Qualla: Beale Street https://qualla.com/beale-street en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:04 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/9/y/p/z/beale-street-wp/beale-street-at-sunset-2702837.jpg Qualla: Beale Street https://qualla.com/beale-street Beale Street: Introduction https://qualla.com/beale-street/ Photo credit WillyBearden, CC BY-SA 4.0. W.C. Handy wrote the oldest known song about Beale Street, and Marc Cohn claimed to walk "with my feet ten feet off of Beale." Between those two bookends stretches the entire arc of American popular music. Created in 1841 by developer Robertson Topp and named for Mexican-American War hero Edward Fitzgerald Beale, this street in downtown Memphis runs roughly two miles from the Mississippi River to East Street. By the early twentieth century, it had become the cultural heart of Black Memphis -- a place where blues was not a genre but a living, breathing, nightly occurrence. The street nearly died in the 1960s when urban renewal gutted its commercial core. Today it lives again as a neon-lit entertainment district, a National Historic Landmark, and a stop on the U.S. Civil Rights Trail.

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Image: WillyBearden | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/y/p/z/beale-street-wp/9ypz-beale-street-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Beale Street: The Mayor of Beale Street https://qualla.com/beale-street/ Photo credit Heath Cajandig, CC BY 2.0. In 1938, Lewis O. Swingler, editor of the Memphis World Newspaper, hatched a circulation stunt that became an institution. He invited readers to vote for a "Mayor of Beale Street." Matthew Thornton Sr., a community leader and charter member of the Memphis Branch of the NAACP, won...

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Image: Heath Cajandig | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/y/p/z/beale-street-wp/9ypz-beale-street-the-mayor-of-beale-street.mp3 0:06 2 full Beale Street: Where the Blues Came to Stay https://qualla.com/beale-street/ Photo credit Rafi B. from Somewhere in Texas :), CC BY 2.0. Beale Street did not invent the blues, but it gave the music a permanent address. W.C. Handy, an Alabama-born musician who settled in Memphis, composed "Beale Street Blues" and "Memphis Blues" in the early 1900s, translating the sound he heard in Delta juke joints into published ...

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Image: Rafi B. from Somewhere in Texas :) | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/y/p/z/beale-street-wp/9ypz-beale-street-where-the-blues-came-to-stay.mp3 0:06 3 full Beale Street: Decline and Resurrection https://qualla.com/beale-street/ Photo credit Alexandra Kay from Murfreesboro, TN, United States, CC BY 2.0. By the 1960s, Beale Street was dying. Urban renewal, suburban flight, and changing demographics hollowed out the commercial district. Businesses shuttered. The section from Main Street to Fourth Street was declared a National Historic Landmark on May 23, 1966, but the designation...

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Image: Alexandra Kay from Murfreesboro, TN, United States | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/y/p/z/beale-street-wp/9ypz-beale-street-decline-and-resurrection.mp3 0:06 4 full Beale Street: Living Soundtrack https://qualla.com/beale-street/ Photo credit Thomas R Machnitzki, CC BY 3.0. The music has never really stopped on Beale Street. Since 1987, the band FreeWorld, led by Richard Cushing with saxophonist Herman Green, has been the longest continuously performing band in Beale Street history. The Beale Street Music Festival, held during the first weekend of M...

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Image: Thomas R Machnitzki | CC BY 3.0

]]> Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/y/p/z/beale-street-wp/9ypz-beale-street-living-soundtrack.mp3 0:06 5 full