wonderful place to go on Friday nights old and new friends.
I found this place by accident while passing through Jackson, TN, my hometown. I was looking for directions to a Carl Perkins museum that I know existed a while ago, housed in a caboose on the lot of Casey Jones Village. But Henry Harrison's International Rockabilly Hall Of Fame & Museum popped up and I had to go because I had never been. Not much to see or do in downtown Jackson on even a busy day, and in fact, this would be my first trip since the day I was born for all I could remember. This building looked like any other, except for a giant mural on the entire wall with Carl Perkins front and center, and among other things, Paul McCartney standing off to the side. Carl Perkins is a big deal whether you know it or not. Anyway, the sign on the door told me to ring the doorbell if it was locked and they'd open up. I had no idea what I was walking into, but I couldn't wait for the nicest old lady to open the door. She let me in, I looked around, and she immediately admitted that she didn't know much about any of the things but her husband Henry Harrison would be right back and I could look around and wait for him. Sure enough, within about 6 minutes, Henry walks in the door, kisses his wife on the cheek, goes to tend to whatever he was coming back to do and then she tells him I'm there. Henry comes right up to me, shakes my hand, asks where I'm from -- Well, Jackson! But via West Texas! -- and proceeds to show me some of the most interesting bits from the roots of rockabilly that most people will never see or know. Then he tells me that he's been told that he has the largest collection of video interviews with everyone who was ever anyone in the genre "provided they are still living, of course." I ask, like an idiot of the Information Age, if it's available online, to which he replies a stern "No." with a sort of grimacing smile, but nice enough. Instead, he pulls up a chair to one of many small TV/DVD combos around the room, which is actually a stage and dance floor rather than what I had expected, and proceeds to watch with me 20 minutes of an hour and a half long interview with Wanda Jackson --YES!-- and then just turns it off, and ushers me into the other room to show me a photo of Elvis playing flag football months before he recorded his first now-historic single at Sun Studio. Henry has it all, and he's happy to tell you about every thing. What a guy! His wife then reminds him that he's 82? and needs to eat lunch, they both apologize for not being able to stick around. Then he asks her to just bring him lunch, and then asks if I'd like anything. I didn't, but I really wish I hadn't just stuffed myself with things from a gas station, typical road trip fare. While we wait, he shows me short pieces of other videos on other TV/DVD stations around the room. The thing people ask most, "Do you have 'the' Blue Suede Shoes?" He does, sort of. There's a pair of, in fact, blue suede shoes in a glass case, that Carl Perkins himself, in fact, did donate to the museum, but he never, in fact, ever wore that pair. Henry admitted that 'the' blue suede shoes were likely long gone by now, and so what. What a guy! I dropped $10 in the donation jar, took a few more photos of the outside of the building, and got on my way. West to Memphis, west to Texas, rockabilly all the way.
Henry Harrison is a fantastic person and the stories, oh the stories!!! This is a must go for anyone visiting the Jackson area. If you go to Sun studio you must make a trip here as well. So glad we came. What a privilege to have the tour.
Very fun and interesting tour. This is something you need to do in town.
One of the best stops of my trip cross country. A rich a vibrant telling of a music genre that changed history.
Rock A Billy Hall Of Fame is a US Museum based in Jackson, Tennessee. Rock A Billy Hall Of Fame is located at 105 N Church St, Jackson, TN 38301, USA.
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