More than 2,000 Britons will flock to Memphis for the Beale Street Music Festival this week as record numbers of UK residents make a pilgrimage to the city, dubbed the "Liverpool of America", that spawned the modern era of music and popular culture and defined the identity of a generation.

Some of the older festival-goers will take the opportunity to explore their roots and relive their youth, while the younger ones will examine the forces that still inform their world today. In one way or another, virtually all of the five jumbo-jets worth of Britons' attending the festival will be tapping a wave of nostalgia for a perceived golden age.

The giant three-day festival, which kicks off on Friday May 2, features long-established acts such as Aretha Franklin, Jerry Lee Lewis and Lou Reed, as well as Memphis-influenced contemporary artists, such as New York-based Cat Power.

The British have a particular affinity with Memphis and are visiting the birthplace of rock'n'roll like never before, amid a resurgence of interest in the 1950s and 1960s and proliferation of affordable package tours.

Britain is expected to dispatch a record 100,000 pilgrims to the city this year, more than any other nationality after America, with Elvis Week in August likely to prove a big draw.

About 40,000 of the British visitors will call in on Graceland, representing one fifth of all foreign visitors to the home of Elvis Presley. Many of the others will have already visited the King's palace on previous trips.

Many Britons are drawn by the symbiotic link between Memphis and Liverpool. The era-defining Mersey sound, made famous by The Beatles in the early 1960s, was heavily influenced by the rock'n'roll that had emerged in Memphis a few years earlier.

As John Lennon said: "Before Elvis, there was nothing. Without him, there would be no Beatles."

Baby boomers provide the bulk of the British visitors to Memphis as they explore the well-spring of their youth in a city that is not only the home of rock'n'roll, but is central to the development of blues and soul, with its Stax and Sun record labels nurturing hitmakers such as Muddy Waters, BB King, Otis Redding and Booker T and the MG's.

Many of the baby boomers were defined by the rock n roll explosion of the 1950s, or the blues-inspired rock of the following decade by artists such as Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones. The British have always had a particular affinity with the Blues, being a naturally downbeat nation, with artists such as Muddy Waters often commanding much bigger audiences in the UK than in the US.

Dr John Bakke, professor of music and culture at the University of Memphis, said: "The 1950s really was the non-verbal beginning of the cultural revolution, the point at which you feel something but can't put it into words."

"The 50s popped the cork that was articulated much better in the 60s. The first fights between teenagers and their parents happened because of rock'n'roll, not segregation, or the Korean War, and Elvis was the absolute focal point of that," he added.

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