Letter From the Editor
ON ONE END of the drinking establishment spectrum, you’ve got your dive bars. As a rule, these places have hardrockin’ jukeboxes, cold yellow jackets and at least one guy in the corner who’s a dead ringer for Merle Haggard. Then over there you’ve got the grand bars, sumptuous combinations of marble, expensive Scotch and glitterati hubbub. The best grand bars have been stoked by history, like the three-sided gem found in the lobby of the famous Peabody hotel in Memphis, the reputed fountainhead of the Mississippi Delta.
The Peabody dates to 1869, and depending on what bartender is on duty, you can become an instant expert on the hotel and downtown Memphis in a few drinks’ time.
For instance, the original hotel, which was demolished in the 1920s, had been a celebrated hangout for Confederate generals who are no longer celebrated these days. The current 13-story, Italian Renaissance structure opened for business in 1923 and quickly became known as “the South’s Grand Hotel.”
Dignitaries, celebrities and musicians flocked to the see-and-be-seen destination, including the likes of Louis Armstrong. In 1931, the jazz great and his orchestra played “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal You” in the lobby. Legend has it he dedicated the song to the Memphis Police Department because he had been arrested the night before for breaking a Jim Crow law.
By the mid-1950s, decay had begun to grip downtown Memphis. The Peabody went into bankruptcy and sputtered along, opening and closing and going into foreclosure. But outside its shuttered doors, the civil rights movement was catching fire. In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. attended a sanitation strike in the city where he gave his famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, only to be gunned down the next day, nine blocks away from the Peabody. The hotel continued to personify the city’s struggles and upheaval until 1981 when it was reopened after an extensive $25 million facelift. A revitalization of the surrounding area, including hell-yeah! blues paradise Beale Street, slowly followed.
The Peabody is suggested as a road-trip starting point in our “Adventure Is Back” feature on page 67. If you’ve never been to the Lobby Bar, then you need to add it to the list. And if there’s a chance you can make it this summer, head up to the roof for the Sunset Social Hour and look south—the Mississippi Delta ends 250 miles away, at any decent catfish joint in Vicksburg, Mississippi.