Goin’ Down to Memphis : The Mississipi River Town Known for Blues ‘n’ Barbecue Lights Up With New Civic Enticements : The Culture

MEMPHIS —  To find the beating heart of Memphis, Tenn., I joined the throngs of tourists this spring and headed for historic Beale Street, where blues and barbeque waft on the Delta breezes from morning until way past midnight.

But instead of heading for any one of the many restaurants and clubs that line the famous walkway, I ducked inside No. 130, new home of the nationally reknown Center for Southern Folklore.

The building--which used to house the old Lansky Clothing Store, where musicians including Elvis shopped--has been remodeled to accommodate the center, an idiosyncratic place that is equal parts gift shop, exhibit hall, music shrine, performing arts showcase, bookstore and unofficial guide to what’s happening in Memphis on any given day of the year.

Recently relocated from the upper floors of a building a few doors down, the new digs are cultured and homey, more accessible and allowing in lots of sunlight from the big paned windows at the corner of 2nd and Beale streets.

“We started out doing films and books in 1972 and expanded,” says executive director Judy Peiser, who co-founded the center 21 years ago. “It made perfect sense to become an interpretive public facility where people and traditions are presented in an ongoing manner.”

For Peiser, that means bringing in area quiltmakers to demonstrate their colonial art, toymakers who explain how corncob dolls are fashioned, mandolin players wielding handmade instruments from the back country or storytellers who spin yarns about living for decades along the Mississippi Delta.

Each Saturday afternoon, you can even see 75-year-old blues and boogie-woogie man Mose Vinson performing at his piano inside the center.

“We’re presenting folk art and artists to people in non-traditional ways,” Peiser says. “There’s usually stuff on the walls but . . . we also use people’s voices and skills as a way to communicate about the region.”

There is also a gift store, where items are stacked on shelves and in glass counters. Consider the carved wooden train whistle by H.C. West, on sale at the gift shop for $5.

As a collector of California pottery, I was especially intrigued by the work of Jerry Brown, a ninth-generation potter from Hamilton, Ala., who has won a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. One of Brown’s most popular items is a $20 bowl that says “popcorn” outside and “ain’t no more” inside.

I couldn’t find any autographed photos of Dolly Parton or Confederate flags here. But the center does carry silk-screened T-shirts by Southern folk artists, from Howard Finster to Moses Tolliver ($16), handmade wooden yo-yos ($11 and $12) and cotton bolls ($1) with the stem and leaves attached that the center staff picked themselves “so Yankees would know what cotton is,” Peiser explains wryly.

“We look at the gift shop as a way to acculturate people to the region by presenting the music and the folk art and the colors that are so vibrant,” she adds.

One of the more popular items is “A Slice of the South,” a $29.95 gift box developed by the center that contains 14 traditional Southern items such as a cloth bag of grits, a fan for those humid summer days, sorghum, scuppernong jelly--an Algonquin Indian name for a type of golden-green grape that grows in the South--and a handbook explaining such Southern delicacies as the “goo-goo cluster,” a little circular candy bar composed of peanuts, milk chocolate, marshmallow and caramel that is hawked each week at the Grand Ole Opry.

The box also includes the “Slice of Southern Music” cassette, featuring folk, blues, jug music, gospel and jazz by artists such as Booker T. Laury, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Booba Barnes and Othar Turner, who introduces listeners to the rare example of an African-American fife-and-drum band.

The center also has an extensive collection of blues, gospel, storytelling and other records, cassettes and CDs on sale. There are also documentary films, which can be rented, video store-style.

Then there are the specialty guidebooks, such as “Memphis Cuisine” (Tulane Press, $12.95); “How to Eat Like a Southerner and Live to Tell About It” (Clarkson Potter, $20); “Black Folk Art in America 1930-1980” (University Press of Mississippi, $24.95), and the “Encyclopedia of Southern Culture” in four paperback volumes (Doubleday, $64), in whose pages 800 scholars and researchers hold forth on local architecture, literature, music, civil rights and history. The center also has tall stacks of “The Jazz and Blues Lover’s Guide to the U.S.” (Addison/Wesley, $14.95), a carefully researched book that music lovers snap up in droves.

