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From Atlanta Ian takes a greyhound bus to Tuskegee,
Alabama, for the public reunion of America's first back
fighter pilots, an annual air-show at Moton field. He's
lucky enough to be offered a ride in an early training
plane and learns a few tactical (but stomach-churning)
manoeuvres.
After heading south to the idyllic Gulf Shores, Ian
spends a day witnessing a reconstruction of the last
battle of the American Civil war. In 1865 the Confederates
of the South finally surrendered to the Unionists of
the North in Mobile Bay at Fort Morgan.
That evening he joins the Florabama beach party
where he learns the right way to eat crawfish - and
the right way to toss mullet in the interstate mullet-toss
between Alabama & Florida.
The last leg of Ian's journey takes him via Vicksburg
and the blues town of Clarksdale to Memphis, Tennessee.
In Clarksdale he rents a room in the
Riverside Hotel, once patronised by the likes of Sam
Cook and Muddy Waters, and pays a visit to Wade Walten,
the blues-singling barber at the only old style shave
joint left in town.
Ian finally arrives at his destination - Memphis,
the city which flourished on the cotton trade of the
Mississippi Delta. He's here for just one thing, though
- Elvis week, an annual pilgrimage for thousands of
fans in the week of the anniversary of the King's death
on August 16th.
On a Cadillac cab to tour he takes in the sights of
the town: Elvis' childhood home, his school and Sun
Studios, where Elvis recorded his first ever hit. The
highpoint of the week, and the end of Ian's trip through
the extraordinary southern states is a candlelit vigil
attended by thousands, lasting throughout the night
of August 16th.
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