Top
Chris Luna inside Sun Studios pictued with the "Million Dollar Quartet" Photo. (2008)

Middle
Chris Luna recording, "That's All Right Mama" at Sun Studios. (2006)

Bottom
Chris Luna at Sun Studios pictured with one of Elvis' actual Mics. (2006)

...Stayed at the Days Inn-Gracelend...just 1/2 a block from Graceland (you can see it across the way from the hotel)...this Inn is Elvis themed and features a guitar shaped swimming pool...no swimming today though (3/7/08)...see the snow on the lounge chairs!!! This place also has 2 channels that run off a dvd player at the front desk that are piped into the rooms dedicated to showing Elvis Movies 24/7...watch out though...sometimes they show the same ones over and over for hours at a time...I guess they just get lazy putting in a new dvd!!! This is the only other Hotel in the area besides "Elvis Presley's' Heatbreak Hotel" across the street from Graceland...We liked this place!

Days Inn Graceland
3839 Elvis Presley Blvd
Memphis, TN 38116
800-804-6835

The place to go for BBQ Ribs in Memphis is Marlowe's Ribs and Restaurant that feature Award Winning BBQ and an extensive menu to boot with southern style entrees. If staying in the Graceland area hotels, you can enjoy a free ride to and from the restaurant in their Pink Limousine (Chris' wife Patty and sister-in-law, Therese, pictured here with the limo).
Located at 4381 Elvis Presley Blvd., Memphis, TN 38116. Phone: 901-332-4159.

"If Elvis Aaron Presley hadn't come to Sun Studio in the early 1950s to record a song as a birthday present for his mother (so the story goes), musical history today might be very different. Owner and recording engineer Sam Phillips first recorded, in the early 1950s, such local artists as Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, and Carl Perkins, who together created a sound that would shortly become known as rock 'n' roll. Over the years Phillips also helped start the recording careers of the blues greats B.B. King and Howlin' Wolf and country giant Johnny Cash. By night, Sun Studio is still an active recording studio and has been used by such artists as U2, Spin Doctors, The Tractors, and Bonnie Raitt. The place has great vibes, and for those who know their music history, touching Elvis' microphone will be a thrill beyond measure.  Next door is the Sun Studio cafe, a 1950s-style former diner that has long been a musicians' hangout."

It snowed in Memphis the day we arrived (3/7/08); unusual for this time of year, but what a treat!

"Elvis bought this house at 1034 Audubon for his family in 1956 for $29,000. They lived there for just one year when Elvis bought Graceland due to an increasing need for privacy. The house still stands today and has had eight owners since the Presley's lived there."

Chris with Mr. Bernard Lansky "Clothier to the King" personally signing the book in which he is mentioned, "ELVIS FASHION: From Memphis to Vegas".

"In 1952 seventeen -year-old Elvis Presley pressed his nose against the glass of the Lansky Brothers clothing store on Beale Street, Memphis. Still in High School, Elvis worked part-time as a cinema usher in the nearby Lowe's Theater, where the little money he  earned was needed to ease the poverty of his family and could never be squnadered on custom tailoring. Noticing Elvis admiring the clothes on Display, Bernard Lansky struck up a conversation with the young window-shopper. "It was unknown to me that Elvis ever played a guitar; he never had it on his back or nothing. He often walked by and looked, but never did come in. So I said 'Come on in young man, let me show you around.'" Awestruckl, Elvis exclaimed that one day, when he had the money, he'd buy everything in the store...As soon as he could afford clothes from the store, Elvis wore the Lansky Brothers' designs and continued to do so throughout his early career..."                
                                  

Chris' wife Patty with Mr. Lansky "Clothier to the King" -  March 2008

...Lansky Brothers store no longer exists at it's original Beale Street location (it is now a restaurant-EP Delta Kitchen), but now resides in the Lobby of the Peabody Hotel at 149 Union Avenue, Memphis, TN 38103.