Tennessee
There are no mummies at Memphis' Stax Museum of American Soul Music. Just some bad muthas. Or so they promise. The museum is located on the site of the original Stax Records company, a soul pioneer that released music from greats, including Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Wilson Pickett and Albert King. The museum definitely puts stuffier institutions to shame with the baddest collection of memorabilia around. They've got a sequined stage dress from Tina Turner, Phalon Jones' saxophone retrieved from a lake after the airplane crash that killed Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays, and Isaac Hayes' 1972 Superfly Cadillac El Dorado, complete with a TV and fridge. Welcome to the reason America has more soul than any nation on earth.
926 E. McLemore Ave., Memphis; 901-946-2535; admission: $10.