Memphis City Guides : The sound of Memphis

Since the start of the twentieth century, Memphis has been a meeting place for black musicians from the Mississippi Delta and beyond. During the Twenties, its downtown pubs, clubs and street corners were alive with the sound of the blues. Jug bands, in which singers were given a bass accompaniment by a musician blowing across the neck of a jug, were a specialty. Several songs by Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers - such as Walk Right In - became hits for white artists during the folk revival of the Sixties. Bukka White, Memphis Slim and guitarist Memphis Minnie appeared at nightspots like Mitchell's Hotel and Pee Wee's Saloon , all long since defunct. After World War II, young musicians and radio DJs experimented by blending the traditional blues sound with jazz, adding electrical amplification to create rhythm'n'blues . Pioneers included Bobby Bland and B.B. King .

White promoter Sam Phillips started Sun Records in 1953, employing Ike Turner as a scout to comb the Beale Street clubs for new talent. Among those whom Turner helped introduce to vinyl were his own girlfriend, Annie Mae Bullock (later Tina Turner ), Howlin' Wolf and Little Junior Parker , whose Mystery Train was Sun's first great recording. Phillips' conviction that "If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars" was realized in 1954, during a coffee break, when he overheard a young white man who had hired the studio to record a disc for his mother - Elvis Presley . Phillips dropped his black artists right away, signing other white rockabilly singers like Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis to make classics such as Blue Suede Shoes and Great Balls of Fire . Elvis - who in the words of Carl Perkins had the advantage that he "didn't look like Mr Ed, like a lot of the rest of us" - was soon sold on to RCA (for just $35,000), and didn't record in Memphis again until 1969, when, with songs like Suspicious Minds , he produced the best material of his later career.

In the Sixties and early Seventies, Memphis's Stax Records provided a rootsy alternative to the poppier sounds of Motown. This hard-edged southern soul was created by a multiracial mix of musicians, Steve Cropper 's fluid guitar complementing the blaring Memphis Horns . The label's first real success was Green Onions by studio band Booker T and the MGs ; further hits followed from Otis Redding ( Try A Little Tenderness ), Wilson Pickett ( Midnight Hour ), Sam and Dave ( Soul Man ) and Isaac Hayes ( Shaft ). The label eventually foundered in acrimony; the last straw for many of its veteran soulmen was the signing of the British child star Lena Zavaroni for a six-figure sum.

Memphis has been renowned for its gospel music since the Thirties, when Rev Herbert Brewster wrote Mahalia Jackson 's Move On Up a Little Higher . Following a religious revelation, the consummate soul stylist Al Green , who achieved chart success for Hi Records with Let's Stay Together and Tired of Being Alone , is now minister at the Full Gospel Tabernacle, at 787 Hale Rd in the leafy suburb of Whitehaven. Visitors are welcome at the 11am Sunday services, complete with four-piece rhythm section; continue a mile south of Graceland, then turn west (phone ahead to check he's in town; tel 901/396-9192).

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