American Music Tour

Fourteen nights from Chicago to New Orleans following the music, which is a better organising principle for an American road trip than most. Flights, car and hotels are arranged together from the UK with a road book for the route.

Three nights in Chicago start it, where Buddy Guy’s Legends is still a working blues club rather than a museum. Then two nights in Louisville by way of Indianapolis and the Motor Speedway, with the Bourbon Trail and Churchill Downs on the doorstep. Two nights in Nashville follow, where RCA Studio B is still standing and still the room where a great deal of it happened.

The run south is the best part. The Natchez Trace Parkway carries you towards Tupelo past Muscle Shoals, where a studio in a small Alabama town produced a disproportionate share of the sixties. Tupelo itself has Elvis’s birthplace, a two-room house with the church he sang in moved in next door. Then two nights in Memphis for Graceland, Sun Studios and the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel. The Delta follows through Clarksdale and Indianola, a night at Natchez, and three nights in New Orleans to finish.

Around 1,250 miles over a fortnight, with five of the seven stops lasting two nights or more. The itinerary is bespoke, with nights addable and stops removable, and departures arranged around your dates. It suits anyone who wants to drive the line from Chicago blues to New Orleans jazz by way of Nashville, Muscle Shoals and Memphis, in the order it actually happened.