Hoping to visit one or more music museums in Memphis, Tennessee, and wondering which one is best? The answer is—not surprisingly—it depends.
First of all, it depends how much time you have at your disposal. On a four-day visit to Memphis, I only made it to three music museums, because there was so much else to do. So this post will only deal with those three: Sun Studio, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and Graceland.
If you have more time than I did, or simply different interests, you could also check out the Memphis Music Hall of Fame, the Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum (an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution) or the Blues Hall of Fame Museum.
But if you’ve narrowed your choices down to the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, Graceland and Sun Studio, you might be wondering how long each takes to visit, how each museum differs and what you’ll see. Read on for my takes on each place.
What It’s Like to Visit Graceland
Ask most people to name just one tourist attraction in Memphis, and they’ll likely mention Graceland, the last home of Elvis Presley. Heck, if they’re in their 50s or 60s, they’ll probably even hum a few bars of the Paul Simon tune. (“I’m going to Graceland, Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee.”)
If you love music in general and Elvis in particular, then a visit to Graceland is probably already on your Memphis itinerary. However, you may not realize (I didn’t) that the namesake house is just one small part of a much larger attraction.
The Graceland House: Smaller Than You Might Think
The Graceland visitor center is located across Elvis Presley Boulevard from the Graceland mansion and will be your first stop. Since I had a ticket that included the mansion (which I highly recommend), I was directed into a line for the shuttle bus from the visitor center to the house.
Given Elvis’s larger-than-life reputation and penchant for bling, I was surprised that his Memphis home wasn’t larger. I mean, don’t get me wrong; at 17,552 square feet, it’s not exactly the shotgun shack in Tupelo, Mississippi, where he was born. However, unlike other rich people’s mansions—such as Cornelius Vanderbilt II’s “summer cottage” in Newport, Rhode Island—it doesn’t feel ostentatious or overwhelming. It’s big, sure, but it feels more like a home where people actually lived than like a mansion, museum or mausoleum.
Perhaps the home seems small because I was part of a slowly shuffling sea of humanity when I visited. Any house would seem small when you’re part of a crowd confined to hallways and staircases by a network of velvet ropes.
Or perhaps it’s because the upper level is off limits to visitors, so the tour is limited to the first floor, basement and outbuildings.
However, I think the key to Graceland’s homey vibe is the fact that it’s been preserved in amber from the date Elvis died: August 16, 1977. Decor in the 1970s was many things, but intimidating it was not. The kitchen has a harvest-gold fridge, and an avocado-green dishwasher, coffee maker and sink. There are TVs in every room, including three in the basement media room.
Also in the basement is a billiards room whose couch, walls and even ceiling are covered in over 300 yards of multicolored fabric.
The grooviest room, though, is the jungle room, with a full-sized tiki bar, mirrors galore and wall-to-wall green shag carpeting.
Beyond the house, the tour includes various outbuildings, such as Elvis’s racquetball court, as well as a trophy building housing his gold records and lots of other memorabilia. Horses are still kept in the surrounding fields. The pool is still filled with water. And not far from the pool is the meditation garden, where Elvis and many of his family members are buried.
The Rest of Graceland: Be Prepared to Walk
After touring the house, I hopped on another shuttle to return to the visitor center. That’s where the second part of my immersion in all things Elvis began.
I could have checked out an outdoor collection of the King’s private planes but opted instead for the indoor exhibits, which start with a large display of Elvis’s many cool cars. I was drawn like a moth to his pink 1955 Cadillac Fleetwood Sixty Special. The flashy car made its way into the Elvis tune “Baby Let’s Play House,” which in turn inspired Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 song, “Pink Cadillac.”
In another area of the 200,000-square-foot exhibit building, a fascinating exhibit called “ICONS: The Influence of Elvis Presley” delves into the King’s influence on a diverse range of music superstars—everyone from Dolly Parton and Bob Dylan to Kiss and Justin Timberlake. A plaque quoting John Lennon said, “Nothing really affected me until I heard Elvis. If there hadn’t been an Elvis, there wouldn’t have been The Beatles.” The exhibit is full of surprises—for instance, I had no idea that the cover of The Clash’s London Calling album was modelled on the cover of Elvis’s first LP.
“Jailhouse Rock” and Jumpsuits
ICONS was my favorite exhibit, but there was still much more to see. There are interactive exhibits where visitors can get a photo of themselves on an Elvis album cover, screens showing clips from some of his 31 movies, a two-story video installation resembling a prison playing “Jailhouse Rock” on an endless loop. A recreation of the set of his 1968 TV comeback special immerses visitors in that production. One area focuses on Elvis’s years in the U.S. Army, with videos showing a brave barber shaving off America’s most famous pompadour. Another extensive display shines a light on Lisa Marie Presley’s childhood.
But perhaps the most striking exhibit is “Elvis: Dressed to Rock”—or, as I think of it in retrospect, The Wall of Jumpsuits. So. Many. Jumpsuits.
After Elvis stopped making movies in 1969 and returned his focus to live performances, he dived into 1970s sartorial excess with as much glee as Elton John or David Bowie. If there was something that could be spangled, sequinned or embellished with gold braid, he was all over it. More than 100 outfits by designer Bill Belew are on display in brightly lit cases. It could be overwhelming if it wasn’t so fascinating.
I was visiting the museum with a group, and we had allotted three hours for our visit. I’m a casual Elvis fan, but even so, I found three hours wasn’t enough to see this whole museum—partly because the Graceland mansion tour alone takes about 90 minutes, once you factor in the time needed for the shuttles back and forth.
