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An Apollonaut travel guide
A street of music.
An introduction to Beale Street and downtown Memphis, where the Rock ’n’ Soul Museum stands on the FedExForum plaza.
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Read the city from the street
The museum is at 191 Beale Street, on the plaza of FedExForum in downtown Memphis. Beale Street runs past it, with its brick shopfronts and signs.
A city guide can give context without turning a neighbourhood into a backdrop. Notice how older shopfronts sit near FedExForum, and how signs and names on the street recall the music made here. Respect the people who live and work along it.
Brick, neon and studio steel
Look for the brick fronts and painted signs of Beale Street outside, and inside the museum for the instruments and costumes on display.
Begin with a detail and ask how it was made, changed and maintained. A photograph alone cannot tell you who built a shopfront or wired a studio, or the conditions in which they worked.
A Rock ’n’ Soul chapter
The museum shows Memphis as a meeting place: of country and city, of black and white musicians, and of blues, country, gospel, rock ’n’ roll and soul.
Look at the meeting of the two: a street famous for live music and a museum that tells where that music came from.
Make room for context
Pair this city reading with the museum’s history and the Journal. This is an introduction for visitors, not a claim that our team manages these places, commissions their restoration or represents their makers.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
