Sam Phillips ran Sun Records out of this building in Memphis, personally discovering Sam Cooke, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Ike Turner, Carl Perkins and Elvis.

In 1951 while preparing to record a new song “Rocket 88” Ike Turner’s guitarist dropped his amp and tore the speaker cone, with no replacement and no time Sam Phillips stuffed the cabinet full of newspaper and accidentally created the first use of guitar distortion.

You can hear the fuzz-buzz of the broken amp on the final recording too, almost sounding like a saxophone, rock and roll is born.

This piano.

This is the actual microphone used to record the first Elvis tracks, Johnny’s “I Walk The Line”, Great Balls of Fire and the studio tracks from U2’s Rattle and Hum,

Surprisingly not a monstrous house, a mansion for sure but not obscene at all.

Fried Peanut Butter and Banana sandwich, anyone?

Three TV’s to shoot at.

The Jungle Room

Squash Court

Yesterday when I popped in to Ardent Studios I chickened out.

The sole surviving member of Big Star, drummer Jody Stephens, works at Ardent. I wanted very badly to ask if he was in yesterday but couldn’t do it.

I walked in to Ardent this afternoon and asked the guy at the front desk:

“Does Jody Stephen’s still work here?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think he might do an autograph?”

“I don’t know, Jody is pretty busy today.”

At that point I heard a voice from the back yell:

“What are you telling people about me!?”

Jody came out of the back, shook my hand and signed my copy of “#1 Record”.

We chatted a few more minutes and then Jody asked if I had time for a tour ! ! !

He proceeded to spend the next half-hour showing me every room in the studio, telling me Big Star stories and answering my questions.

I’ve been speechless a few times this trip already but this was something different.

Very little footage exists of the band, they were never really successful enough to tour or be filmed. This bit of footage is about all there is, the whole band is there, in the studio I was standing in this afternoon, you can see Jody working on the drums along with the rest of the band.

I never travel far,
without a little Big Star.

– The Replacements
“Alex Chilton”

Before going to see Sun Records, before Graceland, before the Blues Hall of Fame and the Memphis Soul Museum I have to take care of Big Star.

Memphis’s Big Star are usually at the top of the list of “Great Bands That Never Made It” and I love them, I won’t talk about the music itself much here, you’ve heard it all from me before, repeatedly.

The Memphis sites of Big Star!

In 1971 four friends who hung out at a local Memphis recording studio stumbled into a recording contract.

This is that recording studio. I popped inside, told the guy working there that I was a Big Star fan, he smiled and said look around, take pictures.

This is that studio.

Once the recordings were underway the guys realized they needed a name, they walked down the street to the ice cream stand they used to hang out at between studio time and tried to decide between naming themselves after the ice cream stand, and be known as “Sweden Kream” or…

This is the Sweden Kream today.

The band’s other singer, Chris Bell died in a car crash in 1978 (age 27 of course), after leaving the band due to mental health issues he worked at his family’s restaurant, Mortimer’s. I stopped in today for a burger and beer, the bartender figured out why I was there within two minutes, he said I look like all the other Big Star hunters.

This is Mortimer’s Restaurant.

The only surviving bandmember is Jody the drummer, he actually works at Ardent Studios but I didn’t have the guts to ask if he was around today.

Packed up and on the road out of Branson by 7:03am, I can make up the 3 minutes easy.

First planned stop was the Big Craig Trail, supposedly a gorgeous mountainside 4 mile trail in the Ozarks, unfortunately the road to get there was way beyond what I was willing to put supervan through, sad to pass on this one as I could really use the exercise.

Next planned stop was at what is purported to be the oldest business in Arkansas, a general store deep in the middle of the Ozark National Forest, unfortunately I ran into the same problem as the hiking, both roads I attempted to take to get to the General Store were way too rough and in both cases I had to slowly back out to the main road.

Strike two.

Next planned stop was for lunch at a much recommended BBQ place in the town of Ozark… yup, it’s closed… it’s sunday so EVERYTHING in Arkansas is closed.

Strike Three.

Grabbed lunch at a Waffle House which turned out to be a lot of fun, a girl of roughly 10 sitting next to me at the counter very shyly offered that she liked my glasses, I thanked her and noticed hers were almost exactly the same, we had a great lunch together.

At one point the waitress put Hank Williams on the jukebox, the trucker sitting on my other side started bitching, saying they should play some “real country”, I held my tongue and my buddy super quietly whispered “I like this song”.

After lunch I took a 3 hour backroad blast across the state to find the boyhood farmhouse of Johnny Cash, anyone who knows me knows my love for Johnny.

I sat in front of his house and listened to a select playlist for about an hour.

When you book the earliest scenic railroad trip of the day you get half a train to yourself.

The train was great, but more quaint-great than great-great, still cool.

Followed this with a trip to the Ralph Foster Museum of the Ozarks mainly to see this….!

Yes, that is the original Beverly Hillbillies truck, on the show they originally came from Branson before moving out west.

Next up… the National BB Gun Museum!

“You’ll shoot your eye out!”

And the World’s Largest Toy Museum!

Toys display plus selected bible verse.

Large toy display plus bible.

Tin trucks plus bible.

And in the back of the Toy Museum… a church!

Strength tester, as usual I pegged it!

And the Fishing Museum!

The day was capped perfectly by snagging a ticket to the Sight & Sound Theatre‘s (Branson’s answer to Cirque du Soleil) production of MOSES… three hours of a twilight zone worthy multimedia live theatre retelling of the biblical Moses story that was…. interesting….

Slept at the truck stop again last night, had planned to get on the road by 7:30, pulled away around 9:30, oh well.

First stop, the ghost town of Picher, Oklahoma.

Wanna know who ELSE is from Tulsa?

Woody freaking Guthrie.

This is Cain’s Ballroom, a pilgrimage site for sure for this trip. A century old dancehall in Tulsa that is often listed amoung the great places to see live music in North America.

Cain’s is most famous for two things. Firstly it was one of the very few places the Sex Pistols played in America.

And secondly it was the home of Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys, they broadcast their weekly show from Cain’s for 20 years before moving to Texas. 

Bob Wills was the forerunner of a lot of the style of Texas swing music that I like and an amazing songwriter.

His best tune:

I bought a ticket not caring who was playing, the band I saw, Split Lip Rayfield, were superb, banjo, mandolin and the gas tank from a 1981 LeCar bass.

Kansas style bluegrass that every single person around me knew the lyrics to every song of.