Tips, Tourists, and Musical Labor on Beale Street

Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee, is a two-block entertainment district and National Historic Landmark known for blues history and live music. At night, the street comes alive with bright neon signs, clashing sounds emanating from 14 live music venues, and novelty-sized to-go drinks. It is the most visited tourist destination in the state. Beale is a complicated and misunderstood place. It is a physical manifestation of the confluence of several forces in contemporary American life that shape and attempt to define it: urban renewal and slum clearance; the white curation of blues into a claimed collective American heritage; tips-based labor; and the touristic impulse to discover the authentic. This confluence creates a unique economic and cultural zone: a historically Black site in a majority-Black city that is managed by largely white operators catering to tourists. The musical labor force depends upon tips and is, thus, influenced by expectations of and requests from tourists. And these tourists, more often than not, have a superficial or skewed understanding of the traditions and aesthetics of Beale Street. Journalists, scholars, and tourists often describe Beale as “inauthentic,” citing as their proof Beale’s bands, who play too much blues, not enough blues, or not the right kind of blues. In this chapter, I use my research with Beale Street musicians and my experience performing on Beale to speak back to the dominant narrative that posits Beale as inauthentic. I shift the focus to the overlooked material conditions of working on Beale. I ask why musicians make the repertoire and aesthetic choices they do and I analyze the physical and economic aspects of laboring in a tips-based, music tourist enclave with a complex racial legacy. Finally, I provide actionable steps for more ethical and equitable scholarship, reportage, and tourist consumption.