On December 4, 1956, Sam Phillips wanted to record a jam session at his very own Sun Records studio in Memphis, Tennessee at 706 Union Avenue, near the intersection of Myrtle Street and Marshall Avenue (just up the street from Beale Street) - for those of you familiar with Memphis.Anyway - Sam recruited a few guys from his A&R list, and recorded a jam session with a quartet that were signed to Sun Records. Billed as The Million Dollar Quartet, they consisted of some yahoo named Elvis Presley, an upstart named Johnny Cash, some old guitar pickin' dude named Carl Perkins, and a honky tonk piano player named Jerry Lee Lewis.
Carl was accompanied by his brothers Clay and Jay - presumably on the stand-up bass, and his drummer W.S. "Fluke" Holland. That must have been some session. How would you have liked to be a fly on the wall at Sun Studios that particular day?
Anyway - for just a few hours on December 4, 1956, they recorded 46 tunes that night. 43 tunes, actually. They had to record "Don't Be Cruel" three times. What? Didn't these guys ever rehearse? )
Ah yes, there was magic in the air!
Here's Elvis Presley singing the first stanza of the song "Is It So Strange" during this session.
Here are the lyrics for those of you who would like to sing along with Elvis:
Oh, if you tell a lie
You know that I'll forgive you
Though you say our love is just a game
And when you hear my name
You'll say I'm from a strange world
But is it so strange to
be in love with you.
Hope you enjoyed this little snippet of pop music history. And here's hopin' that you have a bluesy day!
