Blues, Country and Soul Mix in Memphis, Tennessee

July 08, 2013

Blues, country and soul mix in Memphis.

From VOA Learning English, welcome to This Is America.

I’m Avi Arditti.

And I’m Kelly Jean Kelly.

This week, learn about a city in the South that helped give the world many kinds of American music.

Come with us to Memphis, Tennessee...

A Future President and a New City

A future president of the United States helped build Memphis. Andrew Jackson and two other men settled the city in 1819. They chose the place where the Wolf River flowed into the Mississippi River. Jackson named the community after the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis on the Nile River.

The Memphis of modern America is the biggest city in the state of Tennessee. More than one million people live in the Memphis area. Six hundred fifty thousand of them live in the city. Memphis is a center of business, industry and transportation.

Memphis grew when a railroad bridge across the Mississippi River was completed in 1892. The bridge increased trade, and by 1900 it made Memphis the world’s largest market for cotton and wood products.

Southern Culture, Southern Literature

Visitors can learn about the city through its literature. Almost 100 years ago, the African-American writer Richard Wright wrote his first stories while working as a dishwasher in Memphis. His book -- called “Native Son” -- was published in 1941. It was a huge success. It strongly influenced public opinion about race issues and created acceptance for other African-American writers.