America certainly gave the world rock and roll and the first rock and roll record was, arguably, Jackie Brenston’s “Rocket 88” recorded as far back as 1951 in Sam Phillips’ Sun recording studios in Memphis. It was also in the Sun studios in July 1954 that a young truck driver by the name of Elvis Presley started acting the fool during an unproductive recording session and launched into his take on an old blues number “That’s all right”. Tapes were rolling, discs were cut and 3 days later the number was being aired on local radio station with listeners ‘phoning in and begging for the disc to be played again. History was being created.

Sun studios in Memphis is steeped in musical history and is just one of the places you get to visit on this fabulous tour.

But firstly a bit more about the music as this is something impossible to put into neat little boxes by genre. All popular music as we know it today was imported into America. Much country and bluegrass music can be traced back to white settlers from the UK and Europe whilst blues and jazz originated with the slaves brought unwillingly from West Africa to work in the cotton fields of the Deep South. America served as the melting pot where the genres developed and gave us the range of music we can enjoy today. Some understanding of civil rights is useful and this was served by the visit to the Martin Luther king memorial in Atlanta and the opportunity to visit the civil rights museum in Memphis.

On some tours I have detected a number of “box tickers” who are working their way through the brochure. Nothing like that on this tour. All were music lovers. There were 26 people booked on this trip with a higher than usual male to female ratio due to the musical direction of this particular trip. Ages ranged from early 30’s late 70’s and everyone found their own comfort zone. We were led by Tour Manager Jacqueline O'Donoghue, who I knew from a previous trip, who deserves special praise for all her work phoning ahead to sort out hotels, restaurants etc and even arranging for cases to be dropped off whilst we were on orientation etc tours so that these were already in rooms when we arrived at hotels. We also had a hand-out at the start of the tour confirming each day’s itinerary with, most importantly, all departure timings etc. Special mention also to our driver Travis who safely drove us approximately 2,000 miles around the south.

Flights were with Virgin Atlantic with groups from London and Manchester arriving at Atlanta within a few minutes of each other. We also had one lady join us from Canada. Formalities completed we were soon on our way to our hotel to relax after the flight and try and stay awake to acclimatise to the time difference.

A word about pre booking seats! I was always under the impression that as this constituted a group booking we were largely at the mercy of the airline and were only allocated seats at check in. Seemingly not so from a community post shortly before departure when I found I was able to go online and reserve window seats on both outbound and inbound flights. All went well outbound but inbound I found myself in the dreaded middle seat and 3 ladies found themselves downgraded from premium economy to economy. (They did, I understand receive compensation packages including free business class flights) because Virgin Atlantic put a different, smaller, plane into service for the inbound flight. I had more space and comfort in my National Express seat back to Southampton than I did on the inbound flight! This was of course all outside the control of JY but some clarity from JY in the booking documents as to which airlines you can pre-book seats with online would be useful but this of course only works if the airline don’t change the type of plane!

We stayed in 8 hotels with my personal favourite being the Ellis Hotel in Atlanta where the staff were super friendly. My least favourite was the Sheraton in New Orleans which was a multi-story monolith where I was on the 23rd floor with several of our party on higher floors. But this has to be balanced against convenience as we were directly across the road from the French Quarter. The least convenient hotel was the Clarion in Nashville which seemed to be in the middle of an industrial estate! The hotel did however run a free shuttle bus although this stopped at 9.00pm. There were plenty of taxis though for those returning later. It is always a fine balance between cost and convenience when putting tours like this together and overall I had no complaints about the hotels. It is only for a couple of nights and the time spent in the hotel/room is, after all, minimal. I believe one or two people had specific issues with individual rooms along the way and, as far as I am aware, these were settled satisfactorily.  

The brochure and web-site give the day by day itinerary so I shall not repeat these in diary fashion here but along the way there were highlights and special moments for all. I had been fortunate enough to have visited some places such as Sun Studios and Graceland in Memphis previously but still found a second visit extremely enjoyable. Highlights were many but for me a few personal favourites were, in no specific order apart from the first:-

·         On learning we were travelling south along Highway 61 from Memphis some of us asked about “The” crossroads at the intersection of 61 and 49 – a “Holy Grail” for blues lovers – others check out Robert Johnson on Wikipedia. Travis, thank you, made an unscheduled stop here and I do hope JY keep this in for future tours.

·         Being of an age to remember the unholy rush to exit the cinema before the national anthem I find American patriotism a bit excessive. But being at the Grand ole Opry on the eve of 9/11 with Lee Greenwood singing “God bless America” was very moving.

·         Muscle Shoals studios which I found to be unbelievably small considering the great sounds that came out of there.

·         One of the best duo (his wife on back-up vocals) sets I have ever heard in the hotel in Muscle Shoals by musician Will McFarlane (ex Bonnie Raitt and Tom Waits)

·         A session in Preservation Hall in New Orleans.

·         Tupelo, birthplace of Elvis.

·         The civil rights museum in Memphis.

·         Monroeville for Harper Lee

·         The list goes on………

One thing most on the tour I spoke to felt was that we could have done with more time in New Orleans! With 2 city tours, the steamship and the swamp/plantation tours there was virtually no free time. I had been to New Orleans previously and skipped the French Quarter orientation tour to visit the jazz museum only to find it was closed! All museums close on a Monday! Again I had been there previously (20 plus years ago) so it was not the end of the world but there were so many other things to see that with an extra day more could be fitted in.

Local guides were excellent and if future travellers get Lahna for their tour of Sun Studios you are in for a real treat.

Optional extras are always of interest and I opted out of the Honky Tonk bar and dinner in Nashville as I particularly wanted to visit another bar that I favoured. I also skipped the steamboat in New Orleans in favour of my personal preference for a live set at Preservation Hall. From what I gathered those that went on these had an enjoyable time. I did do the Grand ole Opry in Nashville where we had excellent seats and the swamp and plantation tour in New Orleans. I would recommend both of these.

And, as a postscript, as this is of interest to many, there was shopping at Walmart!!

An extremely good tour that I whole-heartedly recommend.

Please feel free to post any specific questions you may have. In anticipation of a question from Jonah the final tally was 4! LOL

Ian