Memphis Audioguides

Memphis sits on a bluff above the Mississippi River and has spent two centuries channeling the energies of a continent. The blues took shape here in the juke joints of Beale Street. Elvis Presley walked into Sun Studio on Union Avenue in 1953 and recorded something that changed music permanently. A few years later, Stax Records on McLemore Avenue invented soul. The city did not just witness American music history, it generated an implausible share of it within a few square miles.

That creative intensity coexisted with something darker.

The Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, now houses the National Civil Rights Museum, one of the most emotionally demanding institutions in the country. Memphis is also the barbecue capital of the United States by many measures, and the debate between dry rub and wet sauce is treated here with the seriousness it deserves. The Mississippi River bluff at Tom Lee Park, with its long view over the water, is the best place to let the city's weight settle around you.