Sep 24, 2005

We flew Ottawa-Memphis to attend and perform at this year's Southern Arts Conference. Texas was bracing themselves for Hurricane Rita and Tennessee was expecting a pretty good hit as well.

We arrived on Friday evening, checked into the Marriott overlooking the Mississippi River, headed downstairs to meet Pete's cousin Greg for a couple of drinks and then made our way to the famous Rendez-Vous for some Memphis style ribs. Man! the ribs in Memphis are succulent.

We later headed towards Beale St which is where all the action is at. Beale was closed off and there are cops everywhere. You get yourself a wristband for $10, then you can enter all the bars. There is great live entertainment in the clubs, real good players. The rest of the guys went back to the hotel and left Alex and I to fend for ourselves well into the Memphis night....

On Saturday we spent a couple of hours at the conference then went out for some more ribs, then we headed towards Graceland (25 miles away) for the evening. It was surreal to finally get there, on one side is Elvis' house and on the other are his planes, theatre, radio station, shops and conference room where the party was being held.

About 250 people crammed the conference room for (you've guessed it) a rib buffet. They're usually served with coleslaw and beans. Then we took the stage and performed 2 hour long sets of all our cd and new stuff, as well as versions of Elvis' "A Little Less Conversation" and Paul Simon's "Graceland." The gig went off without a hitch and our audience was loving it. Chip's folks were there too, as was our manager Trevor and sound engineer Pete Gilroy.

As a result, 2 agencies are interested in signing the group for US bookings.

Next time that we get to Memphis, I would fancy visiting the Gibson guitar factory as well as a steamboat trip on the Mississippi. The spelling bee's have finally paid off y'all.