Of course, when in Muhlenberg County, Bill Harlan will take you on a tour of all the sights: the Merle Travis Music Center in Powderly (with a brand-new updated museum exhibit featuring Merle’s Guild Solomaster, his Bigsby steel guitar, his Gibson L-10, Joe Maphis’s original Gibson Super 400, and Nudie suits galore! Then on to Ebeneezer Baptist Church, where Merle Travis’s ashes are laid to rest, as well as Thom Bresh, Merle’s parents, and another of the great Muhlenberg pickers, Mose Rager.
Then we went to Central City to the museum there, and to the cemetery where Ike and Phil Everly are buried. Find a Grave says that Don Everly is buried here too, but the people at the cemetery say that is incorrect. His ashes may not be interred yet.
Then we went to Drakesboro, where they have the four legends fountain where Mose Rager’s barbershop and house used to be, and Drakesboro high school, where Merle was awarded the key to the city in 1947. Bill told me that he went to high school here, and there was a café across the street with a jukebox they could hear while in class. This was the inspiration for the B-side to his 1958 single “Schoolhouse Rock.” Great history, and Bill is a wonderful ambassador and tour guide for Muhlenberg County!
