they were definitely trying to look 21]. Young Black fathers and mothers brought their children with them as they swayed to the music up and down the street. It was truly a magical moment.

There's something trendy yet today in our society about White folks wanting to groove on Black folks' music. It was rebellious to want to do so in the 1950s. Today, it's much less of a political statement than an acknowledgment of the superiority of some of the old styles of the Bluesmen and Blueswomen of the 1920s and '30s.

Still, it's encouraging to this aging baby boomer and flower child of the '60s to be able to report that, in Memphis in May at least, there truly is a multicultural musical experience to be had. That in itself is cause for rejoicing!

Bill Worley is somehow related to folks that bring you Lies on a semi-regular basis. He doesn't pretend to be a music critic--he sired enough of those already. But he does remember listening to Bill Haley and his Comets blasting forth "Rock Around the Clock" on a 78 RPM record in 1954. That's about as close to 'being there at the creation' as he can claim. That, and growing up 20 miles from where Buddy Holly and the Crickets recorded "Peggy Sue" and "That'll be the Day" just a couple of years later.

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