Second chapter

To sing the blues as an old man

Oh, I told him I'm a sinner

He said that's ok

I'm not here to change you anyway

He was gone when I turned around

Was it Jesus - Jesus on a Greyhound

Shelby Lynne

Memphis is a strange city, where many plots in the center are in the process of waiting for someone to build something on them. Main Street is almost a real pedestrian street, without cars. On the other hand there are trams, or rather buses disguised as trams.

For those who have heard Cher singing Marc Cohns song "Walking in Memphis," I can reveal that almost nobody is walking in this city.

Already the first morning in Memphis I take the free bus from Sun Studios seven miles south to Elvis Presley's home Graceland. I am impressed by his love to his parents Vernon and Gladys, who has their own bedroom downstairs and now lies next to him in the garden.

I am less impressed by his vehicle exhibition. Today the vehicles are parked and does not damage Mother Earth. Two aircrafts and I don’t know how many cars were hardly anything he really needed. Probably, he had far too much money.

I am a little impressed, because he bought Graceland at the age of 22. The bar down in the basement is rather empty and shows that Elvis did not like alcohol. His version of wine, women and song were pills, women and singing.

At Graceland there is a model of Elvis childhood home in Tupelo, Mississippi. He grew up in a small house of the type called shotgun house. The step to Graceland became great.

Elvis never became old. He died in 1977 at the age of 42. Father Vernon lived for almost two more years. Even his grandmother lived a few years after Elvis died. It must be a nightmare to experience the death of children and grandchildren.

After my visit to Graceland, I spend the rest of the day on Beale Street. It is the equivalent of the Lower Broadway in Nashville, a street where several blocks are completely lined with music venues. The difference is that Beale Street is a pedestrian street and that the music being played is a bit more sided - almost only blues.

After a meal, consisting of a bean burger and fries accompanied by an older couple who have transformed the whole Elvis repertoire into blues, I move on to the next Honky Tonk. I knock down at the bar and order a locally brewed Indian pale ale.

Here, a young band plays an electric traditional white blues with many fast solos. After some songs, a black man who appears to be in the 70’s is walking up to the stage and takes the singing microphone. The music changes its character – it becomes a little slower, more thoughtful, with fewer fast solos. The lyrics feel self-reliant, sad, yet a bit beyond the most stereotypical blues. They contain both problems and solutions. It infects the music. I like it and stay in the bar.

In a break the old singer comes and sits in the bar next to me. He presents himself as Sonny and wondering how I like the music. I tell him that it sounds so personal and that he and the young band seem to inspire each other for their very own way of playing blues.

He tells me that he is delighted with their cooperation. It does not give much money, just what is laid by the bar guests in a bowl at the stage, but Sonny is used to living with very little money. He confirms that he has lived a hard life with great difficulty and denies that he is in his 70’s. In fact, he has not reached the age of 60, poverty and poor health have gone hand in hand and he is aware that he looks tired. He has never been able to live on his singing so he has always had other temporary jobs, often monotonous and heavy.

The collaboration with this young band is quite new. It started with Sonny sitting in this bar, listening to the band. In a break like this he took courage and went to ask if he could sing a song. Yes! He chose "The Thrill is Gone" by BB King and the audience cheered his interpretation. The young musicians in the band called the Blues Siblings offered to rename Sonny & the Blues Siblings if he wanted to become a regular member. Sonny preferred that the band should continue as the Blues Siblings, not by fake modesty but because he would feel more like one in the community.

Sonny apologizes. Now is the time for the next round of music. Actually, I had have been thinking of going back to my nice air bnb for a strengthening sleep before tomorrow's day at various museums, but after the short chat I want to hear as much of Sonny's songs as possible.

From the scene, he tells us that before the break he had been singing other’s songs that he could make to his own. The songs he is going to sing now he has written himself.

"I was born in a cold little shack," he begins, continuing to describe his tough life.

Last verse ends:

"I'm gonna die in little shack, hot as hell."

I believe him.

