It is not the product of a professional decorator but reflects the imagination of Elvis himself. The room houses a jukebox, three inset televisions, a bar, and a lightning bolt on the wall behind the couch – a reference to Elvis’ maxim, “TCB,” which stands for “taking care of business in a flash.”

It also boasts his record collection of 2,000 albums. Pioneering rock greats Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and the Everly Brothers are represented, but so too are later bands, such as The Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour.” But Elvis’s musical tastes were broad, representing the elixir of traditional forms – blues, jazz, gospel, country, soul – that produced the King and made Memphis the cradle of rock ‘n’ roll.

Graceland may be the best-known, but it is by no means the only stop for music aficionados in Memphis, a mid-sized city far from the country’s major economic hubs, yet serves as the epicentre of modern American music and culture.

Memphis is also a great jumping-off point for Nashville, just down the road, with the Country Music Hall of Fame, National Museum of African American Music, and Ryman Auditorium. Nashville calls itself Music City, but this entire region of the U.S. is music country. As a result, it’s had an outsized impact on global culture, and Graceland is only the beginning. 

Stax Museum of American Soul Music 

Soul’s answer to rock’s Sun Records, Stax Records helped create the Memphis soul sound, and its artists from Booker T & the M.G.’s, Otis Redding, and Isaac Hayes are legends. This great museum captures the essence of soul, and nothing Elvis had in his garage at Graceland can compare to Isaac Hayes’s gold-plated 1972 Cadillac on display. It has a fur-lined interior, television, bar and gold windshield wipers.

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum 

This vast institution in Nashville, dedicated to preserving and celebrating country music, boasts 350,000 square feet of exhibition space, two theatres, an archives and an education centre. Cash is there, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, and all the greats of this distinctly American musical form. The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum also showcases different pop-up exhibits, including Through Taylor Swift’s Eras that will be running until May 31, 2023. 

National Museum of African American Music 

Opened in 2021 in Nashville, the National Museum of African American Music integrates Black history with the astounding influence African Americans have had on U.S. music. It is an enormous subject area, covering all the genres “created, influenced, and/or inspired by African Americans,” from spirituals to hip hop, from Nat King Cole to Prince. This highly immersive experience features large touch screens, videos and galleries that allow visitors to learn about the evolution of African American music traditions, the history, influence and survival of religious music and more. 

Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum 

Created by the Smithsonian, the Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum off Beale Street recounts the intersection of musical influences and the racial and economic factors that underpin them that altered the course of popular culture. It’s an ambitious museum with seven galleries filled with instruments and stage costumes by some of the most famous artists on the planet.

Johnny Cash’s boyhood home 

There is a pattern here of music somehow transcending grinding poverty and hardship. Cash grew up in a small wooden-framed house a short drive northwest of Memphis, across the state line in Arkansas. A farmhouse in a New Deal colony, Cash’s family suffered terrible setbacks while working their cotton field, including floods and the tragic accidental death of Cash’s older brother Jack. It proved, however, to be fertile ground for one of America’s great musical geniuses.

Johnny Cash Museum 

If you have been to Sun Studios in Memphis, and visited Cash’s boyhood home in Arkansas, then your journey is not complete without a stop at the Johnny Cash Museum in Nashville. It is filled with Cash memorabilia, from his gold records, handwritten lyrics, and costumes, to furniture once owned by the Man in Black.

Honky Tonk Highway 

Also known by its official name, lower Broadway, and Nashville’s answer to Beale Street in Memphis, with live music until the wee hours, neon lights, and bars galore, from the Pontoon Saloon to AJ’s Goodtime Bar, this is the epicentre of Music City, the place where country greats like Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson got their start. Yippie aye oh, yippie aye ay!