In an article coinciding with the London run of the Broadway musical "Million Dollar Quartet," Colin Escott of The Telegraph profiles Sam Phillips, the Memphis Recording Service and Sun Records owner who assembled the legendary 1956 jam session featuring Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash.
The Telegraph also relates an anecdote about the origin of the moniker "Million Dollar Quartet." The session took place as Elvis, by then signed to the RCA label, was back in Memphis for a visit.
He looked like a poster boy for the rigidity and frigidity of early Fifties white America. Even in impromptu snapshots, he's wearing a jacket and tie, and not a hair is out of place. But, as a teenager, Phillips had driven to Memphis from his home in rural Alabama.
"We drove down Beale in the middle of the night," he said years later, "and it was rockin'. It was so active, musically, socially. God, I loved it!"
The Telegraph also relates an anecdote about the origin of the moniker "Million Dollar Quartet." The session took place as Elvis, by then signed to the RCA label, was back in Memphis for a visit.
Phillips knew that anything "Elvis" was news, and a story in the Memphis Press-Scimitar would be picked up nationwide. The day after the session, reporter Bob Johnson wrote an article about what he'd seen, and Phillips made sure that Elvis endorsed then-unknown Jerry Lee Lewis. "That boy can go," said Elvis of his piano-playing. Johnson coined the phrase Million Dollar Quartet, and added: "If Sam Phillips had been on his toes, he'd have turned the recorder on. That quartet could sell a million."
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