IT'S 3am in Memphis, birthplace of rock 'n roll, and I'm walking out of a former brothel with two tipsy 21-year-old women. I just met them inside. Well, I met them six hours ago. It's been a long night.

My new pals, from Tampa no less, have road-tripped to this river city to commune with the spirit of Jeff Buckley, an indie-rock icon who drowned in the Mississippi River 10 years ago. The women took a picture of his old shotgun-shack house. In the photo, red eyes glow in a window. It's either Buckley's ghost or a golden retriever.

I've come to Memphis for Elvis Presley and Otis Redding, who also are celebrating major anniversaries. The King died 30 years ago on August 16; the town is already in full-on hunka-hunka mode. Redding was the heart of Stax Records, the Memphis label that turns 50 this year. Redding died in 1967.

There's always a major music anniversary here. But 2007 has some doozies.

The gals and I have just spent the night at Earnestine & Hazel's, a brothel-turned-juke joint built in the early 1900s. Some people say the bar is haunted by bluesmen; some people might be right. It is, without a doubt, the perfect place to hold a rock 'n roll seance.

This is a town where restaurants and bars pride themselves not on their DJs or their stereo systems, but on their jukeboxes. Slide a quarter in and press play for the past.

Bar owner Russell George says: "We have everybody here. The Queen of Rock 'n Roll: Tina Turner. The King of Rock 'n Roll: Elvis Presley. The King of Soul: Otis Redding. And the Queen of Soul. You know who that is? Aretha Franklin. She's from here, too."

George is closing up the bar. Outside, my Tampa pals, Elizabeth Kelly and Meghan Kearney, start walking up historic Main Street, fuelled by good stories and strong drink.

In Memphis, you have to blame your bad behaviour on something. And at 3 in the morning in this place, you can blame a lot on the power of a killer groove and a haunted jukebox.

The Memphis Sound: Raw, heartfelt, sweaty. Not polished pop like Motown, which came about at the same time. The Memphis Sound, the sound of the city, was instinctual, sexy. Real, as the locals might say.

Elvis was real. Jerry Lee Lewis was real. But nothing defined the Memphis Sound better than the soul music that strutted out of Stax Records, the label that launched Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Sam and Dave, Booker T and the MGs.

Fifty years ago, South Memphis was known as Soulsville US. The original Stax Studio was demolished, but the gorgeous new Stax Museum of American Soul Music was built on the same location.

The Stax Records label was started by brother and sister Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, two white music fans with a thirst for soul. As a result, there was no black and white only music.

Until April 4 1968.

When Dr Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel just blocks from Earnestine & Hazel's, Stax changed forever. The music became divided, bitter. The label would die a few years later, the building torn down soon after that.

"If Martin Luther King had not been killed," says Stax songwriter David Porter in a sombre film that shows at the museum, "Stax would still be alive today."

When Jason Carpenter was a boy, he used to ride his bike to Graceland, the Southern colonial home of Elvis Presley. Elvis was still alive then, so fans could only gaze through the wrought-iron gates and wonder what it was like to be the King.

"I'd sit in front of those gates, and I'd just sit and stare," Carpenter says, talking in front of the long, brick wall that separates the white pillared mansion from Elvis Presley Boulevard. "I'd stare and I'd dream."

Carpenter lived in a trailer park, and the King and his castle represented a better life. "Elvis showed up at the perfect time," he says. "His music just fit."

Thirty years after his death, the ghost of Elvis, that white kid with the black sound, still runs this town. - ©(2007) The New York Times