Sunday, July 12, 2020

The Road to Memphis and the Ponderosa Stomp: A Motorcycle Trip On America's Music Routes


The Road to Memphis and the Ponderosa Stomp: A Motorcycle Trip On America's Music Routes

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Looking for a Cure to the Isolated at home with the COVID-19 Blues? How 'bout taking a motorcycle trip to two of the Meccas of American Music, Memphis and New Orleans as Plain Sense relives his trip of a life time and the fulfillment of his dream of attending the legendary Ponderosa Stomp Music Festival.  Along the way he stops off in Memphis, Tennessee at the Museum of the legendary Stax Studios, itself the shrine of Soul Music and Graceland, the home of and now shrine to, who some call, the “King of Rock and Roll”.  While some may disagree over the accuracy of that pop culture moniker, it does not diminish the undeniable contribution that Elvis Aaron Presley has made to American music and whose legacy is still felt today.
Attending the Ponderosas Stomp music festival, the then annual and currently in hiatus, celebration of the unsung heroes of American music (which has now transformed into a worthwhile music education outreach program), had been a dream of mine ever since I heard of the first Ponderosa Stomp festival.  Those early rosters of performers read like the long lost family tree of the greatest of the great in America’s genealogy of music.  These were the greats behind the scenes, whose names you might not have ever heard of, unless of course you were, like me, a music freak who reads the credits and liner notes for everything in my music collection.  Not being a musician myself, it was always a great mystery how they produced this magic we call music and by reading every credit and liner note I thought I might one day crack the code.
Although I had made and posted a contemporaneous travel blog along the way replete with photos and memorable anecdotes, there were two holes in the record marked only as “…to be continued…”.  Just recently, while cleaning house during these days of social distancing, I have come upon my contemporaneous hand written notes that were never posted along with the sd card of my entire trip photos.  I had assumed for years that they were long lost and most likely destroyed.  Chalk up a victory for all the pack rats out there! 
This article not only will fill in those glaring gaps in my coverage of the trip but hits on current events and appeals to music lovers as well.  The similarities to life in April 2009 and today will be eerily familiar and only proves how cyclical the human experience is.  Just like we survived the swine flu epidemic and financial crisis of 2008- 2009, we will get through the COVID-19 Pandemic and financial crises of 2020 as well.

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