“I used to tell everyone when they came (to town), ‘Go here, here and here,’ ” Peiser says. “Now I just say, ‘Buy the book.’ ”

Peiser, 48, was born in Memphis, went away to college in Illinois and returned home to earn a master’s degree in broadcasting and film from Memphis State University. The technical know-how came in handy for the profession she fell into, as did Peiser’s background--she grew up in a family of storytellers and talkers and can wax euphoric for hours about the finer points of fife music.

She started the center in 1972 with a partner, Bill Ferris, who is now director of the more scholarly and academic Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, known colloquially as Ole Miss.

Although 21 years have passed, Peiser’s enthusiasm never wavers. “Being a child of the ‘60s, I realized you could illuminate people’s lives in a certain way, to present culture in a way that is accessible to everyone,” she says of the center.

“I think it’s important that these materials are able to reach a general audience and draw people in. By using folk culture and the tools of interviewing, we’re able to help shape the vision of the South so people realize it’s a multicultural area.”

Peiser says visitors also drop by to get tips on good places to eat. Lately, she is recommending the Four Way Grill, a soul food restaurant at the corner of Mississippi and Walker streets, but “everybody here has their favorite place,” she says cheerfully.

The center defines itself as a private nonprofit corporation dedicated to documenting and presenting the people and traditions of the South, and exhibits are an ongoing part of its presentations. Curators usually mount one large exhibit a year relating to Southern culture and three smaller ones.

Memorable exhibits from years past have included one on Memphis Soul Music that incorporated local Stax Records memorabilia and musicians such as Al Green and Booker T and the MGs; an exhibit with the Smithsonian on folk and crafts of the South, and a historic exhibit about WDIA radio, the first radio station in America to have all-black disc jockeys--including, at one time, B.B. King.

The center’s current exhibit, “Memphis Rocks: Rockabilly Music in Memphis,” runs until Oct. 30 and costs $2. It features historic rockabilly legends, garb, memorabilia, original recording equipment, videos and lots of music from Carl Perkins to Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison. There is also a “Memphis Rocks” CD for $14.99.

Last week, in homage to homegrown legend Elvis Presley, the center threw a “Life and Cuisine of Elvis” party. The Sun Rhythm Section played. Guests ate fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches. On the PA system, The King crooned.

One of the must-sees at the center to orient the traveler to historic Memphis is the documentary film, “All Day and All Night: Memories from Beale Street Musicians,” which was produced by Peiser and is screened regularly for $1.

Beale Street was the center of black community and social life in decades past. There were fancy balls at hotels on the street, and important speeches at the Church Park Auditorium. But most of all, there was the music.

In the film, which was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1990 and aired nationally on PBS, blues legend and hometown boy B.B. King takes a walk down Beale Street and reminisces about the legendary talent that stalked the street from the 1920s to the 1950s. The film also includes musicians such as Rufus (Walking the Dog) Thomas, who waxes nostalgic over chili at Mitchell’s Domino Lounge, long a gathering place for the city’s jazz and blues royalty.

The center also conducts cultural tours of Beale Street, urban Memphis and the rural Mid-South/Delta region. It houses multimedia archives with historical and contemporary photos, slides, recordings, films and videos, and is available by appointment for researchers and producers.

And each summer, the center produces the annual Memphis Music and Heritage Festival, held this year July 9-11 on Mud Island. The festival draws over 400 musicians, artists, craftspeople, storytellers and cooks who perform and display their wares for up to 30,000 people each year, many from out of state. The charge is $2.

Some of the more famous entertainers this year were blues greats Rufus and Carla Thomas, but also included lesser-known regional artists performing blues, jazz, gospel and roots music. Next year, the festival is scheduled for the second weekend in July.

The Center for Southern Folklore, 130 Beale St., Memphis, Tenn. 38103, is open 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, Sundays 1-5:30 p.m. The entrance fee for Memphis Rocks is $2. For a copy of the gift catalogue, call the center at (901) 525-3655.