The guitarist's solos also tell small stories. I guess they are also stories of a difficult life, but about the guitar player’s own difficulties, which are certainly different from Sonnys. He does not look so tired, but his eyes radiate sadness. Could it be an unfortunate love affair?

In the next break, Sonny comes and sits down next to me again. Now he wants to know who I am. When I tell me that I am a farmer and have lived my life in the Swedish forest, he asks when slavery was abolished in Sweden. I have no good answer, but I have the tongue saying that I have been slave throughout my life, but realize in time that it would be foolish. Probably, I radiate too much middle class to be the least credible slave under my own forestry company.

I google quickly and can tell that slavery was banned in Sweden in 1335. The last slaves of Sweden's overseas territories were released as late as 1847. I think the last is late, but Sonny is still impressed by Sweden.

He wants to know how I can afford to travel around as I do. I tell him about my life as a workforce, but in honesty, I'm also talking about the good prices of forest raw materials in Sweden. Then I try to explain the traditional simple life in my part of Sweden, which makes me good at saving. It's probably not easy to understand.

I'll tell him about my family and take the chance to ask about Sonny's family. His wife has been dead for 14 years and the four children almost never ever get in touch with him, a fact that makes him so sad. He knows they are spread across the United States, from California to New York, but he does not know what they are doing or how they live. The bad contact with the children also leads to an unrelated contact with the grandchildren, whom he is very curious about. Do they sing? Do they play any instrument? What schools are they in? What personalities are they? Do they care?

He has just come up with an idea of a song about the lack of children and grandchildren. He will complete it tomorrow morning.

The drummer comes to us and tells us that they will have an after-party at home after the next set of music. I'm also welcome – and “thank you very much, yes”.

It turns out that Bart, the drummer, lives in a big two bedroom apartment just three blocks north of Beale Street, in the same direction as the apartment where I stay. Bart has loaded with large amounts of beer and chips. I had suspected that there would be some kind of drugs, but no, everyone seems to be completely focused on beer and potatoes. On the other hand, two girls in their 30’s have left the bar and followed Bart home. They go with Bart into his bedroom and he closes the door. I will think of a line in Jackson Brown's masturbation song Rosie - "The drummer swept that girl away".

The rest of us have a nice time anyway. We speak loudly to avoid hearing what happens behind the closed door.

The guitarist and bassist, Tom and Jerry, tell me about Sonny's significance for the band and how fun it is to collaborate across the generation boundaries. Tom says that suddenly he has got new stories to try to figure in his guitar solo. Jerry also finds that the mood has become more relaxed and less prestigious since Sonny joined the band. Sonny thinks it has become much easier to concentrate on what he wants to say with his songs since he has got such professional musicians around him. Now he does not need to think about arrangements or adjusting the amplifier.

Everyone agrees that there are very big gains to cooperate across generational boundaries. I cannot help asking if there are no problems.

Tom laughs and says that the worst problem is that old men get so tired late in the evening. Sonny laughs and looks . With a humorous twinkle in his eye, He says that the problem working with young boys might be that for them sex is more important than music.

To show he is wrong, Tom and Jerry pick up two acoustic guitars. Tom plays a melody and Jerry hits a few chords. Sonny starts singing a song, that I did not hear earlier in the evening. The text sounds improvised and is about growing old and sick and spending your money on junk food, living in a drafty cramped apartment.

After a while, Bart and the girls come out of the bedroom and sit down and listen to the jamming. Bart drums on the desk. The girls whisper between themselves and giggle a little. In a break between two songs, they capture Sonny's attention, make a gesture to the bedroom and ask if he wants to come along.

Sonny starts crying silently.

He explains that there is nothing he would rather do than accompany the girls, but he cannot. This is the curse of old age, he sobs.

The girls, Julie and Doreen, try to convince him to give them a chance. Sonny begins to rattle and rushes away from the apartment. The girls look totally lost. This is not something they are used to. They probably do not see what I see, a glimpse of the expectation in Tom's and Jerry's eyes. But the guys end up disappointed – Julie and Doreen are already going away from here.

