You know the expression "being in the right place at the right time"? Well here's the story of how 3/4 of OUTBURST happened to be in the right place at the right time...
As I've explained before, we are a Sweet Adeline Quartet and we are a part of a large chorus, Canadian Showtime Chorus, aka CSC. CSC was lucky enough to win a place at International Competition, which was held in Nashville, Tennessee in the fall of 2009. For a special treat Nancy, Santina and Debbie (pictured above) decided we'd go a few days early and take a road trip to Memphis. All of us being big Elvis fans, myself being the biggest, I, Debbie, planned it as a sort of "Elvis Pilgrimage" and tried to cram as much Elvis stuff into the weekend as I could. We flew into Nashville early on a Saturday morning, rented a van, piled our luggage in and hit the highway for Memphis. We didn't have to be back in Nashville until Tuesday for an afternoon rehearsal, so I had created an itinerary for us that jam-packed as much as possible in those few short days. We arrived in Memphis just in time to hit Beale St. for some terrific BBQ and unbelievable live jazz music. Sunday we embarked on a phenomenal Musical Bus tour of Memphis that showed us ALL the best parts of the city...the apartment were Elvis and his parents lived when they first moved to Memphis, the band shell where Elvis played one of his first gigs in Memphis, the church he attended with his parents, (that he'd sit in the back of with his girlfriend so they could sneak out and run a few blocks to the "Negro" church where he loved to listen to their gospel music, and then run back just in time for the end of the service his parents were at), Sun Records (including a tour of Sun where we got to stand where all the great artists stood (including, you guessed it, Elvis!) and touch the actually microphone they used!). We enjoyed another evening on Beale St. that night, the people and the music were just fantastic! Monday morning we got up early, took a short little trolley tour around the town and even gave the other passengers a taste of OUTBURST (unfortunately minus our awesome Bass, Carol). But we managed to wow them at any rate. Our trolley driver told us if we were any indication of how the full chorus sounds we were sure to win the International Competition...he was very sweet! After the trolley ride we hopped in the car and headed for Graceland, where we did the complete tour along with all the shopping involved. It was a very emotional thing for me personally, I had visited Graceland back in the day, when Elvis was alive and doing well, and you could only walk around the grounds. Being inside the house was just surreal, to walk were he walked, touch things he touched...I was in an Elvis-filled haze. We stayed until around 3pm or so and then drove the hour and a half to Tupelo, where I had planned a tour of Elvis' Birthplace, which closed at 5pm. Well, it took a little longer than I'd hoped and by the time we reached Tupelo, and found Elvis' Birthplace, it was closed! We were somewhat disappointed to say the least. We drove by, it was around 5:30 or so, but there were still lots of lights on and plenty of cars in the parking lot. We decided to give it a shot, maybe the hours had changed since I was last on the website. We pulled into the lot and parked, got out of the car and were met by two handsome men in very smart suits! They introduced themselves as the Mayor of Tupelo, Jack Reed, and the Founder of the Elvis Presley Memorial Foundation (whose name I don't recall)! Needless to say we were pretty impressed! We told them about the chorus and International in Nashville, and how we were 3/4 of a quartet etc. and that we'd spent the weekend doing this road trip to Memphis with Tupelo being the culmination. They asked us if we could sing something for them. Now, anyone who's read this blog, or knows this quartet, knows that OUTBURST was a Top-Ten quartet in the spring of 2009...not too shabby...and we had impressed the folks on the trolley in Memphis just that morning, so why not! We gave them "There, I've Said it Again", without the benefit of a pitch pipe I might add, because I had left in the car! We had these two gentlemen in the palm of our hand!! They were so impressed with us that the Mayor himself gave us a quick little tour of the Memorial Chapel, a relatively new addition, that was built by donations from Elvis' fans. Mayor Reed was in quite a hurry...as it turns out we had shown up in the parking lot just as they were about to have a Town Council Meeting, which, low and behold, was to be held in the little Assembly of God Church there on the grounds. This is the church that Elvis and his parents attended back when Elvis was very young. It's been relocated, board by board, to stand just a few feet from the house Elvis was born in. Mayor Reed invited us into the church where the Council was gathered, introduced us around to the gang, and asked if we could sing again for the whole group. So we took our place at the pulpit, sang our song while they took photos with their cell phones, and when we were finished, they invited us to take a seat in the church where they gave us special showing of a "re-enactment" video of a church service that Elvis would have attended when he was a boy. They treated us with a private viewing! Now picture this...we're sitting in the pews where Elvis used to sit, screens come down on all four walls and this video begins to play. It appears as though we are a part of the congregation! The video is all of maybe 15 or 20 minutes in length, and there's a part in it where Elvis, aged about 8 or 9, is invited up onto the little "stage" where the pulpit is to sing a song....let's not forget this is precisely where we had stood to sing just minutes before!!! After the video ended the screens went up, the lights came on, we shook hands with everyone, thanked them profusely and left the church so they could have their council meeting. After the door closed behind us we just looked at each other and immediately burst into tears (just one example of how our quartet name came to be). We were in total shock trying to absorb what had just taken place. Did we just stand in Elvis' footsteps and sing where Elvis had sung? It was just too much to fathom! We were crying and hugging and in a complete daze! The Mayor had told us to take our time and wander the grounds as long as we wanted, which is a good thing because it took us quite a while to compose ourselves enough to remember what we were doing next! (We had to drive another hour and a half to Muscle Shoals where we had hotel reservations!) We walked over to the little house where Elvis was born and lived until he moved to Memphis at the age of 13. We sat on the porch swing, on the porch steps, walked around the garden, we were so overwhelmed I don't think we could really believe what had just happened! When we left there we decide we needed to find a cafe or something to have a coffee and calm down. The drive through the Natchez Trace to Muscle Shoals turned out to be pretty exciting...a tiny little 2 lane road, absolutely pitch dark without another car in sight for the whole hour and a half, which turned into more like 3 hours because we couldn't go faster than 40MPH! All we saw, every now and then, were the shining eyes of the deer on the side of the road. We sang the entire way just to keep us distracted from how scared we were! By the time we finally arrived in Muscle Shoals and found our hotel it was well after midnight and we were still sky high! I have no idea what time we actually got to sleep that night! The next day we did a whirlwind trip to the Home of Helen Keller, and the Coon Dog Cemetery (believe it or not people come from all over the world to see this place! Really, Google it, you'll see!), then headed to Nashville. We arrived just after 2pm, which was rehearsal time! Luckily, we managed to find parking right across the street and ran in...made it there just as they were finishing warm-up!
It was, hands-down, the best road trip I've ever been on. Never, ever will I forget the feeling of singing in that tiny, little church. And there will never, ever be a better "right place at the right time" story, at least not for me. It was definitely the icing on the cake that was already a pretty awesome weekend!
