Hard Rock Cafe
It started with an Eric Clapton guitar (a Fender Lead II, for the gearheads in the audience). The beginning of something that nobody even knew was beginning. It was just a goof. A laugh. A joke among friends.
Back in the seventies, Clapton - the original guitar god, founder of Cream and Derek & the Dominoes, creator of the immortal "Layla" - liked to eat at this quirky American diner in London called the Hard Rock Cafe. The place was this funky old building that used to be a Rolls Royce dealership, and it was run by a couple of young Americans who liked to keep it loose. Founded by Isaac Tigrett and Peter Morton, two enterprising and music-loving Americans, Hard Rock Cafe was an instant classic. You could be yourself at the Hard Rock. It was good food and a good time.
So Clapton got to be friends with the proprietors and asked them to save him a regular table, put up a brass plaque or something. And the young proprietors said, "Why don't we put up your guitar?" They all had a chuckle, and he handed over a guitar, and they slapped it on the wall. As artist Billy Swan sang, "Memphis Rocks!" Located in the cotton-trading capital of the Delta, Memphis virtually invented blues, soul and rock 'n' roll. Once well-known for heavy gambling, voodoo, murder and prostitution, Memphis is just a hard-rocking place where you can get great food and hear hot tunes.
Home to both Sun Records and Stax Records, this city has always been foremost in finding talent, and the rollicking live music scene is still kicking hard today. Maybe that's why Memphis is mentioned in more songs than just about any other city. So if you're out "Walking In Memphis" on the "Memphis Streets" and you get yourself a mean case of the "Walkin' Blues," just do the electric slide or "Memphis Boogie" right on into the Hard Rock Cafe Memphis and let us ease you into "Memphis Bliss." Our historic building, set on boogie street Beale, has done time as a recording studio and a saloon - the perfect combination for an electrifying menu that'll make you stomp and shout.
Memphis was also Elvis's home, and the only place he ever felt he belonged. So come on down, y'all, for a taste of Southern hospitality and "Good Rockin' Tonight," 'cause you're bound to soon feel the exact same way. And while Elvis may have left the building (on a "Memphis Train?"), you can stay as long as you want. It's a "Memphis Thing."
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