Embarrassed, Tom, Jerry and Bart continue to jam. They seem to have forgotten that I'm there. Could it be because I'm so old that I've become a non-person? No, I do not feel sorry for myself. I'm grateful that Sonny opened a door to another world for me. Part of the person I have become is the man who must now go home and empty the bladder using a one-time catheter. I sneak away to keep being the one I've become – an old man who would like to sing blues if I could.

Tomorrow I will try to search Sonny and continue to talk about life after 60 and before death.

Now it's the day after. I go to Beale Street and enter the bar from yesterday and ask the bartender if the Blues Siblings are going to play here today. No, they are not, but Sonny usually shows up here and have a beer in the morning even when he's not here to sing.

Just five minutes later he pops up in the door, but seems to hesitate when he catch sight of me. The hesitation disappears and he comes and sits next to me and orders a beer. We'll come back to what happened last night.

Sonny tells us that for 14 years he has not only mourned his dead wife – but also her lost sex life. He believes that when it's been so long since his sex life ended, he would not succeed if he got the chance. So he dares not even try.

I try to be a little comforting, wondering if sex really is so important. We should be able to accept that life has different stages and joys. Sonny says he insures that he really has no physical desire anymore, just a longing for closeness. He thinks it's as part of him already dead.

I try to convince him that it is still much better to be partially dead than if he were completely dead. If he has not yet had any prostate problems, then there is something to be happy about. How miserable life sometimes seems to be, there are also pleasures. There is always fate that's worse.

And next time you get the chance to get close to a woman: try!

In my case, the grandchildren are so much joy that it outweighs many down sides with old age, like all the ailments and less money in the wallet.

I wonder if it's completely impossible for Sonny to seek out his children and try to recreate the contact. Perhaps the granddaughter would think it would be great to get in touch with a grandfather who could sing well for them. You may be able to sing together.

I notice that I have sown a seed in Sonny.

You might start with trying to get friends with your children on Facebook and then go and knock on their doors. Not unexpectedly, Facebook is strange to Sonny, but I promise I can help him get started. He and I can become friends on Facebook to begin with. Then I can lead him into the social media world.

After using a borrowed iPad to get Sonny started on Facebook I'm going to a museum that he has suggested. It is built around the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was shot dead in 1964. Now it has been transformed into the National Civil Rights Museum, depicting in particular the oppression of black people in the American South and the struggle to end segregation.

In my usual restless way, I go quickly through the museum, but stop a little longer in two places. I stand for a long time and look into the everyday motel room where Martin Luther stayed inside the balcony where he was murdered. The miserable bathroom on the other side of the street, where the racist killer James Earl Ray stood and shot, fascinates me deeply. The racists now and then seem to have something more in common than contempd for other human beings. I'm wondering what, but I'm not getting a real answer.

I am impressed with Martin Luther King's language and often use it as an example when I act as a language police. Imagine if he had said "I have a strategy" instead of "I have a dream". Had his speech been cited so often 50 years later? Hardly!

After spending a few hours at the museum, I go down to the Mississippi River to find a footbridge, so I can walk over to West Memphis and enter Arkansas. When I find the walkway it turns out to be completely new and attracts a large part of the Memphis population this sunny Sunday.

Just ten meters into the bridge, my crystalline disease goes on. I suffer from severe dizziness and feel nauseous. I know that crystalline disease is not dangerous and I can temporarily cure it with the help of movements that make the crystals in the ear canals fall back in the right place again. I have learned these movements by a physiotherapist, but hesitate to start making strange movements among all the families who are heading over the new bridge on foot, by bike, on roller skates and skateboards.

When I stop taking up the mobile camera and taking a picture to show how wide the Mississippi River is, I'm afflicted and think I'll die, even though I know that crystal disease is not at all fatal. I take a hard hand on the railing with my left hand and photograph the river with my right hand.

When I've walked half an hour, I think I've gone crazy. Such a long time, it is not possible to cross a river, even though it is one of the widest. The pedestrian bridge is adjacent to a railway bridge and right as it is, there will be a freight train which gives the impression of being three kilometers long. It makes a terrible noice and in my poor skull becomes even worse.

