The Ultimate Southern Music Road Trip Guide

By Ellen Maxwell Cowan

Want to know how it all began? Pack your blue suede shoes and head south to the small-town dive bars, the recording studios, and big city auditoriums where the legends of American music got their start.

Aside from running a cozy little B&B in Georgia, the owners of The Firefly love two things: music and travel. They combined those two interests into a series of road trips that explore the roots of Southern music and all the unlikely places where that music sprang up. Whether you're an armchair traveler or a road warrior, you can follow along in their tire tracks and learn all about Southern music in its varied forms: rock and roll, R&B, pop, the Delta blues, Dixieland jazz, bluegrass, folk, salsa, and country. The trips mapped out in this book cover all the music capitals you'd expect, like Memphis, Nashville, and New Orleans, but many of the destinations will take you far off the beaten path. Along the way, you'll learn some surprising facts, such as: How 38 Special got its nameWhy it's a good idea to avoid Myrtle Beach in the springtimeWho has the world's biggest collection of Carter Family albumsWhat makes Muscle Shoals the recording capital of AmericaWhether or not Jerry Lee Lewis really tried to shoot ElvisHow to find the apartment building where R.E.M. practiced and annoyed the neighborsWhere to listen to jazz in New Orleans while avoiding the French QuarterHow yodeler Slim Whitman got his start and became a sensation in EuropeWhere to find the last surviving venues on the Chitlin' CircuitWhy Britney Spears has a cultural museum exhibit named in her honor.If you're a music buff, you owe it to yourself to read what the authors have to say about Southern music. After that, pack your bags and hit the road to write yourself into the story.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B09BY3NNTY
• ISBN13: 9798450049366
• Release Date: August 2021
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 138 Pages
• Weight: 0.43 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"