July 12, 2016: Elvis Presley Mansion, Peabody Hotel, and Beale Street

Today, we took a tour of Elvis Presley's mansion in Graceland.   We were only able to see the first floor of the house.   The tour was $47 and included an audio tour via iPads of the house.  The actor, John Stamos, was the narrator of the tour.     

Elvis Presley was born on January 8, 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi.   He had a twin brother who was stillborn.   When he was 13 years old, he and his family relocated to Memphis, Tennessee.  His music career began there in 1954, when he recorded a song with producer Sam Phillips at Sun Records. Accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black,  Presley's first RCA single, "H

"Heartbreak Hotel", was released in January 1956 and became a number-one hit in the United States. He was regarded as the leading figure of rock and roll after a series of successful network television appearances and chart-topping records. His energized interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style, combined with a singularly potent mix of influences across color lines that coincided with the dawn of the Civil Rights movement made him enormously popular—and controversial.

In November 1956, he made his film debut in "Love Me Tender". In 1958, he was drafted into military service. He resumed his recording career two years later, producing some of his most commercially successful work before devoting much of the 1960s to making Hollywood films and their accompanying soundtrack albums, most of which were critically derided. In 1968, following a seven-year break from live performances, he returned to the stage in the acclaimed televised comeback special Elvis which led to an extended Las Vegas concert residency and a string of highly profitable tours. In 1973, Presley was featured in the first globally broadcast concert via satellite, Aloha from Hawaii.  He married Priscilla and they had their only child, Lisa Marie Presley, the following year. Several years of prescription drug abuse severely damaged his health, and he died in 1977 at the age of 42.

The tour of the house was very well organized.  I really liked how it was done on an iPad.   

We also got to see two of his airplanes he would use for travel.   

After we went through the house,  we took a $25 cab ride to downtown Memphis to the Peabody Hotel which is where you can watch the famous ducks parade down the red carpet into the elevator and up to their home on the top floor of the hotel.    

Walked down the famous Beale Street which has several bars, restaurants, and shops.   I was not impressed with the street nor with downtown Memphis.   We had a nice prime rib dinner at the Rendezvous Restaurant.