I'm going to Graceland, Memphis Tennessee

It's not that either of us care much for Elvis. But when you're in Memphis, well, you have to go to Graceland. Paul Simon said so. So did Gillian Welch.

And despite all the tack that surrounds it, the mansion itself is graceful and understated on gently sloping lawns dotted with oaks and ringed with white wooden ranch fences.

The jungle room with its stuffed animals and green-carpeted ceiling (good acoustics apparently for one of his later albums); the TV room with three screens side-by-side installed after Elvis learned that Richard Nixon watched the news on three channels at once, the billiards room with the torn felt in the corner where the Colonel tried a trick shot; the piano by the indoor racketball court where he banged out a couple of tunes in the morning before being found dead.

And from a region whence came Johnny Cash, BB King, Johnny Mercer, it is still hard to avoid the conclusion that Elvis was more influential in changing music than the rest of them put together. Watching him embracing the microphone stand as he fell to his knees in that old black and white film, watching the footage of screaming teenagers, you can't but get swept away with the legend of The King.