Hi, Just landed in Memphis. Beautiful evening… Here’s one of my favorite songs to listen to with this post…

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I have been to Memphis twice before in the past ten years.  It is even more of a Music City in my mind than Nashville.  There are so many great historical roots of the Blues here and they culminated in the birth of Rock and Roll in the form of Memphis’ most famous son– Elvis Presley.

Elvis was (maybe still is) a master at total domination of his market.  I think there are many things that come in to play here:

1. originality
2. authenticity
3. a little luck- right place, right time
4. massive over delivery to his audience
5. willing to embrace new popular media (like movies)
6. raw talent
7. a flair for self-promotion
8. a solid team to support him

There are more, and I’ll be looking for them tomorrow as I tour the grounds. Stay tuned.

And isn’t this song by Marc Cohn, “Walking in Memphis” great?

Saw the ghost of Elvis
On Union Avenue
Followed him up to the gates of Graceland
Then I watched him walk right through
Now security they did not see him
They just hovered ’round his tomb
But there’s a pretty little thing
Waiting for the King
Down in the Jungle Room

Seize the Microphone…

Rob