Sunrise

Last Monday 5th July was the 50th anniversary of the recording of "That's Alright Momma" at the small storefront on Union Street, Memphis, housing the Sun Studio.

In 2000, stuffed with fried catfish and almost overpowered by the intense heat and humidity (in mid-March!), I took twenty minutes to walk from the Peabody Hotel to the well-preserved studio.

On my way back, I noticed a plaque on a metal pole, standing in a vacant site opposite the studio, on the other side of Union Avenue. According to the inscription, it marked the spot on which Nathan Bedford Forrest, renowned Confederate cavalry general and later founder of the KKK, died in straightened circumstances in 1877.

Unlike Graceland, this wasn't marked on any of the tourist maps for this rebuilt city in the "mid-South", as the local newspapers referred to it.