Once I finally crossed the bridge, it turns out that I'm getting into a completely undeveloped forest. I find a bench and sit down to rest before the walk back. The landscape reminds me of something. I quickly think of several movies, where I have seen a similar nature. The first are Jan Troell's movies Emigrants and New Builders, based on Vilhelm Moberg's books. The other is a low-budget movie that I have at home, based on Mark Twain's books about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. The river in these films is Mississippi.

I find peace of mind thinking of these movies and the worst dizziness starts to fade away. Instead, I feel hungry. Quickly, fast I go back over the bridge. On Main Street I find a simple joint that promises local food.

A dish that's not really local here in Tennessee is a Po' boy sandwich, which is typical of New Orleans. It consists of an elongated roll filled with fried shrimps and a sauce consisting of peanut oil, strong spices, tabasco, mayonnaise, mustard and more ingredients that I cannot identify. It is served with French fries and is not a completely calorie free dish, but when I have eaten it and drank a beer, I feel good. The dizziness is completely gone.

Then I go home – yes, it feels like home – to my temporary residence on Adams Avenue. As I come in the main entrance, it turns out that the elevator is broken. I stay on the twelfth floor and see no stairs. Fortunately another tenant turns up showing that the entrance to the staircase is on the gable. The staircase is in a sadly slippery condition, but I'm still glad that I can quickly get up all twelve floors without suffering any problems.

In my room, I spend the rest of the evening seeing the documentary about Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's Freedom of Speech Tour ten years ago. I have it downloaded on my computer. The tour was based on Neil Young's "Living with War" protesting against George W Bush and the war in Iraq.

I really like the film highlighting all people who have a different view than Neil Young. It increases his credibility and strengthens his message against the war that he dares to allow viewers to decide who has the strongest arguments.

A little comic feature are the reviewers cited in the film. Many of those who write about the concert in the local newspapers write on the band having an average age of 62.5 years. Some reviewers wonder if they stand and compare doctors’ recipes when they play their guitar solo. In what world do the reviewers live?

For anyone who is free from war and traffic accidents, the chance of getting really old now is increasing really fast. There are researchers who believe that the first 200 years old man is already born. Even if it's only the first 150-year-old, it will change the world drastically.

In this perspective, 62.5 are not high middle ages.

Someone else interviewed in the film uses the argument that they do not want to hear what aging hippies have to say about the war in Iraq. Neil Young's message of freedom of speech is really strong as a contrast to the right-wing nationalists who did already exist ten years ago.

I turn off the lamp to get up and pack early. My train to New Orleans is already at 07.05 in the morning. The train journeys in the United States are organized as air travel. Passengers have to be at the station at least 45 minutes in advance and check in baggage. My hostess has offered to drive me to the station tomorrow, but I find it meaningless to force her, who is single mom with a little boy, to wake up already before six in the morning. So I order a taxi before I fall asleep and make sure I have a little margin so that I can wake up the host if the taxi is not coming.

From Kurt Andersson's Facebook

Sonny Smith, Memphis

Kurt! A fantastic thing happened to me tonight. I managed to contact my son in New York City and he invited me to come to visit them next weekend.

I have a small problem reading your Swedish on facebook. The translation seems not to be perfect, but I can understand some things and I really like your pictures.

Thank you very much for helping me getting started with Facebook and for your good advice about contacting my children.

Robert Nelson, Kansas City

Hi Kurt! Now I am back home, but I get a little restless. Maybe I could join you when you come to Chicago or Detroit to listen to some music. Let us keep in touch when you're heading back from the west coast.

Facts about Memphis

• The largest part of Memphis is located east of the Mississippi River in the state of Tennessee. A smaller part is located west of the river in the state of Arkansas.

• Memphis had 653 450 inhabitants in 2013.

• The University of Memphis has approximately 22,000 students.

• Memphis has a significant port on the wide river, which has attracted manufacturing industry to the city. The singer Elvis Presley's home Graceland attracts huge numbers of tourists to Memphis.

• The city's popular football team is called Memphis Tigers.

Read more at www.memphis.com

Sun Studio in Memphis