Explore Memphis
Opening hours, prices and tickets for places worth your time.
Open now · 17:00
The Memphis Rock 'n' Soul Museum at the corner of Beale Street and B. B. King Boulevard tells how rural blues, gospel and country music met in Memphis and grew into rock and roll and soul. Based on an exhibition developed with the Smithsonian Institution, it shows instruments, stage clothes and recordings, with an audio guide of over 300 songs.
Official siteTickets available
Open now · 17:00
The National Civil Rights Museum in downtown Memphis is built around the former Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on 4 April 1968. Its exhibits trace the struggle for civil rights in the United States from slavery to the present, and the boarding house across the street, from where the shot was fired, is part of the museum.
Official site
historic building · Memphis Open now · 17:15
Sun Studio on Union Avenue was opened by Sam Phillips in 1950 as the Memphis Recording Service. 'Rocket 88' was recorded here in 1951, and Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and B. B. King all made early records in the small room. Guided tours visit the studio, which is still used for recording at night.
Official site
Closed now
The Stax Museum of American Soul Music stands on McLemore Avenue in South Memphis, on the site of Stax Records, the label of Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers and Booker T. & the M.G.'s. Opened in 2003, it shows a rebuilt studio, a 1960s church, stage clothes and Isaac Hayes's gold-trimmed Cadillac.
Official siteTickets available
Closed now
The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, founded in 1916, is the oldest art museum in Tennessee and stands in Overton Park in Midtown Memphis. Its collection of more than 10,000 works spans European paintings from the Renaissance onward, American art, decorative arts, photography and African art; the museum is preparing a move to a new building downtown.
Official site
Open now · 16:00
Graceland is the mansion in Whitehaven, about 14 km south of downtown Memphis, where Elvis Presley lived from 1957 until his death in 1977. He is buried in its Meditation Garden with members of his family. Opened as a house museum in 1982, it shows the mansion's rooms, and across the street the Elvis Presley's Memphis complex displays his cars, aircraft and costumes.
Official site
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