I could have easily spent the better part of a day here. Heck, I never even got to the planes, or the Hollywood backlot exhibit, or the two restaurants on the property. The complete Elvis experience also includes a large hotel called The Guesthouse at Graceland, and an RV park and campground. I didn’t see those either, because I had other music landmarks on my agenda…including Sun Studio.
What It’s Like to Visit Sun Studio
Sun Studio in Memphis is sort of the anti-Graceland. Where Graceland is Disneyland-esque in size and encyclopedic in scope, Sun Studio is intimate. Visitors need to come to the studio to buy tickets on the day they want to visit, and tickets are first come, first served. The studio recommends dropping by early in the day to nab your time slot.
The tour groups aren’t large, as the small building simply can’t handle a crowd. In fact, it’s still a working music studio, so the museum displays are limited to one jam-packed room on the second floor. (Note that there is no elevator to this area.)
So a Kid Walks Into a Studio…
Sun Studio has several claims to fame. First and foremost, perhaps, is that it is the first place where Elvis recorded. He dropped by when he was 18 to record two songs for his mother’s birthday, but the big moment in music history was a session on the night of July 5, 1954.
That night, after playing for a few hours, guitarist Scotty Moore, bassist Bill Black and a kid they’d just met called Elvis Presley hadn’t come up with anything they liked enough to put to vinyl. They took a break to regroup. Then, Elvis started noodling around on a guitar, playing a sped-up version of the blues tune “That’s All Right.” Moore and Black jumped in. Studio owner Sam Phillips heard it and realized they were onto something. He turned on the mics, asked them to play it again and recorded it.
Three days later, Phillips sent the record to Memphis radio DJ Dewey Phillips, who spun it that night on his show. The phones lit up. The girls went crazy. And the rest is history.
The Sun Studio has memorabilia about that fateful night, but it also has displays about the many other stars who’ve recorded there, including Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King and Roy Orbison. Visitors can also see Dewey Phillips’s actual studio. Originally located in a Memphis hotel, it was rescued from the wrecking ball in 2013 and carefully reconstructed here.
Another Landmark Night in Music History
Once our tour had trooped back downstairs to the studio, our guide spun the tale of Sun Studio’s other claim to fame. A spur-of-the-moment jam session on December 4, 1956, brought together four Sun Studio artists who would go on to become music royalty: Elvis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash. The session would later be immortalized in the musical Million-Dollar Quartet.
The studio still has a few microphones from the era, and everyone on the tour had their chance to do their best Elvis impression behind one of the 1950s mics.
The whole tour lasts about 30 to 45 minutes and ends in the gift shop, where visitors can pick up books, CDs, t-shirts and other merch.
What It’s Like to Visit the Stax Museum of American Soul
The Stax Museum of American Soul sits squarely between Sun Studio and Graceland in terms of a museum experience. Covering a much broader range of music history than either, it begins by grounding visitors in the roots of soul music: gospel, blues and jazz.
After a great introductory movie, the museum opens into an area that includes the reconstructed Hoopers Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, a small wooden building constructed around 1906 in Duncan, Mississippi. Nearby, a huge panel titled “Race, River and Religion” describes how these three core elements of Memphis came together to foster the new sound that would eventually be called soul.
As the spacious museum continues, visitors learn about 1950s nightlife in Memphis, radio stations that showcased new artists and more. It also puts soul music squarely in the context of its time, diving into topics such as segregated dance clubs and—fascinatingly, at least for me—the effect of the new interstate highway system on the spread of soul music.
Display cases, videos and listening stations showcase just about every major soul-related act you’ve ever heard of: Ike and Tina Turner, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, James Brown and many others. While Stax focuses strongly on Memphis, it also has excellent exhibits on other major players in the world of soul, such as Detroit’s Motown Records.
One of the most engaging exhibits is the “Soul Train” dance floor, where visitors are invited to try out their best 1970s moves in front of a huge screen playing clips from the “Soul Train” TV show. (I refrained.)
Learn the History of Stax Records
The museum also chronicles the rise, fall and rebirth of Stax Records, the legendary recording studio that opened on this site in 1957 in a former movie theater and went bankrupt 18 years later. Its history was closely entwined with that of Memphis itself. Surprisingly integrated for its time, it recorded both black and white artists, often together. One of its many clever moves was to open a record shop at the entrance, where people could listen to the latest songs before buying them.
But when Martin Luther King was killed in Memphis in 1968, the mood of the city changed and Stax went into decline—even though it managed to record some groundbreaking 1970s artists like Isaac Hayes before closing its doors. Another company purchased the Stax masters and the label still exists today, but the Memphis studio building was torn down in 1989. The current building—a replica of the old one—was built in 2003.
I spent about two hours roaming through the exhibits and could have easily spent more. If you’re a die-hard music fan, I’d recommend allowing at least three hours for a visit.
So Which of the Music Museums in Memphis Is the Best?
It’s impossible for me to say categorically which of the three Memphis music museums I visited is the “best.” It all depends on what you’re looking for.
If you’re all about Elvis and you have the stamina to spend a whole day at a museum, Graceland will delight you.
If you want to know what an active recording studio looks like, Sun Studio is your bet.
And if you want an overarching view of modern pop music, mixed with lots of Memphis cultural history, the Stax Museum of American Soul is for you. (It was my favorite of the three music museums in Memphis I visited, but your mileage may differ.)
